Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.7 – February 2007

 

God's Will for You in Christ Jesus

A Sermon by Rev John De Hoog

on 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Scripture Readings: Psalm 95:1-7; Psalm 100

Suggested Singing: BoW 332; 217

 

Dear Congregation.

Three short verses. Three punchy commands, and a reason. The three commands: be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances. One reason: for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Are there three other verses in the Bible that cram together so much to make us feel totally inadequate? Be joyful always? Pray continually? Give thanks in all circumstances? How can we obey these commands? How close are our lives to this model?

Let's see how these three verses are useful for equipping us for godliness.

First see how these verses are put together. Paul puts in the middle, like a strong central pole that holds up a tent, the command "pray continually". This is the most important of the three commands. This central command makes the other two possible. So let's first of all consider what it might mean to "pray continually".

The first thing to say is that God expects Christians to pray. We are to be devoted to prayer. Listen to some words of Jesus in the gospels. Matthew 6:5 "And when you pray..."; Matthew 6:6 "But when you pray..."; Matthew 6:7 "And when you pray..."; Matthew 6:9 "This, then, is how you should pray..."; Luke 11:9 "So I say to you: Ask...; seek...; knock..."; Luke 18:1 "Then Jesus told his disciples...they should always pray."

In Colossians 4:2 Paul says, "Devote yourselves to prayer." What does it mean to be devoted to something? All of us are devoted to something. Golf perhaps? No, too frustrating! Perhaps a particular TV program - our devotion is such that nothing can make us miss watching.

God expects Christians to be devoted to prayer. That means we will make it a priority, we will make time for it, we will sacrifice other things to be able to do it. When you are making prayer a priority, when you are making time for it, when you are sacrificing other things so that you can pray, then you know you are devoted to prayer.

It's important to ask this question. Are you praying? Perhaps I can focus the question even more. When you pray, do you pray? I think it's possible to pray prayerless prayers. It's possible to rattle off prayers around the meal table and listen to someone else praying in church and even in your devotions to go through your prayer list without really praying! Without really talking to God seriously at all. Without expecting that he hears, without expecting that he will act in response to your prayers. I suspect there is a great deal of prayerless praying going on in this world.

The first question to ask ourselves is this: Am I really devoted to prayer? Do I actually give up something else for the sake of spending time in prayer, really talking to God? Do I see prayer as an option to take up sometimes, or is it part of my daily work for the Lord's glory?

But even if we are devoted to prayer, can we really pray all the time? 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, "Pray continually." What does it mean?

This verse does not mean that we must do nothing but pray. It cannot mean that, for the Bible expects many other things of us besides prayer, including times of rest when we could not consciously pray.

Prayer is part of a relationship. Colossians 4:2 emphasises prayer as an activity: "Devote yourselves to prayer." But 1 Thessalonians 5:17 emphasises prayer as an expression of the personal relationship we have with God. Prayer is not just a devotional practice. Its purpose is communication with a PERSON. God our Father, our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are persons with whom we can communicate. It is being aware of God's presence in every aspect of our day-to-day living.

Praying continually means living with Christ. You are united with him by the work of the Holy Spirit, he is the most significant person in your life. Praying continually means living in a way that is conscious of his presence.

It involves practising the presence of God. God is always present with us, but praying continually involves actually practising an awareness of that presence and developing the habit of referring everything to him. It's not a mystical experience; it's simply acknowledging the truth that we live in union with Christ.

Living in this sense of continuous prayer is not a complicated thing. Think of the many opportunities we have to talk informally to God as our days go by.

You are reading about the energy problem of the golden plover. Let me explain the problem to you. The golden plover migrates from Alaska to Hawaii each year for the winter. It has to make a non-stop flight over open water, there are no islands on the way. It is a flight of over 4000 km, lasting 88 hours. The bird's average starting weight is 200 grams, of which 70 grams is stored as layers of fat to be used for fuel.

The golden plover converts 0.6% of its body weight per hour into energy and heat as it flies. So for the first hour of flight it uses 1.2 grams of fat. At the end of the first hour it weighs 198.8 grams on average, so in the second hour of flight it uses slightly less fuel. Anyway, if you work it all out, you find that the total amount of fuel the bird has stored as fat is not enough! The bird should crash into the sea 800 km short of Hawaii. But it doesn't! Why not? Because the birds do not fly singly, but in V-formation, and that saves 23% of their energy. In this way, they have just enough fat to make the distance.

What is your reaction? "Thank you Lord for your great wisdom! Thank you that you included in the instruction program for the golden plover the command to fly in V-formation. Lord, this amazing flight plan makes me see something else of the greatness of your creation, and shows me something of your providing hand."

Now maybe you don't often read about the migration of birds. But there are thousands of other situations where a consciousness of God can be practised. You go to visit someone to cheer them up. "Lord, help me to be sensitive to what you are doing in this person's life, and may I know how to cooperate with what you are doing." You can pray that while you're ringing the doorbell. Something goes very wrong at work. "Lord, I know you are in control. What are you trying to teach me in this?" You can pray this as you pore over your books. Your little baby gives you a smile that threatens to crack open his whole face. "Thank you Lord for the ready affection of little children." You can pray this while you're changing that dirty nappy.

This is what it means to pray continually. It means to practice the presence of God.

Let me ask you some very practical questions. These are not questions about how you feel, just questions of fact.

1. Are you dependent on God for everything you need and do? Yes, God is your Creator and Sustainer. It is a fact that you are dependent on God for everything.

2. Is God always present with you? Jesus said, "I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Mt 28:20). It is a fact that God is always present.

3. Is God willing to bless you? Jesus said, "If you, then, though you are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him" (Mt 7:11). It is a fact that God is willing to bless you.

We can answer these questions out of knowledge. Yes, we are dependent on God for everything. Yes, God is always present with us. Yes, God is willing to bless us. But now, let me ask you the same questions but with a different twist.

1. Are you always conscious of your complete dependence on God? Or do you go for days at a time not needing to pray, being self-sufficient, managing OK on your own, thinking that prayer is really only needed when you strike something too big to handle on your own?

2. Are you always conscious of God's presence with you? Or do you feel sometimes that God is a million miles away, and do you give in to those feelings, instead of informing your feelings with the truth of God's Word - "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

3. Are you always conscious that God is willing to bless? That he works out all things for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose? Or do you sometimes think of God as a distant and unfeeling ogre, who doesn't care to bless, who doesn't concern himself with how his actions affect human beings?

Do you see the difference between knowing about God's presence in your head, knowing it as a set of facts, and actually practising his presence in everyday life? To practice his presence, to pray continually, is (1) to be always aware of your total dependence on God for everything; (2) to constantly remind yourself that he is always present with us; and (3) to know and trust that God is good, even in the midst of great anguish and trouble.

The command to pray continually is an invitation to live every moment conscious of a personal relationship with God. This command springs from the gospel! Christians are people who have been born again, who have been made new. Jesus Christ has taken away the penalty and guilt and power of our sin, and the Holy Spirit has breathed new life into us. We don't see things as the rest of the world sees them. God has saved us! So our thoughts turn away from ourselves and to this God who loves us. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, loving us!

The very essence of our faith is that we can't earn our own salvation. We are saved only because God works the marvel of new birth in our lives even when we are dead in sin. This is true of our initial salvation, and it applies equally well to our ongoing Christian life. Can we live a life dedicated to God in our own strength? It is quite impossible. Only the power of the Spirit is sufficient. All along the way in the Christian life we feel our inadequacy. Is that true for you? Do you constantly feel your own weakness, your inability to live as God wants you to? I hope you do, for any other view is quite unrealistic.

But God doesn't leave us in our insufficiency. Alongside our weakness is God's presence, his strength, and his desire to bless us in ways only his wisdom can understand.

What does Paul mean here in 1 Thessalonians by the command "pray continually"? He means living each day in conscious awareness of our need for God's help in everything we do, and in conscious awareness of his presence and willingness to bless. He means living each moment aware that God the Father, Jesus Christ our Saviour and the Holy Spirit are Persons with whom we can relate personally.

[Pause.]

We said at the start that the other two commands, "be joyful always" and "give thanks in all circumstances", hang off the central command to pray continually like a tent hangs off a centre pole. Let's see why this is so.

Let's think first of the command "Be joyful always". It cannot mean "always feel happy", because joy and happiness are not at our command; we cannot turn them on and off like a tap. Rather, we need to understand this command in the sense of Philippians 4:4 "Rejoice in the Lord always." Paul is not giving an order to be happy always, but rather an invitation to rejoice in the Lord.

Think of it this way. There are two sources of gladness in the life of a Christian. One source is circumstances in life that are pleasant and happy. The other source is your communion with God. They are like two streams that feed into the same river. When our circumstances are happy and pleasant we are right to rejoice in them, for all good gifts come from the Father of lights. But what happens when the stream of life's circumstances dries up, when the sun is hot and the river bed is dry? Is there nothing left to rejoice in? Yes there is, for the stream that comes from the supply of communion with God is still flowing.

But do you see that the second stream of happiness will only flow strongly if continuous prayer has already been established in a person's life? Very often the circumstances in our lives become dry and barren. There is often nothing at all to rejoice over in our circumstances.

Our circumstances do not affect God's presence. But they can affect our awareness of God's presence, and that's why it's so important that we establish the habit of praying continually, of practising the presence of God.

The third command is related to the first in a similar way. "Give thanks in all circumstances..." Not give thanks for all circumstances, but give thanks in all circumstances. There are many circumstances in our lives that are evil, the result of sin, and God wants no thanks for evil.

Some amongst us are widows or widowers, or have been suffering from long-term illnesses, or have had family break-ups of various kinds or have had hard times at work; or we could mention many other kinds of difficult circumstances. We should not be thankful for the circumstance of being widows or of having a disease or experiencing family breakdown or severe struggles at work. But rather, in the circumstance of being widows or being ill and so on, we should be thankful to God for all his continuing blessings. You see, "give thanks in all circumstances".

We are tempted to bristle at this command. We become widows or widowers, we are fighting against long-term sickness, we feel our marriage becoming shaky, we see our children getting into unhealthy relationships and habits. And we are tempted to say, "Ha, what is there to give thanks for? I'm not thankful for any of the terrible things that are happening to me. There is nothing good in all this."

God understands. God agrees. He does not want you to be thankful for evil things like death and sickness and marriage problems and alcoholism. These are not blessings from God's hand, they are the inevitable product of the sinfulness of mankind since Adam. God wants no thanks for evil.

But in the midst of these troubles, God wants you to be thankful to him. Not thankful for all circumstances, but thankful in all circumstances. Thankful for the relationship you have with God, for the price he paid to set you free from sin and death, and thankful that in all the trouble of your circumstances God is still working out his loving plan for you.

We often have such a limited vision. We are like worldly people. We go about and meet some things that make us happy, and other things that make us bitter. We see life as more or less a matter of chance, we welcome good luck and complain about bad luck. But if we could catch the Biblical vision we would see that when God saves us everything is changed. We would see that God's loving purpose is being worked out even in circumstances that are most unwelcome. We would see that God loves us greatly, and has only permitted the difficult circumstances so that his wise and merciful purposes might be fulfilled.

It is not circumstances that make us bitter, rather it is how we react to circumstances. Are we going to run from God and rail against him for the difficulties of our lives? Or are we going to continue to practice being thankful to God for what he has done in Christ? The way of thanksgiving is the way to avoid bitterness. God does not want our thanks for evil things that make our lives miserable. But he does want us to continue to remind ourselves of the blessings we have in him, and to continue in thankfulness.

I'm sure you can see that this being thankful in all circumstances depends upon the relationship of continual prayer that we saw earlier. In fact, each of these three commands spring from the same central truth of the gospel - the truth of salvation from sin and death, in Jesus Christ.

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." These commands are only possible for those who know they have been saved by Jesus Christ, and who cling to him no matter what the circumstances might be.

And the way forward in obeying these commands is the way of "practising the presence of God" in all we do. It is the way of constantly knowing your total dependence on him, and daily reminding yourself that he is with you and is blessing you, since you are his child.

Your life may be very difficult at the moment. There may be sadness and trouble in your life. God does not say, "No, there's not!" Trusting God is not a denial of suffering; God knows you are suffering. And God wants no thanks for the evil effects of the fall in your life. But God wants to lift your eyes beyond your circumstances to himself and to his work in your circumstances.

God is good, and I will cling to that, and I will rejoice in that, and give thanks to God in all circumstances.

Amen.