Untitled Sermon (2)

Main Point/Theme: Being thankful in all circumstances because of what God has done for us.

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Bible Text: ‌1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Introduction:

Slide - Jesus Commands Us to do the impossible sermon slide.

Good morning, My name is Ian and I am one of the pastors here at FBC. If you have your bible, would you please open up to 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, we will be getting there in just a moment.

(Pause)

I would like to ask you two questions this morning. Are you perfect? And can you be perfect?

This week we are celebrating Thanksgiving and depending on your traditions you are going to have family and friends over to join you and you will be bringing out your perfect recipes handed down from generations. A turkey is only perfect when deep fried, or from the smoker, or maybe even the oven. All the other recipes say this is the perfect green bean casserole and etcetera, but for all of us in aspects of our lives will fall short. We are unable to bring that perfection into the things we do because we ourselves are not perfect. It is by our very own nature that things are impossible to us because we are not perfect.

So how many of us can honestly say there have been times in our lives where we feel inadequate, unaccomplished, not strong enough, not brave enough, not having enough courage in a current situation, or a time where we feel we are not good enough to those around us. Maybe this holiday season you are stressed because you want your house perfect, you want your friends to see a perfect home, with the most well behaved kids and let’s face it, we can put on a front, but this is impossible for us to maintain.

These are feelings we all have at times and these are feelings that we may be feeling right now in your own life in some way this morning.

When we are asked to do something in our lives and we fall short we begin to feel these inadequate feelings.

The bible is full of commands and things we are expected to do in our lives and asked to be perfect in. But listen to me when I say this.

All of the commands in the bible are beyond our human ability to attain.

Slide - Matthew 5:48 “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

In Matthew 5:48 when we are being commanded to Love our enemies rather than hate them. God concludes this command with “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Ok sounds good, let me get right on that.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but none of us are perfect.

Slide - Romans 3:23 NIV

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

In Romans 3:23 it says “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We in our own human nature are imperfect and it is impossible for us through ourselves to reach perfection.

Another verse that comes to mind is

SLIDE - Matthew 22:37-39 NIV

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

How do I love my neighbor as myself when I am so caught up in my own life? My own struggles, my own career, my own ambitions, etc. But we are called to love everyone in the same way, to focus on them with that same passion that we give ourselves.

(Pause)

So as I said before, the bible is full of commands that we ourselves are unable to reach because we are sinful in nature and we are not perfect.

Expository Preaching through the Text:

So this morning I want to speak with you about

Slide - Three Impossible Commands

The bible is full of commands like these but let’s look at these 3 that are really hard.

SLIDE - In

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV it says,

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

So the first thing we're going to go over this morning is to.

1 - Rejoice always

What does it look like to Rejoice always? Is this even possible? Yes but not in the way we may think. We are still going to have situations that are bad, hard to deal with and we won’t want to rejoice in that specific situation. There may be something that you have gone through or are currently going through. But when I'm talking about rejoicing always what I am speaking of is rejoicing always in the understanding the through Jesus Christ we know that he is in control of all things. So I'm not saying to rejoice in that situation but during and through that situation you can Rejoice knowing the Jesus Christ is with you and came for you and wants what's best for you according to his will.

See in Matthew 5:12 it says,

12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I surely do not think that during the hard times those before us have gone through such as the prophets and martyrs and anyone else who has suffered because of their belief in Jesus Christ was in a position to be rejoicing in the situation they were in. But you know where they did rejoice oh, they rejoiced in the understanding that they had that Jesus Christ was with them and they would spend eternity with him through their belief in him.

We are not promised that our commitment to Jesus Christ will end our suffering here on earth. It will end our suffering in eternity.

So in Christ we can rejoice because of what he has done. Even in the hard times. The struggles and things we go through on earth will still be hard, and in some of those things we will not rejoice in the situation that is happening, but we can rejoice in what Jesus Christ did for our future.

Let’s continue in this verse and we are now asked to

2 - Pray continually

So not only are we asked to be happy and rejoice in all things we are also asked to pray continually to God. Are these commands getting hard yet?

So let us now navigate how are we supposed to pray continually. You see in Christ we have this continual access to God through prayer and we can rejoice and be thankful for that because of the work of Jesus Christ. Through the death on the cross we now have unlimited access to God and our lives should revolve around being in constant communication with God.

Can anyone here imagine times before cell phones? Some of you don’t know what it was like to leave a message on collect call, or wait to talk to friends when messaging and calls were free after 8 or 9 at night. But during this time we still had communication with each other, it was just harder. We needed to plan things out and wait for certain moments in our day to communicate with those we wanted to reach.

Now we just grab the phone from our pocket and call, email, text, look on google and have access to all the things we want in an instant and from what I know most people have an unlimited data plan which gives them this access at all times.

You see this is also the access we have to God through Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament it was harder for them to connect because of their sin and therefore they had to present sacrifices at the altar. It was still possible to ask God for forgiveness or reach the God in their lives, but it was also more difficult. Unless people presented something at the altar or the high priest went into the holiest part of the Temple to speak on their behalf there was not much communication outside of that process.

But through Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross by dying for our sins and bridging the gap we also now have the ability to have constant communication with God because our access is no longer limited to waiting to go to the altar or waiting for a sacrifice to be made. We simply start the conversation and speak directly to him. But sometimes we are still wondering how to fill all that time right? How do we fill our time in communication with God while still doing other things in our lives?

Application:

Back in the seventeenth century, François Fénelon (FRANSWA FAY NE LON) wrote some words about prayer that can help us in our lives today: He says “Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them.” He continued, “Talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them: show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them . . . . If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say.”

So may we grow in our intimacy with God so that we will want to spend more time with Him.

Being able to pray to God is not something that we need to look at as a burden, but rather as a gift that we should enjoy doing throughout our lives continually in all circumstances, not just when we are wanting something.

And now we are going to move on to our third part of this verse where it says

3 - Give thanks in all circumstances

Giving thanks is easy when things go our way right? But what about when things are going God’s way according to God’s will and not our own?

(Pause)

In Christ we can give thanks in all circumstances because we have this eternal hope and security that we will be with God forever. Even if what is happening now is hard and painful, we still know that God is with us and we can give thanks and rejoice that our eternity is in Him.

But then why are these commands hard? (Pause)

It is Because we are limited to our own knowledge and desires through our sinful nature, and not God’s knowledge and desires through His perfect nature.

Let me repeat that for you this morning, these commands are hard because we are limited to our own knowledge and desires through our sinful nature, and not God's knowledge and desires through His perfect nature.

Ephesians 1:11-12

“In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.”

Things are not for our own glory, but instead they are for God’s glory. And we cannot see the vastness or completely understand God’s glory so therefore things may be hard for us in our own understanding.

That is why if we read

Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV it says,

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

6 in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight.

It is because we cannot fully understand things in God’s will because we are not God.

We can’t possibly know the plans of the Lord and this is why we have a hard time finding ways to rejoice in these moments of trouble, doubt and bad things that happen. But we can rejoice and give thanks because God knows and has a plan for us all.

So we can rejoice in Jesus Christ for what He has done for us when we choose to believe and accept Jesus Christ into our hearts. When we take this step we rejoice in knowing that after this time we spend on earth we are to live with God for eternity.

We can pray continually because through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice we now have an open communication with God through Jesus Christ and His death on the cross.

We can give thanks in all circumstances knowing that our understanding is not the complete picture of God's plan and design of His will.

So now we come to the last part of these verses this morning finishing up verse 18…

SLIDE - “This is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

What does this mean exactly? God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

You see it is God’s will for you to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ in your life and through that relationship we are able to keep these commands. Because when we ask Jesus Christ into our hearts we get something extra. As if receiving payment for all our sins was not enough Jesus Christ gives us even more to help guide us. When we ask Jesus Christ into our hearts we are not only forgiven for our sins, but we are also gifted with the Holy Spirit to continue to guide us through our lives which still are presented with sin.

In John 14:26 when Jesus is speaking to the disciples and letting them know when they follow Him in their lives if they love Him they will keep His commands. He says in verse 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

We now have the holy spirit to continue to guide us and speak into our lives during these times in order to remind us of the commands of Jesus Christ. And the holy spirit gives us guidance to make an educated decision to steer clear of sin.

You see there is a process we are looking at here and the buck does not stop when Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. YES! Through this process we have been freed from the bondage of sin and are

SLIDE Justified

justified through His death on the cross. This is the justification we receive because of the gift of Jesus Christ. But when we accept Jesus Christ into our lives we are called to not neglect the work of Christ in our lives, after we are born again. The justified are also commanded to be

SLIDE Sanctified

sanctified, to become more holy than they were before.

You see justification happens instantly at the moment someone is born again; but sanctification happens gradually over the whole life of a Christian. So just because you accept Jesus Christ into your heart and your sins are forgiven, does not mean we are done. There is still work to do.

SLIDE Matthew 9:37-38 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

So because of the Justification through Jesus Christ we are now called to continue this message to the harvest. And because of who God is in our lives through Jesus Christ and the sending of the holy spirit we now have the ability to

SLIDE - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

The impossible commands become possible through Jesus Christ in your lives.

Lets pray

Dear heavenly Father,

I pray right now That we would become a church in a body of Believers that would Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, because this is your will. We are not perfect and it is only through Jesus Christ that we are presented as perfect to God our Father because of the price that was paid for us on the cross. Our lives will continually be surrounded by sin and those who want to pull us away from you until the time comes that we are with you in eternity. I pray right now that during this time in our lives we would continue to grow in our relationship with you and become closer to you in every aspect of our lives from here forward.

In your name we pray

Amen