Untitled Sermon (18)

Intro

If you want to see me get unreasonably angry, just ride in my car with me. I usually tend to be pretty chill and easy going, but as soon as I get behind the wheel of my car, I become a completely different person. During the 30-minute drive between here and my church, I wouldn’t consider myself a Christian. It never fails, I’ll be driving 80 in the left lane on 128, and a car will merge onto the road, I’ll be coming up alongside of them, and right at the last second, they’ll drift over into the lane, causing me to slam on the breaks. In these moments, many, many things go through my head. Not one of these things deals with joy, prayer, or thankfulness.

A few years ago, when my best friend was in the hospital with a prognosis of two weeks, I was prayerful, but I wasn’t joyful or thankful. (He lived, by the way). Yet, in all circumstances, we’re commanded to rejoice, pray, and give thanks, because this is God’s will.

Let’s look at

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 NIV

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

Explanation

I read commands like this in scripture and I think, “Why would Paul write this? Doesn’t he know how hard it is to follows these kinds of commands?” Then I’m reminded that Paul wrote commands like these in the midst of imprisonment, right after being beaten or stoned, and during times of great personal suffering and pain. Paul isn’t just blindly and haphazardly saying “rejoice, pray, and give thanks,” Paul knows how painful life is, he’s experienced first hand life’s sufferings, yet he writes these commands anyway. Paul knows that this is what it takes to keep going. This is what it takes to keep pressing forward. This is what it takes to not give up, because if we’re honest, there are many moments when we just want to call it quits. Continuous joy, continuous prayer, and continuous thanksgiving are what get us through life.

In all circumstances, we are commanded to be joyful. This command as well as the other two come in the midst of Paul explaining how the church in Thessalonica should act towards one another. He encourages the church to live in peace with one another, and then lists ways to do this: encourage each other, help each other, be patient, don’t get mad, don’t get even, do what’s best for each other and for everyone. So he says all of this, then he says “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances.” And this command applies to us as a church, but also as individuals. If we do these things in our personal lives, they’ll carry over in the our fellowship here. And if we do these things here, they should carry over into our personal lives. What we’ll focus on this morning is how these commands are for us as individuals.

In all circumstances, be joyful

Paul’s first command is for us to “rejoice always,” or be joyful in all circumstances. Joy is a difficult concept for us to understand. We often think it’s happiness. Joy isn’t happiness. Joy sometimes includes happiness, but it’s not happiness. The best definition of joy that I’ve been able to find that I think Paul has in mind is: “Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be alright, and the determined choice to praise God in every situation” (Rick Warren). Joy is knowing that God is in control, confidence that everything’s going to be okay, and choosing to praise him in the midst of all situations. It’s this hope that we have within us that everything will work out because we’re in God’s hands. And so, unlike happiness, Joy isn’t based on our circumstances. It can’t be. The bible is very clear that we’ll suffer, it’s very clear that we’ll morn, it’s very clear that we’ll all experience great disappointment, great sadness and great sorrow throughout life. And so Joy can’t be dependent upon our circumstances. And this truth is seen all in the bible. For example, the story of Joseph in Genesis 6:

Joseph was the youngest and favorite son of Jacob, and his brothers became so jealous of this that they grabbed him, threw him in a pit, plotted to kill him, but at the last minute sold him into slavery. He spent a few years as a slave then he was thrown into prison, and all-in-all lost about 13 years of his life. After he’s released form prison, he’s reunited with his family, and he reveals the thing that kept him going the whole time: He says to his brothers “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.”

That’s joy. Joseph knew that God was in control. And that assurance got him through it. We serve a God who is working in the midst of all of our circumstances, in the midst of our pain, and in the midst of our suffering. And there’s the promise in Romans that all things work together for our good. God doesn’t cause bad things to happen to us, but he uses them for our good. He doesn’t waste anything. But I think that when we start going through it, we forget all we have to be joyful about.

I’ve been reading a book on suffering, and the author, Paul David Tripp, went from being in perfect health - he was fit, was biking ten miles every few days, he was extremely active - he went from perfect health to being hospitalized with kidney failure and spent two years in and out of the hospital. Wonder why God allowed this to happen, he realized that through all of this, God upended the idea that he could do things through his own strength. It forced him to rely fully on God.

I think part of Joy is coming to the realization that we can’t make it on our own but there’s a loving God who carries us through everything and he pulls us closer unto himself, knowing that that’s the greatest good for us as his children. Life comes at us and beats us down, and God is saying come to me. Rejoice, because I’m with you. Rejoice because of the hope you have in Jesus, rejoice in the promise that there will be a time where there is no more suffering and no more pain, rejoice because all things work out for your good, rejoice because we worship a savior who suffered and is with us in our suffering. This doesn’t mean we can’t be sad. This doesn’t mean that sorrow disappears, but in the midst of all of it, we can still have joy.

But joy isn’t our natural response when life sucks. At least it’s not mine. When our circumstances are overwhelming, we tend to turn towards other things to help numb the pain or stress or sorrow. When I was living at home and working during the summer of 2018, I hated my life. I hated that I was home, I hated that I was lonely, and I hated the stress that came with my job. I had no joy, I felt hopeless, and I counted the days that I would be out of there. I had many, many ways of coping or dealing with that season of my life, but not one of those ways involved God. One of the many things I got into during that summer was juuling.

Application - How to be joyful

Okay, but how can we be joyful? I’ve just talked a lot about what joy is , but how can we have it? Joy comes from knowing Jesus. It comes from belonging to him, it comes from being his child. When we follow Jesus, our identity changes to son or daughter — child — meaning that our identity changes to loved. We’re loved by God. We belong to him, and he is our source of Joy. When our joy comes from being daughters and sons of God, it grounds us. He puts this spring of overflowing joy inside of us. It’s not something we can find on our own. Nothing outside of following Jesus can satisfy us, so nothing outside of him can bring us joy. Part of joy is surrendering to him. We surrender our circumstances, we surrender our pain, we surrender our sadness, we surrender our pride that tells us we can just keep pressing forward on our own. We may not be happy with our circumstance, but we rejoice in the midst of it because God is in control. In all circumstances, rejoice. This is one way we get through life.

But we also get through life by praying always.

In all things, pray

Paul’s next command for us is to pray continually. I’m not great at praying. It’s not often at the top of my list of things to do, and knowing this, I’ve spent a lot of time this semester trying to change that. I’ve tried to be more intentional with praying to God. And what I’ve noticed is that I’m more aware of God’s presence, more aware of his love and mercy, and more joyful. When I’ve spent intentional time in prayer with God, I realize how desperately I need God. But for most of us, prayer is a last resort. We usually pray out of desperation. We pray after everything we’ve tried to do fails, and there’s no other place to go. This isn’t necessarily bad, prayers of desperation can lead us into a more intentional prayer life, but if we only pray when we’re desperate, we’re missing out. Prayer is how we talk to God and grow in intimacy with him.

If I only call my parents when I need something, and that’s the only time I call them, then I don’t really have a relationship with them.

If we only pray to God as a last resort, then we likely don’t have a genuine relationship with him either. Paul’s command is to be in continuous, or constant, prayer. This doesn’t mean we hide in our rooms and spend 24 hours a day 7 days a week in prayer. If we did that, nothing would get done. If Paul did that, churches never would have been planted or this letter never would have been written. We’re not praying 24/7, but we are praying frequently, simply, and persistently.

Frequent Prayer

As I kid, I’d only pray before bed. “Lord, be with my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister, my cat Harold who just had ear surgery, and be with me.” That was basically it. The extent of my prayer life was a short 60 second speech at 11 pm before I fell asleep. That’s not what Paul had in mind when he wrote this. We need to be in frequent prayer, and it takes time to get in the habit of this. But what I’ve had success with is when I’m feeling anxious or overwhelmed, or I’m having negative thoughts, I’ll pause, and I’ll pray through them. I’ll literally say, Lord, I’m feeling or thinking xyz, I surrender it to you. Lord, I don’t think I can make it any further, please give me strength. Lord, I don’t feel the joy that I’m supposed to have, please give it to me. Lord, my friend’s family is struggling, be with them. As thoughts come across my mind, I say a short prayer about whatever it is. For the church that Paul’s writing to, they were going through persecution - they were being killed or beaten or arrested because they followed Jesus. Frequent prayer and joy is what got them through.

Simple Prayer

Our prayer should be simple. We often jump in thinking we need to pray these big “spiritual” things - like world peace or something. What we end up doing is creating a gap between what we think we’re supposed to pray about and what’s on our hearts to pray about. In simple prayer, we remove that gap by praying what’s on our hearts and minds. We come to God just as we are, with all of our baggage, and we talk to him. We ask him for things, we thank him for things, and we spend time with him like a child does with a loving parent. And as we do this, our love for God and our love for people grows, and our prayer life grows. We begin to trust him more, and our awareness of his constant presence grows.

Persistent prayer

We also need to be persistent in our prayers. Abraham was persistent in pleading that God would spare his nephew lot from the destruction of Sodom, Moses was persistent in his prayer for God to spare Israel of his wrath when Israel sinned against him. We too are to be persistent. I think we’re afraid of this, or we think it’s wrong to be persistent with God. It’s not. We can and should be persistent in our prayers, going to God again and again with what’s on our hearts. He’s faithful to answer our prayers.

In all things, pray.

Finally, in all things, we’re commanded to give thanks

In all things, give thanks

This final command is very similar to rejoicing. Rejoicing and giving thanks are different acts, but they have the same motivations. Our thankfulness isn’t dependent on our situations. We’re thankful for what God has done for us through Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

But joy, prayer and thanksgiving aren’t our natural responses when life sucks. At least it’s not mine. When our circumstances are overwhelming, we tend to turn towards other things to help numb the pain or stress or sorrow. When I was living at home and working during the summer of 2018, I hated my life. I hated that I was home, I hated that I was lonely, and I hated the stress that came with my job. I had no joy, I felt hopeless, and I counted the days that I would be out of there. I had many, many ways of coping or dealing with that season of my life, but not one of those ways involved God. One of the many things I got into during that summer was juuling.