Sunday service 220605

If thanksgiving is the measure of your Christian life, especially with empty hands and while going through the wilderness of testing, how would you rate yourself as a Christian?

Hymn; To God be the glory

Prayer

The traits of the Christian Lifestyle

With the imperatives Paul instructs the Church at Thessaloniki to make it habit or incorporate as lifestyle certain traits that would be on display for all to see.

1. Rejoicing.

How can one not rejoice when one is filled with the Joy of the Lord?

John 15:11 (NASB95) — 11 “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

2. Prayer

Again, another aspect of being the branches that are connected to the vine (John 15:5) which is the Lord Jesus Christ. It is He who speaks to us through His written word. We speak back to the Lord through prayer.

Prayer is the exercise of divine privledge opened to those in the family of God, to present our praise, thanksgiving, intercessions, and petitions.

Both Rejoicing and Pray are mandates which means that when the believer fails to follow these commands, it constitute sins of omission.

And thirdly Paul instructs

3. Thanksgiving

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NASB95) — 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Here we have another present active imperative which is a command which means that gratitude is not an “ought to” but an order.

2168 εὐχαριστέω [eucharisteo /yoo·khar·is·teh·o/] v.. 1 to be grateful, feel thankful. 2 give thanks.[1]

This Christian lifestyle trait we call a Lifestyle of Gratitude.

The Necessity of Thanksgiving

The night that our Lord was betrayed, He instituted what we call the Lord’s table. It is also known as communion, and the Eucharist.

Luke 22:19 (NASB95) — 19 And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

The Lord’s table, the Eucharist, with the key elements the bread and the Cup are memorials to the life and work of Christ on the behalf of the Christian. It is the bread and the Cup that represents the body and the life of Christ to which we give thanks for.

Putting the Mandate to Thanksgiving brings to view the necessity that Thanksgiving means to the Christian.

When one considers the importance of this trait we can once again look back to the people of Israel to learn what the lack of thanksgiving (ingratitude) cost the people of God.

The Passover, prior to the Exodus, and bringing the people out of bondage from Israel and through the Red Sea were merely the beginning of the blessings and the care that the Lord extended to His Children of that generation. But rather than responding by giving back to God the glory in praise and thanksgiving, the people fell into a state of ingratitude. Over two million maybe upwards of three million people were a people of ingrates.

Numbers 21:1-5

And what did the sense of ingratitude cost the Israelites

Numbers 21:6 (NASB95) — 6 The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.

God Deals with sinful man according to God’s policy of Grace.

Grace demands a response.

That response coming from the capacity within the heart of the believer is Thanksgiving directed toward the goodness of God.

Thanksgiving; a Measure of Maturity

The Joy, the ceaseless prayer and the thanksgiving is not only a lifestyle, but it is a part of the Christian ethic, which is an outward manifestation of the Christian life.

It becomes a gage to one’s life of where one is by checking one’s own appreciation for the things provided to him by the grace of God. even to include the undesirable temporal circumstances.

Said another way

When there is no appreciation in the heart, no measure of thanksgiving, the believer might want to ask the question of self, “Where am I in my relationship with My God?”

And this, as with the others, is in every circumstance. but becomes more apparent in the time of personal lack and need.

Note: Testing in this area is coming to all of us.

An ingrate child does not concern himself with Yesterday’s blessings.

Where there is absence of thanksgiving, blessing becomes an entitlement. Rather than praising and honoring the giver there is only occupation with self and self-fulfillment. This is where the spirit of discontentment begins.

The spoiled child wants to know what God is doing for him or her today.

Remember that the groanings of the God’s children in the wilderness lead to their deaths without receiving the promise of God.

Thanksgiving in God’s will

1 Thessalonians 5:18 for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.[2]

25.2 θέλημαa, τος n: (derivative of θέλωc ‘to desire,’ 25.1) that which is desired or wished for—‘wish, desire.

The measure of the Christian maturity (that is where you are in your Christian growth) is your ability to abandon your own will to accept fully God’s will.

Our pleasure as Christians is so often found in seeking our own will and calling upon God to bless it.

Do we remain thankful when the Lord brings us to the end of our means? Dismissing all of our lofty goals, plans, and ideas even for what we call ministry and substitute God’s own will for our lives.

What if he takes from you from the nice comfortable Sunday school room where you teach once a week, precious little children, and place you in the jungle of Nairobi eating bugs, drinking foul water and trying to get people to understand who and what God is?

Where is your appreciation meter at that point?

Afterall, where does our will come from?

Philippians 2:13–15 (NASB95) — 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. 14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing; 15 so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,

How about in our day and in our world. How much grumbling do you do over politics the way of the world your own personal plight? What are you where you are? Is it not that God placed each of us where we are to do and accomplish His will?

What happens when the will of God is for you, Joseph, is to spend years in prison?

What happens when the will of God for you, Job, is to suffer under the hands of Satan while God sits silently by?

What happens when the Lord does not remove your thorns in the flesh, Paul, when you asked him three times?

Point of Doctrine:

1. The believer is not here to serve himself

2. The believer does not remain here for his own comfort

3. The sacrificial life includes giving up our own wants, life’s ambitions and will as we surrender wholly to God’s will.

But is it that we have surrendered all for not?

Who really gains and who really loses when reward and Judgment is measured out?

Point of Doctrine:

1. It is not our will that we ask God to bless.

2. It is learning what God’s will is for our lives and obediently follow even if it is to the very gates of hell being thankful every step of the way.

Thanksgiving to God

Thanksgiving?

Yes, and oh yes!

Thanksgiving removes eyes off self and places them upon the one who is worthy of praise and glorification.

The thankfulness is the result of the capacity for God within one’s own heart. That is knowing God as God has revealed himself to us.

Though evil may be allowed to stretch its hand to hurt the believer, that hand has no power to affect the branch and the vine relationship. It is only the Lord in that regard who is the husbandman to that vine. Satan cannot touch it.

Ephesians 5:20 (NASB95) — 20 always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.

The capacity of Thankfulness is in knowing the Lord and knowing that we abide in him. The branch is

1. Sovereign

My God rules over all, He rules over me, He rules over my circumstances, he rules over my health, he rules over my enemies.

2. My God is eternal

God has no beginning and no end. It is my God who shares his life with me.

3. My God is Righteous

He has himself made me righteous that I may live with him forever.

4. My God is just

Perfectly fair. From that Justice there is cursing and blessing. Because of his justice I know that evil will not prosper perpetually.

5. My God is Love

He loves me to unreachable depths.

6. My God is omniscient

He knows me better than I know myself. He knows my plight. He knows even the thoughts and the schemes of the enemy.

7. My God is omnipresent

Where can I go where my God is not there? I cannot escape the Lord even if I wanted to, he is with me where I may be and during my deepest despair.

8. My God is omnipotent

Unlimited and all power. Speaking about “my Dad can beat up your dad.” Spiritually speaking the father of the children of disobedience is infinitely inferior to my infinitely superior Abba Father.

9. My God is truth

Once again, compared to the father of the sons of disobedience who is the father of lies my Father is absolute truth and I stand on every word spoken of God.

10. My God is immutable

Same yesterday today and tomorrow. The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob who trusted in Him is the same God I can trust in for the same reason, for God is God an unchangeable God

It is this God who brought me into an eternal relationship with Him. He says,

“you are forgiven.”

He say’s

“Come.”

He Says,

“Abide in me”

Ephesians 1:3–14 (NASB95) —

A life of Gratitude!

YOU BET!

The Israelites did not like the wilderness, they took their eyes off of their gracious God and became thankless not recognizing that God was with them every step of the way.

You may not like where God has placed you or what circumstances you must endure for a time, but God is with you every step of the way.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NASB95) — 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

The Israelites failed to be thankful in their temporal circumstances and missed out on entering into the Land flowing with milk and honey.

What can you and I miss out on in a state of ingratitude for all that the Lord has promised to do and in his keeping?

Will we fail in the same way, being disgruntled over our temporal circumstance to miss out on the greater blessings that God has for us ahead.

What will it take to successfully get through the wilderness and onward to the greater blessings in the Kingdom age?

Thanksgiving to what God has done in the past. What God is doing currently doing and what God is going to do in the future on the behalf of his beloved and for His own name’s sake.

Closing Hymn: Victory in Jesus

Closing prayer

[1] Strong, J. (1995). In Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship. [2] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (1 Th 5:18). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.

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