Go with me, if you would, back
to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. 1 Thessalonians 5. Last Sunday night, I brought
a message from Colossians 3 called Love, Peace, and Thanksgiving. And I did that because the Thanksgiving
holiday was coming up and I just felt led to do that. Tonight,
I'd like to bring a message to you on the subject of giving
thanks. Not because it's a holiday, not
because of any day of the year. It's just a good day to give
thanks. Our brother opened his Bible
study with the same preface. It just, it's a good time. It's
always a good time to give thanks. A very dear brother sent me a
text with this verse of scripture in it. And I read it and I said,
amen. And I knew this would be our
text tonight. So let's read verse 18. 1 Thessalonians
5 verse 18 says, in everything give thanks for
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. In everything give thanks For
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Now what stood out to me and
what I want to emphasize is the word everything. Everything. In everything give thanks. And I pray I might learn that.
I pray that the Lord might speak to me, speak to my heart, and
really cause me to learn that. I honestly want to learn that. In everything, here's the response. Give thanks. This is going to be a contrasting
continuation to last Sunday night's message. This will be a continuation
of what we looked at last Sunday night in a contrasting way. And I'll show you why I say that.
Turn with me over to Colossians three. That's where we were. Colossians 3, last Sunday night,
we gave thanks specifically for the things that were mentioned
in Colossians 3. That's what we focused on. And
these are the things that were mentioned. If you look at Colossians
3, verse 1, it says, if ye then be risen with Christ, we are
risen with Christ. God's chosen people died with
Him. That's amazing. Our Lord said, whosoever liveth
and believeth in me shall never die. And then He said, do you
believe that? We'll find out when this body
lays down. We'll realize that's not death. We died with Him. We died in His body with Him. We died in His blood with Him. We were buried in His grave with
Him. And that was so that all of our
sin could be removed from us. The only way for us to be removed
from our sin was it had to die. And it did. It did. All of it died with the Lord
Jesus Christ. And because it died with Him,
it's gone. You say, well, I'm still doing
it. Yeah, but it's gone. But it feels so alive in me.
Yeah, but it's dead. He put it away. He put it away
because it's gone. Death and the grave cannot lay
hold on us. It could not hold him any longer.
There's only one reason why Jesus Christ arose from the grave. It's because the sin was gone. The moment the final bit of that
payment was made. God, the father said, raise him
out, pull him out. He arose from it, we all arose
with Him. And that is a glorious thing.
That's truly a glorious, amazing thing. Verse one says, if you
then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Christ is seated
on the throne, seated in His holiness, seated in His glory,
seated in His sovereignty. And that's a glorious thing,
and we give thanks for it. Verse two says, set your affection
on things above, not on things on the earth, for you are dead
and your life is hid with Christ in God. Our life is hid with
Christ in God. And that's glorious, and we thank
God for it. Verse four says when Christ who
is our life, you talk about a statement to take lightly. Christ is our
life. Why is Christ our life? It's
only because he made himself to be our life. Had he not made
himself to be our life, he wouldn't be our life. He would not be
our life. We would be off doing something
that we deem is more important. Something that we see to be life.
Christ has made himself to be our life. And he's given us a
heart that says, you're our life. You're life to us. We're a blessed
people because of that. We're a chosen, blessed people. Thank God. Verse four says, when
Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall you also appear
with him in glory. Is anybody looking forward to
that? The moment that He appears, we're
going to appear with Him. We're going to be caught up into
the clouds with Him, and so shall we ever be with the Lord in glory. Thank God. Oh, give thanks unto
the Lord, for He's good, for His mercy endureth forever. Verse
5 says, mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth,
fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence
and covetousness, which is idolatry. None of those things are good.
None of those things are good. And we ought to strive. He's,
you know, evil concupiscence is lust. Idolatry is anything
that we're seem to be more important than Christ. Fornication, uncleanness,
just, we need to strive to put all that away. Verse six says,
for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children
of disobedience. These are the very things that
reveal sin in us and cause God to be angry with the wicked every
day. Verse seven says, in the which you also walk sometime
when you lived in them, None of us are exempt from any sin. Verse 8 says, but now you also
put off all these, anger, wrath, malice, that's ill will toward
somebody, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. We ought to
put all that away. Verse 9 says, lie not one to
another, seeing that you've put off the old man with his deeds.
We ought to put every bit of that away, but here's the thing.
in this flesh, we're never gonna be able to. Not in a way that
satisfies God, but Christ can, and He did. And He did that for
His people in His flesh. In His flesh, that describes
exactly how He was. And He, when He came here, He
removed what we read right there, that describes me. All right,
all that wickedness and all that sin that describes me, that's
this old man right here. And Christ came and he removed
that old man from us by laying our old man on himself. He wore this old man and stood
before God in him. And by his spirit, he took the
new man of his own nature and he laid him on us. And when we stand before God,
that's how God sees us. He sees us in the new man that
Christ gave to us and laid on us. Verse 10 says, and have put
on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image
of him that created him where there's neither Greek nor Jew
circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian Scythian bond nor free,
but Christ is all and in all. Thank God. Thank God. We give thanks to God for the
fact that Christ is all and in all. He is our all. He is in all. Verse 12 says, put on therefore
as the elect of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercies, kindness,
humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering. Put it on, he
said. In God's election, we've put
on Christ's holiness. That's the only holiness that
there is. We've put on His mercy. We've put on His kindness. We've
put on His humbleness, His meekness, His patience, everything that
He is, everything that makes Him righteous, we get to wear
it. Verse 13 says, forbearing one
another and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. God's people say, Christ forgave
us. Christ forgave us. And that makes
us wanna thankfully forgive each other. Thankfully. How easy and
joyful it is to give thanks for these things. This is what we
looked at last Sunday night. How easy is it and how joyful
is it to give thanks for the fact that we have risen with
Christ and our life is hid with Him in God. And we've received
from Him all of these wonderful things. There's no reason for
us to not give thanks for any of these things. We give thanks
for every single one of these wonderful things. But go with
me now back to our text. 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians
5. Verse 18 does not say, in wonderful things give thanks. It does not say that. It does not say in joyful things give thanks. It does not say in easy things give thanks. It says in everything. In everything give thanks for
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. I pray the Lord will really help
me to know this, help me to do this. I pray that he'll help
me to see the benefit of this. I want us to remember tonight
that everything is not always happy. But everything is of the Lord. Everything is not always happy.
It's just not. But everything is of the Lord. Everything is not always going
to go the way that we want it to go. But everything always goes the
way the Lord wants it to go. Everything may not be pleasant.
It just may not be pleasant. But everything is always good for them that love God, for them
who are the called according to His purpose. Everything, everything. I want to, you see why I say
we're gonna continue reasons to give thanks in a contrasting
way. I wanna contrast everything that
we looked at last Sunday night by remembering that we can and
we should and we must Give our Lord thanks for every dealing
that he has with us. Everything that comes our way,
everything that we go through, whether it's good news, bad news,
meaning what we consider to be bad news. Everything is our Lord's sovereign
on purpose hand to us. Everything that happens is what
he has dealt to us. It's what he has on purpose specifically
given to us. This is what I want you to have.
This is what I want you to go through. These are the feelings
that I want you to feel. This is what I want you to learn
from it. He will deal with us individually. Every purpose that
His hand lays on us, every path He leads us down, all of it is
according to His sovereign will and design. And may God give
me, honestly, may God give us the grace and the faith. If I could summarize this, this
is what it would say. Trust him. Trust him. You know, I don't know if I like
how this is going. I don't know if I'll trust him.
I don't know if. Trust him. Don't question him, Gabe. Trust Him. Don't get impatient, get out
of sorts and I'm tired of waiting. Trust Him. Just trust Him. May God give us the grace and
give us the faith to trust Him and to give Him thanks for everything
because He knows what the outcome is. Even the difficult things, even
if the outcome is difficult. Even if the process is difficult
and then the outcome is difficult. Difficult things, trying things,
heartbreaking things, life-altering things, devastating things. May God give us the grace and
give us the faith to trust Him and to give Him thanks for it.
Truly give Him thanks for it. You know the story. of when the
Lord took the lives of the prophet Eli's two sons. You know that
story of when God took Eli's two sons. Eli in sorrow and devastation,
not in joy and peacefulness, in sorrow and devastation, but
in faith. And in an obedient, bowing heart,
this is what he said. It is the Lord. Let him do what
seemeth him good. And the important thing to take
from that is the last word. It is the Lord. Let him do what
seemeth him good. I want so badly to be given a
heart that can actually say that I do. Many believers have gone through
what Eli went through. I can't imagine that. I can't
imagine that. I just cannot imagine going through
that. I don't belittle trials. I don't belittle devastating
things and not at all. I cannot imagine going through
that. But when something like that
comes to a child of God, God does give his people grace and
faith to bow to it. Knowing he's doing this on purpose
for good. These things, you know, we go
through things and they're not happy, but God's children will
always know that God's sovereign hand is in it and they can be
thankful for the goodness that they know will be the ending
result of it. It's always going to end in good. Always. A child of God can always be
thankful for the fact that he knows the just judge of the earth
is going to do right. The end is going to be right.
If it happened, it may be the most difficult thing that a child
of God ever faces, but no matter how difficult he or she knows
it's right. If God did it, it's right. And it's going to bring good.
And that's how we can be thankful, even in difficult, trying, sorrowful
things. King David, in his last words,
said, although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made
with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things ensure,
for this is all my salvation and all my desire, although he
make it not to grow. That's where he found his thankfulness
at the end of everything that happened in his life. David went
through a lot. He brought a lot of it on himself,
just like we do. But he went through a lot. Was
David happy at the direction all of his life had taken? Probably
not. I would say no. But he could acknowledge God's
sovereign hand in it, and he could give thanks for the goodness
that he knew was going to come from it. The Apostle Paul, he
was told by the Holy Ghost that every city he would travel to,
bonds and afflictions awaited him. You think he was happy to
get that news? No, no. But he acknowledged God's
sovereign hand in it. We have his writings where he
acknowledged God's sovereign hand in it. And he knew that
if that's what God purposed for him, good would come to it. To the Philippians, he wrote
from prison, it's good that I'm here. The gospel is going to
thrive because of this. This is for the furtherance of
the gospel. He knew that. In that, he said he could rejoice.
He told the Philippians, I rejoice, give thanks. So this life holds
pleasant things and unpleasant things, happy things, sad things,
easy things, difficult things, wonderful things, devastating
things. But in all of it, we can acknowledge
our God's sovereign hand in it. And we can know that our good
and His glory is going to be the end result. And in that,
we can be thankful no matter what it is, as long as He brings
glory to Himself first and foremost. And because He has promised good
to us, we can be thankful in it. Verse 18 says, In everything
give thanks, For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you. Lord, put a heart of thanks in
us. A heart of faith and a heart
of thanks. We would be so thankful if the Lord would put a heart
of thanks in us to truly trust him. Thanks for
every providence, every purpose that he sends our way. I've told
you this story before, but it's so appropriate for this. It's
just so true. May the Lord teach us from this
and, and, uh, help us to see these things. George Whitfield. was going to
preach, and he lived in the 1700s, and he was going to preach in
a town that was a good distance off, and he was riding on horseback.
And as he was going, it was pouring rain on him, just pouring down
rain. And in his own account that he wrote, he said that he
was miserable. He was headed out late to preach,
He said he was tired, and to his own condemnation, he said,
I had a bad attitude. And I was asking the Lord, why
all this rain? I'm going to preach the gospel,
and I'm tired, and I'm this. Why? I'm going to have to stand
there soaking wet. He's going to have to stand there
and preach, soaking wet. Why all this rain? Why is it
pouring the rain on me? And he said that, you know, he
just went on with all of his misery and all of his murmuring
and all of his complaining. And he said about that time,
I rounded a corner and he said a robber jumped out with a Flint
pistol and fired it at me. And he said the Flint was so
wet, the pistol wouldn't go off. And he said, I hightailed it
out on my horse crying, thank you for the rain. Thank you so
much for the rain. May the Lord help us in these
conditions that we're in the middle of that we're just so
distressed by and just so may the Lord help us to see it's
on purpose. It's for our good. It's for his
glory. This will continually hold true
right here. God moves in a mysterious way. His wonders to perform. He plants
his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Deep in
unfathomable minds of never failing skill, he treasures up his bright
designs and works his sovereign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh
courage take. The clouds you so much dread
are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his
grace. Behind a frowning providence,
he hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err
and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter and
he will make it plain. He'll make it plain. And until
he does, may God give us a heart to just be thankful. He'll make it plain. I know it's
such a gloomy outlook. I know the providence seems so
dark and he'll make it plain. He will. So may he give us a
heart to be thankful for all of his works concerning us. in everything. Help me, Lord,
help us to in everything give thanks. This is the will of God
in Christ Jesus concerning us. All right, Brother Ada, you come.