I'm going to turn back over to
1 Thessalonians. And Eric didn't
keep a close enough eye on me, so I realize that we didn't pray,
or I didn't. But in my defense, sometimes
Eric does. With that in mind, we're going
to focus on the passage that we read from here just a moment
ago in Chapter 2, but I'd like you to turn over to Chapter 5. And I want to read here, and
you'll maybe understand why I'm reading it at this point. Chapter
five, verses 16 through 18. Be joyful always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances,
for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. So before we
look into this Book of First Thessalonians this
morning, let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing. Father, we come before you knowing
our own inadequacies. Lord, you know the struggles
of your people assembled here and those who listen. And Lord, I pray that you would
bring peace through the preaching of your word to your people that
you would graciously condescend to take my feeble words and thoughts
and use the word of God to work powerfully in your people. Lord, we have decisions to make
and things to do, not only in our personal lives, but the lives
the life of the church. Lord, we pray that you would
give wisdom as we meet as men afterwards to discuss what to
do next in calling a pastor for this church. And Lord, as we
think of that, we pray for the Terrell family. We pray for Bonnie
losing Joe and pray that you would just comfort and Give her
grace. We pray for Mary and for Ben
and for Nathan, and we pray for that church down in Missouri. Pray that you would be with the
brothers and sisters down there as they meet, as they hold a
special place in our heart now. But Lord, as we turn to your
word once again, we pray that the spirit of God would powerfully
work through the word of God to encourage, convict, and comfort
the saints of God. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, Eric, I'm gonna blame you
for something else. So we talked here last week up
front and We're trying to talk about schedules, and he said,
are you ready to go? And of course, I had a different
message from the same passage that I was going to give, and
I was ready to go up until that point. And then I realized it's
Thanksgiving. And as I looked into some things
and listened to a couple of messages that Joe gave the last two years,
very similar messages, I realized that I wanted to take this a
different direction. So then, You know, I didn't think
about my passage. I started looking at Psalms and
started looking at different passages. I was like, I need
a Thanksgiving message. And then I realized that our
passage here, our book here, actually talks about Thanksgiving
quite a bit. The giving of thanks, that is,
not the holiday. Paul, other than one letter,
that he wrote begins his epistles with thanks to God for the people
that he is addressing in that. But it's interesting in this
particular epistle, he does a lot more thanking, and then he gives the
exhortation that I read just here before the prayer. If you
turn back in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, you see he says, we
always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. And then of course we read in
2.13, we also thank God continually because when you receive the
word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not
as the word of men, but as it actually is the word of God. And then in chapter three, verse
nine, he goes on to say, how can we thank God enough for you
in return for all the joy we have in the presence of God because
of you? And then lastly, once again,
In chapter five, he gives an admonition. He's not thanking
God specifically for them, but as he's thinking of them, he
says, be joyful always, pray continually, and give thanks
in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ
Jesus. So I started thinking about that
and I thought earlier in the week, okay, I understand the
principle and I understand the need for being thankful in the
Christian life and Joe, speaks in his messages on how it was
helpful for him in his anxiety to be thankful and how that worked
out for him. And I thought, well, okay, I
can change this. And as I think Brother Drew and
Joe and Darwin said when I was in Missouri, well, Joe didn't
say it then, but I've heard it said multiple times, be careful
what you study. You might have to live it out.
God might bring it home to you. And I'll just say to you, I haven't
had a particularly great week. I didn't feel thankful. I felt in a way, I don't know. It's like thanks
for nothing sort of feeling. I mean, I know we use the language
that way. And I feel like I had to be put into
that place to properly bring out not only what Paul says here
about being thankful in the background of it, but understanding who
it is we are being thankful to and why it is we're being thankful. It's very easy, and in fact,
the world will talk about this, about having an attitude of gratitude. And we think about it in a way
where if I put so much into the column of being grateful or thankful,
I'm gonna reap so many results. And I'm sure there are psychological
studies. I know from being in the business
world, there's an emphasis of saying, Consider the positive,
right? Talk to people about all the
good. When you have a yearly review of somebody who reports
to you, make sure you emphasize all the benefits they have. It's
not just your weekly paycheck, it's what the company is providing
and paying into social security and paying into your health coverage
and all the intangibles they have. free coffee in the office
and everything else. So there's that sense of gratitude
and thanksgiving, being thankful. It's really kind of, I don't
know the best word to use for it, transactional, right? In
fact, In some societies, they'll even
stencil, you know, please and thank you in certain places.
And certainly there's this expectation that if you do something for
somebody, that they'll say thanks to you. Well, sometimes we don't feel
like it. Sometimes we'll say it gritting our teeth. Sometimes
we'll even say to children, and I'm not discouraging necessarily
that, but Halloween and trick or treat isn't that long ago,
and we had about 80 visitors to the door, and I didn't keep
track of how many times maybe Paula remembers When the young
ones got their treat, the inevitable, what do you say? Well, that's
not thankfulness from the heart. That's more of a, it's an expected
gratitude in this situation. It's a transaction that happened.
You got the Reese's peanut butter cup or whatever it was that came
out. And you need to say thanks. What if you don't feel like it?
What if you don't look at it that way? Turn, if you would,
back in your Bibles to Psalm 106. And I don't, I think this might
have been one of the ones that Joe looked at. I'm not 100% certain. But I'm gonna look at a different
verse here. Resisting the urge to use technology
here. That's for my wife. Psalm 106. And then if you look at verses
six and seven, actually before you do that, The verses up on
top, praise the Lord, give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his
love endures forever. Who can proclaim the mighty acts
of the Lord or fully declare his praise? And then in verse
six, it says, we have sinned, even as our fathers did, we have
done wrong and acted wickedly. When our fathers were in Egypt,
they gave no thought to your miracles. They did not remember
your many kindnesses, and they rebelled by the sea, the Red
Sea. What the psalmist is pointing
out here, and if you want or can turn back over into the New
Testament to Romans, is this idea that we forget to be thankful
to God. In Romans chapter 1, in verse
21, in talking about the wrath of God towards those who are
not saved, Paul says, although they knew God, they neither glorified
him as God, nor gave thanks to him. So when we think about a reason
of why we don't feel thankful, I think our sin is part of it. In fact, for those who are only
in the flesh, who haven't been redeemed by God, that's all they
have. They can put on a transactional
thank you if somebody holds open the door, but they aren't thankful
to God. Maybe they even know how to mouth
those words. Although I had a acquaintance
who got mad when I said thank God for something. He's like,
why are you thanking God? I did that. Why are you giving
him credit? Well, he got a theology lesson
that he didn't want at the time, but the reason I was thanking
God was even though God was using him as the agent to do that thing,
and I don't recall what it was at the time, God ultimately was the one who
was looking out for me in that situation and caused me to proclaim
thankfulness to God for what he had done in that. But our
sin is an encumbrance to us. Our sin is an encumbrance to
us. Other emotions get in the way
of being thankful. Maybe we're angry. Think about
Jonah. Jonah was so angry about the
situation of God sending him to a pagan people to proclaim
the gospel, that he ran away from God. Clearly he didn't get
the memo that God could chase him down. But Jonah, in his wrath,
was an anger at people who had wronged his people, a people
in Nineveh who were not good people. He wanted a result and
he wasn't thankful. He wasn't thinking, oh great,
God is gonna send me to this people and God will save them
and it'll be better than if they're not saved. His anger clouded
his judgment. In fact, later on in the book,
in chapter four of Jonah, as he's there, it says in Jonah
chapter four, Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He was angry that they were,
being saved, he said, is this not what I said when I was still
at home? This is why I was so quick to
flee. I knew you were a gracious or
are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding
in love. Now Lord, take away my life for
it is better for me to die than to live. Think about it. God is saving
someone, but so much so was Jonah focused in a sinful way on what
he thought they deserved, that all he could bring himself to
do is be angry at the expression of God's mercy towards a people. Well, God goes on to give him
a object lesson. We don't see Jonah's repentance. I mean, we saw partly some repentance
in chapter two where Jonah prays and cries out to God and says
in verse nine, I with a song of thanksgiving will sacrifice
to you. Oh really, Jonah, you were thankful
when you got delivered, but you weren't thankful at the thought
of God saving a people that you believed only deserved judgment. I find myself in that sort of
thinking as well from time to time where I think You know,
God, the best thing you could do for this country is deal,
you know, judge all those evil, wicked people. And God reminds
me, you're one of them apart from the grace of God. Your flesh
can produce nothing other than wickedness and hate apart from
the work of God. But our sin is an encumbrance
to being thankful. Well, in our passage back in First
Thessalonians, I want you to consider in chapter two what was happening with them. And I'll bring in some things
that we had discussed before, but I think it's important to
see this. Paul says we thank God continually,
and then in verse 14 he says that they became imitators, but
in what way were they imitators? You suffered from your own countrymen
the same things those churches suffered from the Jews. Now, if you don't remember or
you weren't here or didn't hear the message, back in Acts chapter
16, so easy to pick on you, Eric.
The passage that I had Eric read, the long passage that I had Eric
read, if that helps you remember it, Paul and Silas in chapter
16 are in prison, They're beaten, thrown in a cell, and the jailer,
it's a famous passage where the jailer asks, what must I do to
be saved? And he, I think, meant from judgment. But God used that, as he does,
to save them. But as we're considering that,
chapter 17, when they had passed, verse one, through Ampiphilus
and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. And as his custom was, Paul went
into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days, he reasoned with
them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had
to suffer and rise from the dead. And then we read in verse four,
some of the Jews were persuaded and joined. and a large number
of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women. But here we are in verse five
to get to what I'm talking about from 1 Thessalonians chapter
two. But the Jews were jealous, so
they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed
a mob, and started a riot in the city. Now, I think I'm pretty
safe to say Today, what we're preaching and teaching is not
gonna cause a riot in Rock Valley. Not likely to happen. They rushed
to Jason's house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring
them out of the crowd, but when they did not find them, they
dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials,
shouting, these men who have caused trouble all over the world,
have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They're all defying Caesar's
decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus. And when they heard this, the
crowd and city officials were thrown into turmoil. Then they
made Jason and the others postpone and let him go. If you understand what was being
proclaimed, you understand that this was a smear job. I was gonna say social media,
I guess that fits. This is like a, it needs community
notes, right? Twitter or X, sorry, gotta train
myself out of that. It needs community notes, it
needs clarification. People pointed out that when
Jesus is said to be the king, it doesn't mean you're to disobey
earthly kings, right? Or when it says, that he caused
trouble, all he did was preach the gospel. Your problem is that
he is teaching things different than what you legalistic Jews
are teaching. But the point is here, there was a not minor dust up and there was
really a danger to the people there, and they had to postpone. An injustice was done. A miscarriage
of justice was done. And in fact, if we turn back
to 1 Thessalonians, we read, when we could stand it no longer,
we thought it best to be left by ourselves to Athens. And we
sent Timothy. to go back, and I'm paraphrasing
here instead of reading all of it, to check on you. Paul was
afraid, and that's a little bit of reading into the text, but
I don't think very much. Paul was concerned that if he
went back into town, they would notice him, but they sent Timothy
in thinking, well, he's likely to get in. and hopefully nobody
will notice him as one of us who were there before. So one of the things Paul was
thanking God for was you suffered from your own countrymen the
same things those churches suffered from the Jews. Well, certainly he's not saying
pray for persecution. No, he's not saying that, but
Paul saw this as God's work of demonstrating the gospel of Christ,
of demonstrating the difference in what Paul and Silas and Timothy
were preaching and what the people in Thessalonica were believing
from Jewish unbelievers And then Paul goes on to say in verse
15, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove
us out. Both Jesus and Stephen mentioned
this as well, the fact that the unbelieving Jewish people were
those who killed the prophets. Then he goes on further, they
displease God and are hostile to all men in their effort to
keep us from speaking to the Gentiles, think about Jonah,
so that they may be saved. In this way, they always keep
up their sins to the limit. the wrath of God has come upon
them at last. Now, unfortunately, people have
used passages like this to be anti-Semitic, that is, to preach
hatred towards Jewish people, but we see the difference between
what happened in the case of Jonah, where God was long-suffering
and forbearing in his disobedience, and in the case of the people
who apparently did not repent of their sins, and he points
out to us that the wrath of God has come upon them. So how is
it that Paul can be so thankful not once, not twice, but three
times, and then he ends the epistle with an admonition for them to
give thanks in all circumstances. Now I know some will say, well,
he didn't say give thanks for all circumstances, but Regardless,
in or for, this is not an easy thing. Because if a tire going
flat, a not feeling well, just having a bad day can make us
not be thankful, certainly somebody wanting to run you out of town
to chase you down and to persecute you should be enough to do that. And yet, He not only leaves it
with giving thanks in all circumstances, and circumstances is not in the
Greek. If you have a King James or a
New King James, I believe it says at all times or something
like that. It's an interpretation and not
a bad one, but either way, whether it's giving thanks in all times
or at all times or in all circumstances, he doesn't leave it there. He
says, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Now, I know many times in my
life, my Christian life, I wanted to know, what is God's will for
me? Now, for that, it's more, should
I take this job? Should I move here? Should I
do this? Should I do that? But there are a number of places
in scripture, and this is one where we have a very clear-cut
explanation of what God's will is. And as is pointed out, and
it doesn't suit what I'm looking at here, but you can call it
to mind, be joyful always, pray continually, and give thanks
in all circumstances. All three are meant to be meant
to be qualified or understood in light of this is God's will. It's God's will for you to be
joyful and to pray and to give thanks. Paul, how do you do it? How do
you, in these trials, give thanks to God? Well, I believe Paul
Himself says that if you turn back in First Thessalonians to
chapter one, he says we remember your work of faith, your labor
of love, and your endurance of hope in Christ. the way you can give meaning
and have thankfulness for circumstances you do not understand, you cannot
comprehend. God, why are you putting me through
these things? God, why is this supposed to
happen? If you belong to him, you can
know that if he is working through it, and if you belong to him,
he is, if he's working through it, even if you don't understand
what he is working through it, You can say, along with the apostle
here and back in Romans 8, we know that in all things, God
works for those who love him. Paul could give thanks here repeatedly
in spite of the persecution and suffering, in spite of the mistreatment
and misunderstanding, in spite of all that had happened, because
God was at work. They didn't need to fear what
man could do to them. Rather, they could, by the grace
of God, be encouraged that this opposition
that they were facing was due to the fact of a work of God
that they should give Thanks for. Paul is thankful for this
good result, but he isn't ignoring the circumstances, he's talking
about it. He talks about suffering and
he talks about the fact that those who continue in persecuting
the people of God, the wrath of God is stored up for them. He isn't rejoicing, but he isn't
ignoring the fact that the enemies of God will be punished. It's as if he's saying, don't
worry about this, understand that I can be thankful to God
for you. Almost seems a bit like hyperbole
here if you look at chapter three, verse eight, he says, for now
we really live since you are standing firm in the Lord. How
polar opposite that attitude is from that of Jonah. Jonah felt like I can really live knowing
God is going to punish Nineveh. And he didn't want to live. He
told people, throw me in the sea. I mean, the reason the storm
is coming up is because of me. Throw me in the sea. He'd rather
die, as it were, than to see God deliver them. God had to
deal with that attitude. But here, Paul says, we live,
or we can live, knowing that you are standing firm in the
Lord. How can we thank God enough?
Well, the answer to that is you can't. You can't thank God enough,
but you should be thankful. But how can we thank God enough
for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of
our God because of you? Give thanks. To the Lord for
he is good, for his mercy, David says, for his love endures forever. Part of the reason that's translated
differently is the Hebrew word that's used there can mean steadfast
love or loyal love. So sometimes it's talking about
the mercy of God, because let's face it, it's easy. The father
loves the son, and I say easy, but the son doesn't give any
reason for the father not to love him. Every breath I take,
I give God a reason As far as in myself for him not
to love me and yet he His love endures forever Towards me and
towards his saints not because of us but because Christ paid
for our sins Give thanks to the Lord for he is good One of the things in studying
and changing gears here a little bit, but not really, stay with
me here, is if you look at the scriptures as a whole, depending
on the translation, about 150 times the word thank or thanks
or thankfulness is used, and predominantly, when it's used,
it's used of God. I'm gonna go out on a limb here,
do something dangerous here. But I believe one of the exceptions
is in Romans. And of course I did the dangerous
and I'm not seeing it here, but I'm pretty sure that it said
of A couple of women, okay, the NIV translates it a little bit
differently here. So in Romans 16, verse four,
backing up to verse three, greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow
workers in Christ. They risk their lives for me,
not only I, but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful
to them, are thankful to them. So in the New Testament, Depending on the translation,
there's a number of times where the word thankful is used, and
just like we use it, thankfulness and gratefulness, it could be
of God, and usually is of God, but occasionally it can be used
in what I guess you would call a secular usage, where you're
talking about being thankful, thanks. Thanks, Eric, for all
that you do. Thank you for opening the door. Thank you for whatever, as you're
talking about what humans do for you. But in the Old Testament,
And even in the choice of translation of the Old Testament into Greek,
so the Old Testament is written primarily in Hebrew, a little
bit of Aramaic. I always forget which parts.
It's Daniel and I think somewhere else. There is a use of a word
in the Hebrew and I believe Joe talks about
this, but the idea behind that word is more of sacrifice. So when it says, bring a thank
offering, that is the Hebrew word that is used. And there
is this idea of confessing, not confessing what you've done,
but confessing God, kind of like the Westminster Confession of
Faith, speaking about who God is and I think it's a reliable source,
but one of the sources I looked at is they said really the Hebrews
didn't have the idea of thankfulness to individuals, that when they
talked about confessing or sacrificing or giving, it was always with
an idea of that of God. So all of their thankfulness
was always to God. And like I said, I don't know
100% that that's true, but it seemed like a reliable source. And in fact, when we look at
these passages in the Old Testament, and you look at the use of the
word thank, or thankful, or praise, you see that idea that it is
to God. Give thanks to the Lord, for
he is good. Why can I be thankful? Not my
circumstances, a lot of times my circumstances disturb me. But God is good and his mercy
endures forever. In Psalm 30 verse four, sing
to the Lord ye saints of his and give thanks at the remembrance
of his holiness. Psalm 107, 22, let them sacrifice
the sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare his works with rejoicing. And Psalm 119, 62, at midnight
I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous
judgments. One of the ways, back to my original
stated title for the message, how can
I be thankful when I don't feel like it? Well, it isn't about
me. This isn't about me, it's about being thankful to God.
And even though I can't see the circumstances, the God of the
universe, The one who stands outside of time in a way that
I can't understand has promised to me that if I am his, through
faith in Christ, a faith that he gives me as a gift, if I'm
his, he has nothing but good intended for me. Even in the
things that I see as bad, Even in the things that pain
me and hurt me in this life, the encouragement that I have
is that God is good. Well, whether you want to call him
Augustine or Augustine, In reference to the first Thessalonians 5
passage, he says, wherefore obey the precept of scripture, pray
without ceasing, in everything give thanks. And then he says
this, you pray in order that you may have constantly and increasingly
these gifts from God. but you render thanks because
you have them not from yourself. You say that again. You pray
that you may have constantly and increasingly these gifts,
but you render thanks because you have them not of yourself. How can I be thankful? How can't
I be thankful in Christ? For those of us here who know
the Lord Jesus Christ, who've been saved from our sins, who
have been rescued from our own wretched and godless trajectory,
how can we do anything other than be thankful? Oh, I know. And I know in the messages I
listen to from Joe is like, if the spirit is willing and the
flesh is weak, it's easy for us to forget. It's easy for us
to be angry. It's easy for us to sin. And
yet when God brings us to our senses and shows us his love
for us, we're able in everything to give thanks. One last thought, and this is
from one of the messages from Joe, and I think it's a good
thought. If you're here this morning,
a believer in Christ, and you're like, I don't know how I can
give thanks in all circumstances, I think what Joe said here is
helpful. Even if our hearts do not feel
the emotion of thankfulness, Let us begin to speak it. Because
in speaking thankfulness, our mind starts to focus on the things
for which we can be thankful and should be thankful. May God
grant it so that we can be thankful for what Christ has done for
us. Eric.