Good evening. It's good to see
you again. I invite your attention tonight to 1 Thessalonians chapter
5. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. We're going to look at a few
familiar verses of Scripture that are very comforting, very
encouraging. I wrote this question down and
it seems like kind of a foolish question, but I'll ask it anyway.
Are you troubled by anything? Anything bothering you right
now? Are you going through a hard time? I think we can all say yes, can't
we? to some degree or another. That's our life, isn't it, in
this world? Constant sorrow, constant trials,
constant hurt and pain in some form or fashion. We know it far
too well, don't we? Well, for you who believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, For you whom God has given precious faith
to look to Christ and to Christ alone for all your salvation,
all your hope, I have a word of comfort for you. Look here,
1 Thessalonians 5, verse 16. And as we read this, let's remember
this is God speaking to us. Verse 16 says, Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything, give thanks. For this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus concerning you. Three very simple and yet so
needful exhortations. Rejoice, pray, and give thanks. I say this is for you who believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is God's word to you and
to me. Rejoice evermore. That means be glad. Be happy. Be full of joy, full of cheer. You know, we ought to be. Even though we go through hard
things, things that sometimes we can't find anybody to truly
empathize with us. You know, we sympathize, but
how often we can't empathize because we've not been there. God says rejoice evermore. And the reason is we have infinite
reasons to be. You know that? I just want to
talk to you tonight. I don't have some fancy conjured
up message for you. It's these three verses and I'm
just simply going to expound upon them. I need God to comfort
me. I need God to speak to me. Daily,
honestly, I feel overwhelmed. And you might laugh and think,
what in the world could overwhelm you? You're young, you got everything
going well. I do. I truly believe that. But
this sin, you know, Paul said he's walking around this body
of death. This sin that we carry so easily besets us, does it
not? We need encouragement. I want to just start right here. Rejoice evermore. You know, this
morning we looked at the Apostle Peter and how our Lord told him
face to face. He told him, Peter, you're blessed. Truly blessed. And he said that
because Peter knew who he was. He believed on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he told him, Peter, You didn't
do anything to believe on me. My Father, which is in heaven,
gave you faith to believe on me." He said, you're a blessed
man, Peter. You're a blessed man. Being a
blessed man or woman, we ought to be the happiest, most cheerful,
most joyful people in this world. We really ought to be. We ought
to be. And yet, sadly, how often we're
not. I'll go ahead and tell you this
message ain't about us. I'm not trying to whip us and say let's
be happy. That's not the point of this message. The point of
this message is look to Christ who saved you. Look to Christ
who loved you and gave himself for you. Look to him who poured
out his precious blood to redeem you. I don't know how many more
days I have here. I like to think I have a few
to go. You know, it seems like every time I go somewhere, someone's
not there this time. We just mentioned in the study,
dear brother from Danville, the song leader, Lindsey Campbell.
Known him all my life. When I was a little kid, I would
ask him if we'd be at a function and I would go up to him and
say, can we sing 175, Standing on the Promises? To this day,
I don't know why I would ask Him that. But I tell you what,
thinking about that blesses my heart so much because God has
revealed to me that I'm standing on the promises of God my Savior. And I'm sure it was His utmost
joy to lead us in that song. He knew I didn't have a clue
what I was talking about, but His prayer was that God would
make that my prayer in due time. And praise God, He did. standing
on the promises of God, my Savior. But one by one, we're leaving
this world. One by one, we're going to meet God. And I pray every day while we're
here, God will enable us to rejoice. I want to show you a few verses
here talking about things to rejoice in. Turn back to Psalm
13. Psalm 13. We're going to be turning a little
bit tonight. Psalm 13. We know that our brother David
was often troubled. You read about how he was constantly
fleeing for his life. We're not going to read Psalm
23, but because the Lord was his shepherd, he knew he shall
not want. He knew everything's going to be okay, just like we
know. But I want to show you here how troubled he was, and
show you what he rejoiced in, and pray we can too. Psalm 13,
verse 1 says, How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face
from me? How long shall I take counsel
in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall
mine enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord
my God. Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep
the sleep of death, lest mine enemy say I have prevailed against
him. And those that trouble me rejoice
when I am moved, but I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall
rejoice, in thy salvation, I will sing unto the Lord, because he
hath dealt bountifully with me." Here's the first thing we can
rejoice in, brothers and sisters. Rejoice in his salvation. You know, in another account,
David prayed, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. It was joyous when we first found
ourselves believing on him, wasn't it? And then life got hard, didn't
it? And yet, in mercy, He brings us back, enables us to hear His
voice and rejoice in His salvation again. And I love this. Another psalm says, He hath not
dealt with us after our sins. We just read it. He hath dealt
bountifully with me. And we know why, don't we? Because
He dealt with Christ after our sins. He bore our sins. He bore them all. He bore them
all. Turn over a few pages to Psalm
31. Psalm 31, verse 7. Again, this is David writing.
He said, I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy, for thou hast considered
my trouble, thou hast known my soul, in adversities. If there's one thing a child
of God can rejoice in, it's this, His mercy. Where would we be
without it? I don't want to know. We sing, depth of mercy, can
there be mercy still reserved for me, still? After all these
years, can there still be mercy for me? I sure sinned a lot today. Can there be mercy for me? Yeah. Yes, there is. He delights to
show mercy. That's another one where it says,
delighteth continually. His mercy endureth forever. Oh, praise God it's so. Turn
over to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10. Verse 17. Our Lord has sent 70 men out
to preach the gospel, And that's who's talking here. Verse 17,
the 70 returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils
are subject unto us through thy name. What they're saying is,
they were getting impressed with what the Lord was pleased to
do through them. But they were looking at the wrong thing, all
right? Verse 18, and he, the Lord, said unto them, I beheld
Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you
power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power
of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding,
in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you,
but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven. Now that's reason for rejoicing,
isn't it? Your names are written. I love
that. Who wrote them? God. In the Revelation,
we read about the Lamb's book of life. He said rejoice, your
name's written there. Oh, my soul. Peter told us in
his epistle that there's an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that
fadeth not away, reserved. You know, you reserve a seat
and there's a name on it reserved. Reserved for you. Your name's
written there. There's a reservation for you. Oh. That'll comfort a troubled heart.
Your names are written in heaven. How often should we rejoice?
Paul told us in Philippians 4, he said, Rejoice in the Lord
always. And that's where our rejoicing
is. Whatever it is we're rejoicing in, it's in Christ. We're rejoicing
in Christ, our Lord and Savior. And he said, Rejoice in the Lord
always and again. I say rejoice. Rejoice evermore. We sing a song, whatever my lot,
whatever my lot, whatever happens, thou hast taught me to say, it
is well, it is well with my soul. I pray God would give us faith
to live that. To wake up and to think in our heart, this is
the day which the Lord hath made, I will rejoice and be glad in
it. Be glad in the Lord, trust the Lord, look to Him. You have
a hard day, you lay down to go to sleep, you think, oh, I'm
so glad this day's over. You know, 2020, when 2020 came to
an end, didn't we all breathe a sigh of relief and think, whew,
we escaped that one. That was a rough year. How's
this year been going? Has it been any easier? Honestly. But we know who's in control,
don't we? The affairs of this world seem so troubling, don't
they? And this country just seems like a mess, don't it? It is. It always has been. And it's
always going to be until Christ comes and burns this thing up.
All these things are going to be dissolved and there's going
to be a new heaven and a new earth. And according to His promise,
we're looking. We're looking for Him. We're looking for that
day, the day of God, the coming of Christ. I know what some of you are going
through, not many of you, but some of you. And my heart breaks for you.
I don't know what a lot of you are going through, but I know
you're going through something. And my heart breaks for you. Whether I can empathize with
you or not, I sympathize for you. But I encourage you, look
to Christ. Look to Christ. Whatever it is,
look to Christ. I want to show you this. Turn
over a few pages to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 8. And I'll just say this, if you're
not going through something now, perhaps you're young and you're
not really going through anything, you will. And when you do, may
God enable us to recall these things to our mind. 2 Corinthians
4 verse 8 says we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in
despair. We're persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed. How can we say that? How can
we honestly feel that way? There's only one way. That's
looking to Christ. Sometimes we're hit with hard
realizations in life. You know, we think, oh, well,
if I could do anything to change this, I would. I just thought
of this, the saying of our dear brother Scott Richardson, if
I had the power of God, well, I'd change everything, wouldn't
we? But if we had the wisdom of God, we'd change nothing. I pray God would give me faith
to believe that. Seriously. The verse we quote all the time,
Romans 8.28, and we know, praise God we know, that all things
work together for good to them that love God, to them who are
the called according to His purpose. I'm glad we know that. If I didn't know that, if God
didn't give me faith to believe that, I might just have a hard
time going about my day, especially when things got tough. God has given us rejoicing, hasn't
He? I pray we can rejoice. 1 Thessalonians 5, 16. Rejoice
evermore. Pray without ceasing. I certainly don't feel qualified
to speak on this topic. I don't feel qualified to speak
here at all. But this matter of prayer, I just want to say
a few things. What does it mean to pray? Prayer is pouring our heart out
to God. You ever pour your heart out
to somebody? You just need someone to confide in. Sometimes it's
hard to find someone to confide in. You think you can confide
in someone, then it doesn't go over well. Probably because we're
not, well, because we're sinners, that's why. We're not the best
comforters, are we? We can confide in our Savior.
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there. That's the
thing we struggle with, is leaving it there. It's easy to take it
there, but it's hard to leave it there. We want to pick it
back up and put our boots on and keep going, don't we? It's
okay to be weak. When we're weak, then we're strong
in Christ. He's our strength. All of our strength. Prayer. You know, we pray, we think we
pray with our lips, don't we? Our brother just prayed a minute
ago. He spoke with his lips, but he
prayed with his heart. You know that? We pray with the
heart. You can pray without saying a
word. Pray with your lips sealed and your heart wide open pouring
out. Oh, I pray God would teach me to pray. Prayer is born out of a need
and a heart of gratitude. Don't pray if we don't have a
need, do we? We just read Psalm 33 and Psalm 31 and Psalm 13,
I think. I thought of a couple prayers. This may be the most beautiful
prayer in all the scriptures. I believe it was Peter. He prayed,
Lord, save me. What a prayer. You know, we can
get up here and just utter a bunch of words. I do it every time,
I feel like. And yet it often feels like vain
repetition. The Lord knows our heart. He knows it. He knows
our heart. But that's our prayer, Lord save
me. That poor, that poor publican, he prayed, God be merciful to
me, a sinner. You know, that Pharisee, that
religious man, he stood there boasting of his works and what
he gives, what he does, and that man didn't have a need at all. And he didn't go home with the
Savior either. But that poor publican did. Went home justified. Went home trusting in Christ.
went home with all his need met. It says God shall supply all
your need. You have a need? And he's going
to supply it through Jesus Christ. All of it. Prayer is an act of
faith. When we pray to God, we're praying
to the only one who is able to help us. We're not praying because we're
religious. We're praying because we need God to speak to us. We
need God to hear us. Incline thine ear unto me. I'm
poor and needy. And we pray to Him, believing
with all our heart He will hear us. The Father hears Him pray. And He hears us pray. Christ
prays for us. He makes intercession to the
Father for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Our
Lord encourages us. He commands us to pray to Him. And I pray He'll enable us to.
The beautiful thing about prayer, it has nothing to do with us,
but what a beautiful thing it is when a poor sinner finds themself
at the feet of the Savior. That's prayer. Falling flat on
our face, in our heart before Him, Lord, would you do for me,
this is what a brother in Danville always prayed and I'll never
forget it, would you do for me what I cannot do for myself? That's what it is to pray. How often should we pray? Every
single day. Throughout the day. Pray without
ceasing. Henry said, pray without ceasing
to pray. And as long as we're needy, helpless
sinners, we'll find ourselves praying. We may not know what
we're doing. We may not even know what we're
saying. But we know we need Him. We'll always know that. We need
Him more than anything. Quickly, I want to mention a
few things we ought to pray for. We ought to pray for faith. The disciples prayed, Lord, increase
our faith. God's given us faith. Lord, increase
our faith. Enable us to look to Christ,
to trust Christ, to rest in Christ and Christ alone. We ought to
pray for forgiveness. Lord, forgive me. Forgive me. And we ought to pray
for the ability to forgive one another, the desire to forgive
one another. And if God's forgiven us, then
we ought to be the most forgiving people in this world. And yet
again, how often we're not, speaking from experience here. But Lord,
forgive me and enable me to forgive my brethren. Enable me to forgive
others. We ought to pray for grace. We ought to pray for grace in
the midst of our trials. It says, He giveth more grace. And we know this about His grace.
Whatever the trial, His grace is sufficient, always, every
time. We ought to pray for our brethren.
Here in verse 25, He said, Brethren, pray for us. Pray for us. We say it often, you know, if
we're going to stand to preach, pray for me, pray for me, please
do. But we all need to pray for each, every single one of us.
We all have needs. I don't know your life on a personal
level. I don't know what your day is
like. It may be misery. Pray for each other. How often Paul started his epistles,
I think he started this one this way, saying that he thanks God
for you, making mention of you always in my prayers. Oh my God,
bring that to our heart. Bring one another to mind, to
heart before God. We ought to pray for others,
not just our brethren. Pray. You live in a community,
I live in a community. Pray for your community. We pray
all the time for the Lord to save those in our community.
Pray for our state. Pray for our nation. Pray for
this world. Who am I that God should be mindful
of me? There's, I think, what, seven,
eight billion people in this world right now? Pray for them.
Pray that God would do for them what he's done for us. I pray
God would put that prayer in our heart. I'm a very selfish
person, and I'm ashamed to admit it. God help me to be mindful of
others. Lord, save others. And our prayer
must be on this wise, Thy will be done. You know, we pray for
particular things. But may our prayer start and
end with, Lord, if you will. Asked by that leper, God went,
Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Thy will be done. Our Lord prayed that. When he
besought the Lord to please let this cup pass from me, he said,
nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. Thy will be
done. Pray for God's will to be done. He knows what's best,
and He only does what's best. He does what's right. Things
often don't seem right, do they? We hear about things, we see
things and think, well, that's just not right. It may not be. We do bad things. You turn on
the news, there's horrible things on there. But we need to understand
God is sovereign, and He does right. Nothing happens that bypasses
Him. Nothing. He does right. And above
all, may this be our prayer, may Christ be exalted in everything. It doesn't matter what I want. It just doesn't
matter. We want to be happy, don't we?
Who doesn't want to be happy? Whether we're happy or not, may
our heart's desire be for our Lord Jesus Christ to be exalted,
to be honored, to be glorified, to be praised in everything in
my life, in this world. And I'll tell you this, He is. He is exalted above everything.
And I pray that He will be. May God, our Savior, enable us,
teach us to pray for things as we ought. I pray He would teach
us to pray. And I guarantee you, when I'm
lying on my deathbed, when that time comes, that'll still be
my prayer. Lord, teach me to pray. I still don't have a clue,
but I know I need You. Verse 16 again. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. in everything
give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you. I want to read you a couple verses. Psalm 92 verse 1 says, It is
a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises
unto thy name, O Most High. Psalm 103 verse 1 says, Bless
the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his
holy name. Don't you want to do that? Don't
you want to truly give thanks to the Lord? Give thanks unto
the Lord for He is good. He hath saved us. He hath been
merciful to us. He hath been mindful of us. Dealt
bountifully with us. Don't you want to thank Him?
Don't you want to thank Him as we ought? I mentioned we all want to be
happy. Whether we're happy or not, May we rejoice, pray, and
give Him thanks. Every day and everything. In sickness and in health, some
of you may be going through sickness. Terminal sickness. Some of you may be healthy as
a horse. We think we are, don't we? And then we stub our toe
and realize how frail and weak we are. But regardless of our physical
state in this life or mental, emotional state, we have a great
physician. I had the privilege of teaching
our middle and high schoolers last Sunday at Sunday school.
We looked at the paralytic man who his four friends tore off
part of the roof and let him down through the roof to the
Savior's feet. He was paralyzed. He had the
palsy. He couldn't move. Confined to a bed. The Lord, the first thing He
said was, Thy sins be forgiven thee. And I told the kids, I
said, at that point, the man was still paralyzed. But his sins had been forgiven
him. And here's the point. Whether our sickness is healed
or not, the only thing that matters is that our sins be forgiven
us. Now our Lord, in loving kindness, grace, and mercy, He caused that
man to take up his bed and go home to his house. Arise, take
up thy bed and walk. And he did immediately. But the
point is, whether he heals our physical ailment or not, if he's
forgiven us of our sins, what more could we possibly want?
In sickness or in health, we have a great physician who's
healed our soul. In poverty and in wealth. It's
easy to complain about money and the lack thereof, isn't it?
Oh, I'm so guilty of this. And when the Lord gives us riches
not to set our heart upon them, trust not in riches, uncertain
riches. Whether we're poor or rich in
this life, if we know Christ, God has given us all things freely
in Him. Doesn't matter whether we're
materially rich or not. We have the unsearchable riches
of Christ, wealth that can never be told, We have everything. The Lord will provide. He's going
to provide for His own. I shall not want. He's our shepherd.
We shall not want. We're not going to lack a thing.
What the psalmist say, I've been young and I'm now old, yet have
I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. You're
not going to see it happen. Because Christ is our sufficiency. He's our provision. He's everything.
in good times and in tough times. And I'm telling you this, when
the tough times come, may we consider Him. Consider the affliction He endured
for us. Consider the tough times, if
you will, that He on purpose endured to save us, to make it
eternally well with our souls. Consider Him. And not only that,
consider Him and how He did that for the joy that was set before
Him. We can't do that. Consider Him. Consider Him at
all times. You know, it's easy to praise
God when the sky is sunny and you're feeling good, isn't it?
So easy. Thank you, Lord. Beautiful day.
What about when it's raining? What about when it's thundering,
when it's storming, when the storms of life have gotten you
down and you feel like you can't get any lower? Is it easy to
praise God at that point? It's not, is it? But there's
no better thing for us to do, especially when we're weary and heavy laden,
when we're troubled. I feel like that's the time when
Christ is truly exalted, isn't it? When He gives us grace and
faith to look to Him when we got nowhere else to go. When
we just feel to the point of despair, no return. Lord, Thank
you. In everything give thanks. This
is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Brethren,
He completed our salvation. He finished it. We're one with
Him. Accepted before God in Him. What
more could we possibly want? Our state couldn't be any better.
I believe Paul also said in Philippians,
whatever state I'm in, God's taught me to be content. Now,
we may not be all roses and butterflies, we may not be jolly hopping to
and fro, but God will make us content. He'll give us godliness
with contentment. That's great game, isn't it?
If God's given us that, that's everything. Everything. Psalm
145 says, I will extol thee, my God, O King. I will bless
thee, and I will bless thy name forever and ever. Every day will
I bless thee, and I will praise thy name forever. and ever, and
we could just say forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Amen. Verse 18, in everything, give
thanks for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus concerning
you. A couple things here, whatever
it is, whatever we're going through, let's understand this is God's
will for us and it's best. I remember Brother Don saying,
Cody, whatever God has for you, He said, I don't know what it
is, but whatever it is, it's what's best for you. I believed
it then and I believe it more now. Even if I don't like it,
it's the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning me. I need to
be thankful for it, pray for grace and faith to look to Christ
in it. And I love this. Again, for believers,
it's God's will for us that we are in Christ Jesus. Of God are ye in Christ Jesus. We didn't put ourselves there. Mentioned it this morning, we
wanted nothing to do with Him. But praise God of God, we're in Christ
Jesus. He's our wisdom, He's our righteousness,
He's our sanctification, He's our redemption, He's our all
in all. We ought to be thankful. We ought
to be thankful. Let's read our text again. Rejoice
evermore. Pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. God chose
us, chose to save us, chose to redeem us, sent Christ to die
for us, make us holy, accepted in Him. The Spirit has come and
quickened us, given us life, faith in Christ. Right now, by
God's grace, we're looking to Christ. You know how precious
that is? I wish I knew just how precious
that is. May God enable us, whatever tonight brings, about to walk
out these doors in just a minute. We can't take a moment for granted.
May God help us to look to Christ. May He enable us to rest in His
sovereignty. Enable us to trust in Him in
all things. and be thankful. Rejoice, pray,
and give thanks. For Christ's sake, may He be
glorified. Amen.