Sunday, November 25, 2012
THANKSGIVING AND THE SPIRIT
I Thes. 5:18; Eph. 5:18-21
Is the
Christian life difficult? Is it hard to
live out the life of Christ on this earth?
Do we find it difficult to follow the precepts laid out by Jesus in the
Sermon on the Mount? I don't know who
said it, but he put it well when he said, "It is not difficult to live the
Sermon on the Mount; it is impossible."
No man can adequately live the Christian life in his own power. We cannot obey all the commands of Jesus, as
the disciple is urged to do. It is
impossible.
Then what
is the solution? The solution is in God
Himself, the God who sent His Son to be our Redeemer and our example. That same Jesus who went to the cross in our
place, taking upon Himself the very wrath of God, rose from the dead, ascended
back to the right hand of the Father, and from there sent the Holy Spirit to
dwell in those who put their trust in Him.
It is the presence and power of the Spirit in his life which enables him
to live the life that God has called him to live. Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, the
living of what we call the Christian life is an absolute impossibility.
This
morning I want us to see a specific example of that truth. We touched upon a powerful example last week,
when we looked at a few verses from Matthew 5.
While a man may have the power not to commit adultery, what man can say
that he has never lusted in his heart?
Today we are not going to look at the principles from the Sermon on the
Mount, but we are going to be confronted by a command that presents just as
much an impossibility. Let's read it,
along with a little bit of its context, in I Thes. 5:16-18, "Rejoice
always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in
everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
Think about verse
18, "In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus for you." Some of you
are at that age where you might have a tendency to gravitate toward this
question: "What is the will of God
for me?" Rianna, you might ask,
"What does the Lord want me to do, when this job ends?" Katie, perhaps you would ask, "Is it the
will of God for me to continue to go to school up on the hill next
semester?" Ruth, have you asked,
"Is it God's will for me to be a nurse?" I can tell you what is the will of God for
your lives -- In everything give thanks.
Regardless of where you work or what you will be doing a few years from
now, know for certain that it is God's will that you give thanks in everything. That is true for everyone of us. Apply this command to yourself: "It is God's will that I give Him thanks
in everything." Some versions
translate it, "Give thanks in all circumstances," and that is the
idea.
Before we go
any further, I want you to notice two ways in which the scripture lends support
to this idea of giving thanks in all things.
First of all, notice that this command is in close relation to two other
little commands: "Rejoice
always" and "Pray without ceasing." Right now I want us to pay attention to those
two little words, "Rejoice always."
Most of us are more familiar with this command from Phil. 4:4, "Rejoice
in the Lord always, and again, I say rejoice." Rejoicing and giving thanks are linked
together because both are intended to flow out of the believer at all times and
because they come from deep within. Both
are actions that must be motivated by a sustained attitude. While thanksgiving is an often repeated theme
in the Old Testament, rejoicing is prevalent in the New. "Count it all joy when you fall into
various trials" (James 1:2). In Romans 5:3 Paul says that we glory in
tribulation, when we are severely squeezed by the pressures of life. When we are rejoicing, we are giving thanks;
when we give thanks, we can rejoice.
This
attitude of giving thanks in all things is also supported by what we read in Eph.
5:20, "Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."
We will look more carefully at this verse a bit later, but notice for
now the word "always" and the phrase "for all things." When Paul commands us to give thanks in all
things (I Thes. 5:18), he means for us to do it all the time. Some have read I Thes. 5:18 and concluded
that the Christian is not necessarily to give thanks for all things, but in
all things. In other words, we are not
thankful for the circumstance, but in midst of the circumstance we can thank
God for all the good things He has given us.
That sounds really nice, but it ignores Eph. 5:20, where Paul literally
says, "Giving thanks always on behalf of all things."
With that
introduction, let's think this morning about always giving thanks for all
things, understanding that this is indeed the will of God for our lives. By the way, when we are giving thanks always
for all things, the will of God in other areas will become much clearer to
us. In order to get at the "all
things" of which Paul speaks, I am going to break those things down into
three categories.
I. Give Thanks for the Good Things
We sometimes
sing that familiar hymn "To God Be the Glory." It begins with the words: "To God be the glory; great things He
hath done." Though the word
"thanks" is not used, it is certainly applicable. Surely we can thank God for the great things
He has done, and we ought to thank God for the things He has done. Yes, we are commanded to thank God for the
good things He has done, because that is a part of thanking Him for all things.
When it
comes to thanksgiving, this is the dominant theme of the Old Testament. Again and again, we find the Psalmist
thanking God for all the wonderful things He has done. Eight times we find this exact
statement: "For the Lord is good;
His mercy endures forever" (1Chron. 16:34; 2 Chron. 5:13; 7:3; Ps. 106:1;
107:1; 118:1,29; 136:1). In six of those
eight occurrences, that statement is preceded by the words, "O give thanks
unto the Lord." (In the other two
the people praised the Lord with those words -- 2 Chron. 5:13; 7:3). So repeatedly God's people are urged to give
thanks to the Lord because He is good and His mercy (lovingkindness, steadfast
love) endures forever. Let me read Psalm
136, where this theme is greatly emphasized.
Notice the long list of the good things God has done. Read Ps. 136...
Oh, give
thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. 2 Oh, give
thanks to the God of gods! For His mercy endures forever. 3 Oh, give
thanks to the Lord of lords! For His mercy endures forever: 4 To Him who
alone does great wonders, For His mercy endures forever; 5 To Him who
by wisdom made the heavens, For His mercy endures forever; 6 To Him who
laid out the earth above the waters, For His mercy endures forever; 7 To Him who
made great lights, For His mercy endures forever-- 8 The sun to
rule by day, For His mercy endures forever; 9 The moon and
stars to rule by night, For His mercy endures forever. 10 To Him who
struck Egypt in their firstborn, For His mercy endures forever; 11 And brought
out Israel from among them, For His mercy endures forever;12 With a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, For His mercy
endures forever; 13 To Him who divided the Red Sea in two, For His mercy endures
forever; 14 And made Israel pass through the midst of it, For His mercy
endures forever; 15 But overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, For His
mercy endures forever; 16 To Him who led His people through the wilderness, For His
mercy endures forever; 17 To Him who struck down great kings, For His mercy endures
forever; 18 And slew famous kings, For His mercy endures forever-- 19 Sihon king
of the Amorites, For His mercy endures forever; 20 And Og king
of Bashan, For His mercy endures forever-- 21 And gave
their land as a heritage, For His mercy endures forever; 22 A heritage
to Israel His servant, For His mercy endures forever. 23 Who
remembered us in our lowly state, For His mercy endures forever; 24 And rescued
us from our enemies, For His mercy endures forever; 25 Who gives
food to all flesh, For His mercy endures forever. 26 Oh, give
thanks to the God of heaven! For His mercy endures forever.
But surely we don't need to be commanded to thank God for
the good things He has done. We should
do that naturally. So we think, but it
is not always true. In the book of
Deuteronomy we find Moses reminding God's people to remember the Lord and what
He has done. Let's read Deut.
8:10-18...
When you
have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good
land which He has given you. 11 "Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not
keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you
today, 12 lest--when you have eaten and are full, and have built
beautiful houses and dwell in them; 13 and when
your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are
multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied;14 when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your
God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; 15 who led you
through that great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and
scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water; who brought water for you
out of the flinty rock; 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers
did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you
good in the end-- 17 then you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my
hand have gained me this wealth.' 18 And you
shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get
wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as
it is this day.
Though the word "thank" is not used in this
passage, the idea is certainly present in the command to bless the Lord for the
good land which He had given them. The
Lord had certainly done great things for them, but they were in danger of
forgetting that truth. Why? It would happen when their hearts were lifted
up, that is, when they became proud.
Though they would not say it out loud and perhaps not be fully conscious
of what they were thinking in their heart, they were in danger of becoming
comfortable with the notion that they themselves were responsible for what was
theirs. If you were to ask them,
"Has God done great things for you," they would have said, "Yes,
absolutely." Whenever the Lord
warns us about forgetting Him, it is not a matter of not being able to remember. Rather, the problem is that we don't call
these things to remembrance.
Brothers and sisters, we face the same danger. In our minds we are well aware that God has
given us hundreds and thousands of good things, but we are in danger of not calling
these things to mind. Whether it is
busyness, self-sufficiency, or something else, we need to be reminded to always
give God thanks for the good things He has done.
For just a moment come back to that hymn "To God Be
the Glory." "To God be the
glory; great things He hath done."
Now keep going -- "So loved He the world that He gave us His
Son." Of all the things God has
given us, the greatest of all are the things we can't see with our eyes, all of
which are centered in the great truth that God has given us His Son. Out of that source comes a multitude of
blessings -- eternal life in Him, the presence of the Spirit within, along with
the love, joy, and peace He brings. We
could go on and on. Paul sums it up in Eph.
1:3, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ."
II. Thank God for the Little Things
Now
let's take a moment to think about the little things God has given us. When I use the term "little
things," I realize that there really are no little things, but I don't
know of a better term. What I am really
talking about are the things which we tend to take for granted. When we read from Deuteronomy 8, we saw the
great things that God had done for Israel, things like rescuing them from
snakes in the desert, bringing water out of the rock, and giving them the promised
land. And when we come to our situation,
we can never think of anything greater than God giving us His Son. In comparison with those great blessings,
many other things might be thought of as little things.
Wednesday
evening we were thanking God for His blessings.
One sister reminded us of how we need to thank God for what we might
consider little things. Is it not a
blessing that we are able to walk and even to breathe. While those are not really little things,
they are the things that we can tend to take for granted. When we are commanded to thank God for all
things, that "all things" include the everyday blessings that we tend
to take for granted.
Listen
to the message of Paul, as he spoke to the educated and cultured people of
Athens. Read Acts 17:22-28...
Then Paul
stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I perceive
that in all things you are very religious; 23 for as I was
passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an
altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you
worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: 24 God, who
made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does
not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He
worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all
life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth,
and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their
dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they
might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him
we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said,
'For we are also His offspring.'
On the one hand, the Lord made the world and everything
in it. That's big, for sure. But He also gives us life, breath, and
everything else. He concludes by saying
that in Him we live and move and have our being. We can do absolutely nothing apart from
Him. If the Lord did not continually
give you the ability, you could not raise your arm above your head; you could
not tie your shoe; you could not rise from your seat. Yes, in Him we live and move and have our
being. We owe everything to Him. Therefore, let us thank Him for all things,
even the little things we might take for granted.
III. Thank God for the
Difficult Things
So we have seen that it is possible to fail to thank God
for the good things He has done. It is
even more likely that we will neglect to thank Him for the everyday blessings
we take for granted. But what about the
difficult things? To put it another way,
can we thank God for the bad things that happen to us? You might ask, "Should we thank God for
the bad things that happen to us?"
As I mentioned earlier, we cannot ignore Eph. 5:20, which speaks of
thanking God always for all things. Yes,
"all things" includes the bad things.
I remind you again of how thanking the Lord and rejoicing in Him go hand
in hand. While we don't have so many
specifics about thanking God for bad circumstances, we are commanded to rejoice
in Him in the midst of severe tribulation.
Let's take a specific incident as an example. Paul and Silas were engaged in what we often
call "the first missionary journey."
During that campaign they came to the city of Philippi. You may remember that they shared the good
news of Jesus with a woman named Lydia.
As a result, she and her family were saved and baptized. Best we can tell, her conversion didn't cause
any problems for Paul and Silas. But
shortly after, a girl with an evil spirit began to follow them around. When Paul cast the evil spirit out of her,
she was no longer able to practice the Satanic fortune-telling that brought a
good income to the men who owned her.
Because they perceived that Paul was the cause of their financial loss,
they grabbed him and Silas, beat them, and had them thrown into prison. The very next words read like this: "But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing
hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them" (Acts 16:25). We are not told that they were giving
thanks, but surely that is the attitude that accompanies their rejoicing in the
Lord.
You might say, "But
that doesn't prove they were thanking God for the circumstances, only that
they were rejoicing in the circumstances."
You're right. I cannot prove that
Paul and Silas were thanking God for giving them the privilege of sitting in
that jail cell, but I believe they were doing just that. But why?
Why should we thank God when bad things happen to us? That is a very appropriate question, and it
has a very clear answer.
Please turn to the last
part of Romans 8, that passage that is so encouraging to us. Let's read again Rom. 8:31-39...
What then shall
we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did
not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with
Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall
bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he
who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is
written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as
sheep for the slaughter." 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through
Him who loved us. 38For I am
persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor
powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height
nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Praise God that nothing can separate us from His love in
Christ. That does not mean that nothing
will try to separation us from God's love in Christ. According to verse 35, there could be
distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword. Those living beings trying to sever us from
God's love include angels, principalities,
and powers. Though we are secure
in the love of God, that does not mean that life will be a picnic. We know this, and we know it well. The question is simply this: How will we view all the bad things that come
into our life? Yes, we are to give
thanks in the midst of all those circumstances, but how shall we regard the
circumstances themselves?
That takes us back to Rom. 8:28-29, "And we
know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who
are the called according to His purpose. 29 For
whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son,
that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." We have been over this passage numerous
times, but its message is so refreshing that it should never cease to amaze
us. According Eph. 5:20, our lifestyle
is to be one of giving thanks always for all things. Why?
Because all things work together for good to those who love God, to
those who are the called according to His purpose. What could be simpler? God takes the "all things" that
come into our lives, and He uses them for our good. No matter what confronts you, if you love God
and are among those who are called according to His purpose, God will use that
circumstance for your good. Is that not
sufficient reason to thank Him for it?
Remember that we walk by faith, not by sight. If we forget that, we begin to think that we
have to be able to figure out HOW God can use it for good. And if I can't figure it out, then just
possibly God can't use it for good in my life.
Do I trust my own reasoning, or do I trust the promise of God?
The other thing we must do is define the "good"
of verse 28. If God works everything
together for our good, then what is our good?
Too often the "good" is defined to mean our comfort or
happiness. Brothers and sisters, we
don't have to speculate, because the Lord clearly defines the "good"
for us in the next verse: "For whom
He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His
Son." When God chose us to be His
own, He predestined that we should become like Jesus. Suppose someone slanders you and ruins your
name and reputation. If you think the
good is your comfort, you will question God.
But if you understand that God is working in everything to make you like
Jesus, then you can trust Him to use even this for that glorious purpose.
I realize there are hard questions involved with this
issue. Am I to thank God for a tragic
car wreck that takes the person whom I love the most? Am I to thank God when cancer strikes me or
someone I love? Am I to thank God that
wicked men are persecuting my brothers and sisters and even killing them for
their faith? Those questions seem
difficult, until I ask another question:
"Can I thank God for the death of my Lord Jesus Christ?" Yes, I do indeed thank God that Jesus died
for me. Listen to me. There is no tragedy, no injustice, that will
ever compare with the death of Jesus. If
I can thank God for the crucifixion of Jesus, then I can thank Him for anything
and everything.
I said we are to thank God for the bad things, but the
truth is that ultimately there are no bad things that come into the life of the
believer. Do you know why? Because nothing will ever confront you that
hasn't come through the hand of God. He
only gives you what He will use to conform you to the image of Christ. We read in Prov. 12:21, "There
shall no evil happen to the just."
How can that be? If God uses it
to make us like Jesus, how can it be called evil? When we are just, when we have the righteousness
of Christ, God works everything for our good.
He uses every circumstance to make us like Christ. What could be more appropriate for us than to
always thank Him for all things?
Conclusion
The wisdom of man would tell us that it is foolish to give
thanks always for all things. It doesn't
make sense, says the world. But from the
perspective of the Word of God, who is all wise, it is the only thing that
makes sense for the believer. Anything
less is foolishness.
Having said that, I must now remind us that there is more
to the story. We are commanded to give
thanks in all things. It makes perfect
spiritual sense to do so. But is at this
point that we are faced with the reality that apart from Christ, we can do nothing. It isn't enough to know what is right; the
key is doing what is right. It is one
thing to say, "I fully realize that the Lord wants me to give thanks when
I lose my job, to give thanks for that difficult trial that confronts me. It is quite another to actually give thanks
in those circumstances."
Now let's come back to Ephesians 5. This time let's begin in verse 18. Eph. 5:18-21...
And do not
be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to
one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody
in your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21submitting
to one another in the fear of God.
In
verse 18 we are commanded to be filled with the Spirit, literally, "Be
being filled with the Spirit." I
must confess that I don't know everything about being filled with the Spirit. It is certainly a condition in which the
Spirit has His way in the life of the believer.
What I want you to notice this morning is how being filled with the
Spirit is related to verses 19-21. The
only commands in these verses are:
"Don't be drunk with wine" and "Be filled with the
Spirit." There are no commands in
verses 19-21. Translations that turn
them into commands are very misleading.
These participial phrases in verses 19-21 do not stand alone; they are
dependent upon being filled with the Spirit.
Some
people take it to mean that in order to be filled with the Spirit, we should
strive to do these four things. Be
filled with the Spirit by speaking to one another in psalms, hymns and
spiritual songs, by singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, by
giving thanks always for all things, and by submitting to one another in the
fear of God. Others see these four
phrases as the evidence that one is being filled with the Spirit. That is the way I tend to take it, though the
first option is also a possibility.
Whichever way you take it, these four activities are closely connected
with being filled with the Spirit.
What
this tells us is that it is only through the power of the Spirit in our lives
that we can do these things. Thinking
specifically of giving thanks, we must understand that it is impossible to
always give thanks for all things apart from the Spirit's work in our
lives.
Notice
that this giving of thanks is in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. "In the name of" is more than a
little formula that we recite, just as it true of praying in Jesus' name. Jesus' name speaks of His character and
everything He stands for. This is
another way of saying that we cannot always give thanks for all things in our
own strength. So what is it we need --
the power of Jesus or the filling of the Spirit? The two cannot be separated, because the Holy
Spirit is the Spirit of Christ.
Brothers
and sisters, we will never be able to always give thanks for all things through
determination and working harder. It is
impossible. Rather, this is an attitude
that springs from within. It is the
overflow of the Spirit pouring the life of Christ through us. This thanksgiving is a result of continually
coming to Jesus and drinking from Him.
Let's
close with Matt. 26:26-28, "And as they were eating,
Jesus took bread, blessed and broke
it, and gave it to the disciples and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body.' 27 Then He
took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all
of you. 28 For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for
many for the remission of sins.'"
Notice that Jesus took the cup and gave thanks. This was more than just a ritual thanksgiving
blessing over the cup at the Passover meal.
Jesus went on to say, "All of you, drink it, because this is my
blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the forgiveness of
sins." His apostles didn't
understand, but Jesus understood perfectly that the cup He was blessing was His
own death. He was thanking God that He
would be the sacrifice for our sins. He
was not just thanking God for delivering Israel from bondage in Egypt; He was
thanking God that He would be true Passover Lamb who would deliver His people
from sin, and that meant going to the cross pouring out His life on our behalf.
"O Father, make us like Jesus our Lord. So work in us by your Spirit that we will
thank you, as our lives are poured out on behalf of others for your
glory."
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