1 Thessalonians 5:12-28
Well, Christmas is almost upon is. Next Sunday we will have our carol service. Everyone is going about making preparations – all the rush and bustle of the pre-Christmas period. Some of us have already had more than one Christmas dinner!
With all this bustling activity how can we keep the true spirit of Christmas?
The first thing is surely to come to church and to worship Jesus Christ. That is what we are doing today and we can find in the New Testament many passages which offer guidelines for living the Christian life. One of them is in our reading from 1 Thessalonians today. Paul gives advice on how the followers of Jesus Christ should behave. If we follow these guidelines we will be living as true Christians and keeping the true spirit of Christmas.
I Thessalonians 5:16-24
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.
How?
Now there seem to be some very difficult commandments here. How can you “rejoice always”, or “pray without ceasing” or “give thanks in all circumstances”? it just seems impossible, doesn’t it?
The first thing we should note is that these words are intended for committed Christian believers – they are for those within the church. Can you imagine the response of the outsider to these words? What would a non-Christian say?
“Rejoice always? Are you kidding? Who can do that? Should anyone ever do that? Isn’t that just plain denial, a refusal to deal with the present moment?
Pray without ceasing? Who can do this? That will give you camel knees? Besides, isn’t there too much work to be done to just waste time mumbling in the dirt?
Give thanks in all circumstances? Whose side are you on anyway? O yeah, slap me again, it felt so good.
Do not quench the spirit? Now there’s one I can agree with. This is the time of season to be merry and to party. Let’s break out the spirits!
The rejoicing, praying, giving thanks in the Spirit are things done by insiders; that is, by those who know something about the present circumstances that can only be known by faith.” - (Comment by preacher from the Internet.)
The point is that to those who are outside the life of faith, those words are ridiculous. But to those who are inside they not only make sense, they give purpose to life.
Looking from the inside
Inside is different from outside. It’s a bit like Dr. Who’s “Tardis”. From the outside it’s just an old-fashioned 1960s police telephone box. But inside it is a vast hi-tech ship capable of traveling through time and space. It’s totally different inside. So is the life of faith.
Let’s try and look at these words then from within the faith.
”It is not who you are or what you were that is of interest to God but what you desire to be.” –St. Gregory.
It’s your aspirations which matter. And these words are aspirational. We may not always be able to achieve the standard set out here by Paul but we will try. We will aspire to be true followers of Jesus.
To capture the true spirit of Christmas we must:
1) Rejoice always
Now this doesn’t mean we have to go around like Pollyanna, denying the reality of evil (although to be fair to Pollyanna the little girl in the story, that’s not what she did, she just looked for the positive in everything).
It doesn’t mean we have to go about with a great big grin on our face and smile in all circumstances. No, that is something which people who do not know the Lord may have to do. They may have to be in denial about the realities of life. The Christian, on the other hand, knows how to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. The person of this world can only cope with its problems by denying them. The so called “joy” of this world is not really joy - it is happiness. And happiness, by its very nature, is temporary.
Note that the word “happy” is derived from “hap” or circumstance. So when good things happen to you you are happy, when bad things happen you are unhappy. It’s all a matter of “hap” or chance. But Christian joy is more than just happiness.
One preacher puts it this way:
“Outsiders have never experienced the presence of the Holy One. They base their joy on their physical and relational circumstances. Relationships always change, they are like rollercoasters. (Which is why basing marriage on romantic love is so silly) Our joy is based on our experience of the Divine…
Most of our culture is based on selling each other joy [or rather: happiness], prepackaged, easy to use. But the toys always break, the sex appeal fades, they stop laughing at my jokes, and sooner or even sooner some really bad stuff happens. Only God remains. Only God is faithful. “
Our joy is something much deeper. We can hold on to it under trial and temptations because we know the presence of God in our lives. We know he loves us – he sent his Son to be born in a stable and to die on a cross. Whatever happens to us in this life we know there is a better world coming. To paraphrase an advertising slogan: “The future’s bright: the future’s” … no, not Orange. Rather, the future is suffused with the golden glow of eternity.
The Apostle Paul could rejoice even while he was in prison and we also can learn to rejoice, even in the setbacks of life.
2) Pray without ceasing
No, it doesn’t mean going around mumbling prayers all day long. I think it means: don’t give up praying, don’t get so discouraged that you stop taking things to the Lord in prayer. He is with us at all times and there is no time or place in the world we can not pray to him. For some people, their time of prayer is just when they kneel down at their bedside to say their prayers. For others there is the realization that we can talk to God in a conversational way throughout the day. We don’t have to pray out loud – God reads all our thoughts.
So I think this instruction is about having a prayerful attitude in all that we do.
3) Give thanks in all circumstances
Once again we seem to be back to Pollyanna – the relentlessly cheerful orphan in the story who found an occasion for thankfulness in everything. Have you seen the film of it, starring Hayley Mills aged 12?
It’s quite a good film really. Pollyanna’s parents had been missionaries in the West Indies. She had wanted a doll for Christmas so they asked the Mission Society to send one for their little girl. When the parcel arrived they discovered there had been a mix-up – it was a pair of crutches, not a doll. Pollyanna was upset but her Father said “Let’s play the Glad Game - think of something you can be thankful for.”
“What’s good about having a pair of crutches?” she said.
“Well you can be thankful you don’t need to use them!” said her father.
I’m not saying we should all be like Pollyanna’s father, or like Pollyanna herself – there is something off-putting about relentless cheerfulness. But there is also such a thing as a positive attitude to life.
If we believe God loves us and he is working out his divine purposes then we can find things to be thankful for in the circumstances of life. In the film Pollyanna and her father had made a game of it – the Glad Game. Always look for the silver lining in the cloud. It is surely a good thing to cultivate a positive, optimistic attitude. Look for the things for which you can thank God.
(Remember: this is meant to be aspirational – I do appreciate that we do not always manage to achieve it.)
4) Do not quench the Spirit
No, it doesn’t mean “drink your whiskey neat”! It refers to the way we can hinder the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. By a lack of faith, or by negative attitudes, we can fail to take hold of the spiritual gifts he has for us.
There is a story about a man who had a dream of heaven. An angel showed him into a room, the walls of which were lined with cubby holes. inside each cubby hole was a parcel, all wrapped up. “Who are all these presents for?”, said the man.
“These are all the spiritual blessings and gifts the Lord wanted to give you in your lifetime, but you didn’t take hold of them!” said the angel.
Yes, we can quench the Spirit if we are too proud to accept what God offers us. If we try to live the Christian life in our own strength.
5) Do not despise the words of prophets
This is linked with the previous one. God has given gifts of prophecy to some people. He can use them to convey his words. Prophecy can come in different ways, I think:
- it might be the words of a preacher in a sermon
- it might be the words of Scripture
- it might be that someone really feels they just have to say something to us.
All these can be forms of prophecy. “Now, if God is speaking to you”, Paul says, “don’t despise what he says. Listen to the way he wants your life to go”.
But, of course, not every prophecy is true. Not everyone who says, “The Lord told me this”, is speaking the truth.sometimes they are deceiving, and sometimes they are self-deceived so:-
6) Test everything
Check up on whether it really is from God. How can we know? Ask yourself:
- does it agree with the teaching of the Bible?
- does the prophecy ring true? If specific facts were given, did they turn out to be true? Did any predictions come about?
- What about the lifestyle of the person who brings the message. Are they godly, are they honest, are they loving, are they humble?
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. (Matthew 7: 15-16)
Jesus tells us it’s by the way a person lives their life and by he things they do that we shall know if they are genuine.
Test everything – don’t be gullible – don’t be taken in by every new and trendy teaching.
7) Hold fast to what is good and abstain from every form of evil
It’s not just a matter of exercising discernment, we must live godly, honest and loving lives also.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable— if anything is excellent or praiseworthy— think about such things. (Philippians 4:8)
We need to concentrate on the things that are good and wholesome (and that seems to have brought us back to Pollyana again!)
Conclusion
As Paul draws near to the end of his epistle he pronounces a benediction on his hearers and readers:
May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.
(Thessalonians 5:23-24)
You see, it’s not a matter of struggling hard to live up to these commands it’s God who will do it in us. He will do the work of sanctification by his Holy Spirit, we do not rely on our own strength. And as we live our lives we are looking forward the return of our Lord when we shall be with him for eternity.
[Sermon first preached in 2008.]
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