Latest / Reformed Thinking / Between the Comings: Rejoicing, Praying, and Giving Thanks as God’s Will in Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18)

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Between the Comings: Rejoicing, Praying, and Giving Thanks as God’s Will in Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reformed thinking. If you've spent any real time in
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  the New Testament, you probably recognize the three most rapid
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  fire commands that Paul gives. They're right near the end of
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  his first letter to the Thessalonians.
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  They're like these three little bolts of spiritual electricity,
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  all packed into just three verses.
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  First Thessalonians 5.16 through 18, he's writing to this young
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  church, a church that's living under a lot of pressure, and he
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  tells them to, well, rejoice always pray without ceasing and
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  give thanks in all circumstances.
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  You know, on the surface they sound pretty simple, but when
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  you actually try to live them out, you realize they're,
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  they're massive difficulty and their spiritual depth.
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  So the Thessalonians, they were waiting for Christ's return, but
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  they had to figure out how to persevere, you know, while they
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  waited. And our goal in this deep dive
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  is to really get how these instructions function.
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  They aren't spiritual hobbies. They're not just, you know, tips
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  for moments of spiritual ecstasy.
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  They are, I think, the settled orientation, the constant
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  posture of a people who are anchored in Christ.
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  It's so easy for the Christian life to shrink down to just,
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  well, fleeting moods or these really complicated self
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  generated methods. But Paul gives us something
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  much, much sturdier Here. We're going to look at how this
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  triad of commands acts as the church's steady pulse.
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  You could almost call it the spiritual heartbeat that
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  sustains holiness and unity and a clear witness while we live
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  what theologians call life between the comings of Christ.
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  And that framing, you know, as a steady pulse, that is just what
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  the grammar and the context suggests me.
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  Paul has been moving systematically toward this.
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  This is closing exportation. He spent the first part of
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  chapter 5 giving this high level doctrinal instruction all about
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  the day of the Lord, making it clear that Christ's return is
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  certain. Right.
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  So be watchful. Be watchful, be sober, and then
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  immediately before our verses, the focus gets really practical.
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  It's all about ethical readiness inside the congregation.
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  That's where you find the instructions about respecting
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  your leaders, admonishing the idle, encouraging the faint
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  hearted, you know, seeking peace with everyone.
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  That's all on the horizontal plane.
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  How we deal with other people. How we deal with people exactly.
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  But then there's a sharp pivot. He makes it verse 16 with these
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  3 short commands. Rejoice, pray, give thanks.
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  He just abruptly moves from those horizontal relationships
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  right back to the vertical orientation.
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  He's defining how we must continually respond toward God
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  himself and this triad. It's a single unified block.
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  It's the necessary continuous posture of the believer before
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  the Lord. It has to persist through every
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  high and every low. Let's let's spend some time on
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  the structure itself, because I think the way Paul actually
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  writes these commands, it tells us something vital about how
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  we're supposed to receive them. You mentioned they're short.
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  He uses what are called staccato imperatives.
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  They're crisp. They're punchy.
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  I think of them like 3 clear rhythmic notes in music.
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  They're designed to be, you know, easily memorized, recited
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  and just absorbed by a church that probably didn't have easy
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  access to written texts. Right.
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  They had to hear it and remember.
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  It exactly. He doesn't give these long
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  reasoned explanations for each one.
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  He just issues the essential orders.
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  It's almost like a general giving critical battlefield
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  instructions. You do this, then you do that,
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  now the next thing. But what really makes them stand
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  out is the scope he gives to each one.
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  He uses these adverbial qualifiers and well, he doesn't
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  allow for any wiggle room, does he?
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  Not at all. He uses 3 separate modifiers to
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  basically say this posture applies to every single aspect
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  of your entire existence. You have always, which covers
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  time. I mean literally every hour
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  every day is supposed to be marked by this gladness.
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  Then you have without ceasing, which is about frequency.
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  So prior isn't a task you just complete and move on from.
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  Right, it's not a checklist item.
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  No, it's a continuous turning of the heart and then finally in
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  all circumstances, which covers every single situation, the good
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  and the bad. And this is so significant for
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  you, the listener, because it means the Christian life.
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  It's not compartmentalize. Paul is using these terms to
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  cover the whole of your experience.
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  So the take away is this. No season of life, no trial, no
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  blessing, no hour of boredom. None of it lies outside of God's
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  wise and good sovereign will. So no season is exempt from this
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  posture. None.
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  They aren't occasional virtues you practice when it's
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  convenient. They're meant to be the constant
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  rhythm of a life that has lived in union with Christ.
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  And this, well, this leads us right to the structural reason
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  we can't treat these as 3 isolated spiritual exercises.
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  We read them as three separate duties.
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  You know, joy on Monday, prayer on Tuesday, gratitude on
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  Wednesday. We're going to fail.
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  We have to fail because they feed into each other, I can see.
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  Why people separate them though? I mean, they feel like separate
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  tasks. When I'm happy, I rejoice.
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  When I need something, I pray. When I get something, I give
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  thanks. That just feels intuitive.
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  It feels intuitive, you're right, but it's actually a
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  recipe for exhaustion and Paul's syntax, it argues against that
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  kind of separation. Just look at how he finishes the
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  triad in verse 18. He says for this is the will of
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  God in Christ Jesus for you. The word he uses there for this
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  and in the Greek is the demonstrative pronoun tuto.
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  And a key linguistic insight here is that when Paul uses
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  Tuco, he's most naturally gathering U of the whole of the
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  preceding actions versus 1617 and 18 A.
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  All of it gets bundled into one unified whole.
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  A single idea A. Single idea God's will isn't
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  just that you try to be thankful once in a while.
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  So he's saying all of this together, the gladness, the
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  dependence, and the submission, all of this is the unified
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  posture God wants. Precisely, they form a single
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  unit that defines the believers necessary orientation.
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  It's gladness, dependence, and submission to God's ruling hand.
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  Trying to generate joy without sustained prayer or trying to be
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  thankful without recognizing the source of your joy.
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  It's a spiritual impossibility. They stand or fall as one.
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  And what's more, even though these are active commands, you
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  know, things we must do, we see that they presuppose divine
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  empowerment. This is absolutely critical for
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  the listener, especially if you've ever felt that crushing
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  weight of trying to just self generate these spiritual
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  realities. Right, yeah.
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  If you're told to rejoice always, but you're going
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  through, I don't know, a dark night of the soul, that command
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  feels crushing. You feel like a failure because
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  you can't just magically summon the emotion.
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  Exactly right. The source material shows us
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  that Paul isn't commanding us to find joy in our own emotional
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  resources. We are commanded to rejoice in
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  the Lord. We aren't told to pray in our
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  own strength, but as Paul says elsewhere, to pray in the
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  Spirit. I see.
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  And our Thanksgiving is offered to God the Father.
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  Through him, the whole triad is framed and sustained by the
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  Trinity's ongoing work in the believer's life.
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  So it's not self help with a religious veneer.
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  Not at all. It's spirit worked.
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  Obedience, the very form of these short heartbeats, teaches
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  us that the life of faith is a steady rhythm sustained by
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  grace, not a series of extraordinary self generated
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  efforts. And that structural observation,
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  it really sets the stage for everything else we're going to
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  discuss. OK, so let's turn our attention
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  to that first imperative Rejoice always.
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  It's a powerful word choice, and we need to get its weight.
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  Paul isn't making a suggestion here to people who are just
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  naturally cheerful optimists. This is an imperative.
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  It's an order to the whole congregation.
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  And because of that, rejoicing is an act of spiritual
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  obedience. It means actively engaging in
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  repentance from all the things that subtly sabotage our spirit.
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  You know that pervasive grumbling we all do, The low
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  grade cynicism, envy toward other people's circumstances,
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  and that unbelieving anxiety that insists we have to worry
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  about tomorrow to control it? And this is where we have to
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  make a very careful distinction, the distinction between biblical
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  joy and just emotional happiness.
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  If Paul commanded constant happiness, he would be
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  contradicting the entire rest of Scripture, which makes plenty of
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  room for godly sorrow, for lament, for tears.
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  The prophets lamented. The Psalms are full of complaint
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  and suffering. Christ himself was called a man
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  of sorrows. OK, so this can't be just a
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  feeling. No.
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  So if Paul tells us to rejoice always, it has to be something
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  deeper than the surface waves of emotion.
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  Christian joy is the settled gladness of faith.
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  It's an anchored delight in God's established character and
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  his certain promises. So the joy remains even when the
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  sorrow is real. It's like a dual reality, you
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  know, being sorrowful and yet always rejoicing, as Paul
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  described somewhere else. How can a listener experience
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  both of those at the same time? I think it's the difference
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  between the tide and the anchor. Your emotional state is the
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  tide. It ebbs and flows dramatically
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  based on what's happening right now.
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  The settled gladness of faith. As the anchor, it holds firm
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  because it's secure in the promises of God, not in the
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  quality of the surrounding water.
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  I. Like that?
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  So biblical joy is not the denial of pain, it is the
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  refusal to enthrone that pain as the ultimate defining reality of
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  your life. It's a confession that no matter
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  what losses you experience, Christ is still supreme and His
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  promises cannot be revoked. And when we talk about the
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  ground of this joy, it has to be located entirely in Christ, as
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  you said earlier. So what does that specifically
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  guard us from, practically speaking, in our culture today?
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  It guards us from two really common modern errors.
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  First, it powerfully rejects shallow optimism.
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  We live in a culture that's just saturated with a prosperity
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  instinct, which subtly teaches that if life treats you well,
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  you know if you're healthy and financially secure and
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  comfortable, then you can be happy.
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  Right. Your circumstances determine
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  your joy. The gospel flicks that
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  completely. It says, because I have treated
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  you with infinite mercy in Christ, you must rejoice
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  regardless of whether your bank account is full or your body is
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  failing. Joy is a fitting rational
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  response to an accomplice redemption.
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  It's independent of immediate ease.
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  So it's rooted in something that happened 2000 years ago, not in
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  something that happens to you this morning.
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  That's it. It turns joy from a reward for
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  good circumstances into a duty that's required by the gospel.
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  A duty that flows from grace, though.
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  Yes, a duty that flows from grace.
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  And 2nd, locating joy in Christ guards us from a kind of cold
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  stoicism. We sometimes confuse spiritual
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  maturity with emotional detachment, a sort of stiff
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  upper lip coldness. But the gospel produces a
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  living, vibrant affection for a living Savior.
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  A Christian shouldn't be numb. We should weep with those who
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  weep and yet at the same time hold fast to the conviction that
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  the object of our joy is unchanging.
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  The Father's love is secured. The sun's intercession does not
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  fail. The spirit ceiling is not
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  fragile. The permanence of the object
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  makes the gladness possible even when the feelings are struggling
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  to keep up. That makes the joy rational.
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  You also mentioned that joy is eschatological.
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  Now, for anyone unfamiliar with that term, it means it's related
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  to the end times or our future hope.
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  So how does the future certainty of Christ's return make me glad
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  today? Think of it this way.
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  Eschatology is about the final victory.
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  We are commanded to rejoice always because we know the end
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  of the story. The joy we experience now is a
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  down payment. It's a partial, anticipatory
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  taste of the full, uninterrupted joy we will experience when
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  Christ returns. So we are drawing present
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  strengths from that future certainty.
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  If you know that in 50 years or 20 years or even tomorrow,
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  you'll be standing in the presence of unblemished glory,
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  clothed in righteousness, singing without weariness, while
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  that truth has to warm your worship now.
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  It's like standing in a cold, dark place but seeing the
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  sunrise on the horizon. The joy is fitting because the
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  darkness is only temporary and the light is coming.
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  And if this joy is a duty, a characteristic of the believer,
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  then it must by necessity shape the corporate culture of the
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  church. What does a rejoicing church
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  look like, especially when it's under duress?
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  A rejoicing church is not a congregation of gestures.
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  It's not a place focused on spectacular entertainment.
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  It is a people whose worship is genuinely warmed by theological
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  truth, the delight in God's character revealed in his Word,
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  in his acts, and this collective gladness.
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  It acts as a sort of spiritual immune system.
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  It's steadies the faint hearted. The person who's ready to give
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  up can look around and see others holding on to hope.
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  It kills that infectious spirit of grumbling, which we'll get to
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  more in the gratitude section. And it absolutely keeps the
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  church from degenerating into a cold, dry debating club.
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  Or just a political society focused only on earthly issues?
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  That's right. And when a congregation
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  struggles to by in this settled gladness, they often substitute
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  novelty, don't they? They substitute ceaseless manic
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  activity for a deeper devotion. Yeah, that is the temptation.
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  They try to manufacture excitement with spectacle, or
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  they try to perform cheerfulness rather than treasuring Christ.
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  Genuine, settled joy comes only from the substance of the
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  ordinary means of grace, the faithful preaching of the Word,
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  the right use of the Sacraments, and the Communion of Saints
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  leaning on the same promises. When these fade, the Church
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  becomes tired and joyless. So the practical application for
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  you, the listener, is not to just force a smile, it's to look
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  at the gospel. It calls for the repentance of
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  that subtle pride that believes God owes us comfortable
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  circumstances. And for the suffering believer,
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  it calls you to cling to the promises, to bring your honest
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  tears to God, confess your weakness, but still say, I will
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  set my will to rejoice in the Lord because my hope in Christ
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  is secure. That leads perfectly to the
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  second command. Pray without ceasing.
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  Joy is not something you sustain through sheer willpower or, you
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  know, repeated self talk. It's sustained by vital
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  communion with the living God. And prayer is simply the
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  necessary reflex of a believing, dependent heart.
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  It's faith's voice. But we absolutely have to
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  clarify what without ceasing means, because if a listener
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  tries to interpret that literally, they'll think Paul is
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  telling them to abandon their jobs, their family, their sleep,
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  and just live in perpetual audible prayer, which is clearly
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  impossible. And it contradicts the Bible's
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  teaching on ordinary human calling.
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  No, it's not about quantity or volume.
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  It's about posture and trajectory.
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  It describes A settled disposition of dependence, a
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  life lived in continual implicit reference to God.
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  OK. It means the believers heart
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  repeatedly turns toward God, returning to him naturally,
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  almost unconsciously, just as you return to breathing without
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  having to consciously think about the next breath.
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  Right. The praying Christian is the
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  believing Christian in motion, leaning on God, asking for help,
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  confessing failure, and submitting to God's wisdom
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  throughout the ordinary flow of the day.
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  It's the recognition, moment by moment, that we are not our own
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  masters. We were purchased at an infinite
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  cost. If the Christian life is like
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  walking a tightrope, then prayer is the constant minute
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  adjustment of balance. You aren't constantly shouting,
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  but you're constantly adjusting your weight toward the Father.
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  That's a good analogy. And this continuous posture, it
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  acts as a sharp correction to two widespread misunderstandings
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  of prayer, both ancient and modern.
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  OK, what are they? First, it corrects pragmatism
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  and prayer. Pragmatism views prayer as a
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  technique for getting specific outcomes, a spiritual lever to
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  control Providence. The idea is if I say the right
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  formula or achieve the right feeling, God has to comply and
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  give me the promotion or the healing.
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  Prayer is a transaction. Biblically, prayer is never a
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  technique is the child's humble approach to the Father who
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  already rules Providence wisely. The command is not an invitation
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  to anxiety driven talking, trying to fill up the silence
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  until God is forced to act. It's an invitation to Restful
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  dependence. So if I get it right, the
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  purpose of prayer isn't mainly to change God's mind, but to
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  align my heart with His wisdom. That's it.
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  And the Second Era guards against his mysticism.
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  That's the idea that prayer is chiefly the pursuit of private,
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  hidden revelations, or chasing subjective voices and feelings
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  in the dark. The Christian isn't praying for
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  divination or seeking secret knowledge.
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  They're praying for fellowship based on truth that's already
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  revealed in God's Word. Continuous prayer is rooted in
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  the known truth of God's revealed character, not the
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  unknown uncertainty of subjective feelings.
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  And connecting this back to the Thessalonians, this church
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  facing social pressure, persecution, discouragement, why
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  is prayer so necessary for watchfulness?
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  Because the pressures are constant, so the reliance has to
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  be constant. Jesus commanded us to watch and
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  pray that you may not enter into temptation.
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  If we stop praying, we cease watching our defenses drop and
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  we assume we are stronger than we are, right?
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  And this leads to the danger of prayerlessness, which we need to
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  call what it is. It's functional unbelief.
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  It's not just a weakness. It's the quiet working
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  assumption that says I can handle this life on my own.
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  I can strategize my way out of this dilemma, or I can just
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  endure it through grief. The gospel trains us to say the
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  opposite. If we were bought with a price.
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  Our lives have to be lived moment by moment under God's
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  gaze and with His necessary help.
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  The heart that fails to pray is confessing by its actions that
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  it doesn't really need God, and that heart will drift into
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  self-reliance, fear, or worldly coping mechanisms.
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  OK, let's get practical. If we aren't meant to live in a
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  monastery, how do we balance structure and spontaneity to
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  actually pray without ceasing we need?
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  Both. We absolutely need structure
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  because we are forgetful creatures.
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  We're easily distracted, easily discouraged.
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  So set times for prayer in the morning to dedicate the day, in
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  the evening for reflection, and especially in the gathered
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  worship of the church. These act as spiritual anchors.
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  They keep the soul moored to God when the waves get rough.
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  OK, but what about spontaneity? We need that too.
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  This is the moment by moment automatic reflex of fate.
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  These are the arrow prayers that rise instantly from the heart.
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  No, wait, if we rely too heavily on these arrow prayers, how do
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  we avoid them becoming just, I don't know, superstition or
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  magical thinking where we're just checking a box as we rush
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  through the day? That is a critical danger.
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  The key is that the spontaneous prayer has to be shaped by the
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  truth. It has to be shaped by the
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  scripture you read in your structured time and arrow.
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  Prayer shouldn't be a demand. It should be a confession of
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  need that's rooted in a promise. Can you give an example?
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  Sure, when temptation to anger rises, the spontaneous prayer
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  shouldn't be make this person stop annoying me.
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  It should be Lord You promised meekness to those who ask help
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  me endure this moment in the power of the Spirit.
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  When fear grips, the prayer is not make the danger vanish.
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  But Father, my life is hidden in Christ, and you are my refuge.
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  So the prayer itself is an act of remembering truth.
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  Yes, and we have to persist in prayer even when the answers are
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  delayed. We pray not because God is
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  reluctant, but because He is wise and sovereign, and He uses
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  the very act of waiting and asking to shape our character
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  and deep in our faith. And the corporate aspect here is
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  also vital, right, This posture of dependence.
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  It defines the character of the Church when it gathers.
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  Absolutely. A praying church is necessarily
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  a humble church because prayer is the confession of corporate
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  need. It's also a United Church
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  because intercession pulls believers out of petty rivalries
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  and forces them to share burdens, the surrounding
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  commands and Thessalonians, encouraging the faint hearted,
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  helping the weak. They are unsustainable without
• 19:12
  the constant engine of corporate prayer.
• 19:15
  When prayer fades in the church, we substitute human innovation
• 19:18
  and techniques for genuine devotion.
• 19:21
  The Lord appointed the word, sacraments and prayer as the
• 19:24
  channels for His strengthening grace.
• 19:27
  When we learn to pray without ceasing, we find that prayer
• 19:30
  doesn't just try to change external circumstances.
• 19:32
  It steadies the heart, it fortifies our obedience, and it
• 19:36
  sweetens the spirit of the Saint waiting for the king.
• 19:39
  And that brings us to the third command, which is in many ways
• 19:42
  the most challenging one. Give thanks in all
• 19:44
  circumstances, the phrase in all circumstances.
• 19:47
  That's the point of maximal pressure for the believer.
• 19:49
  It is, Paul means in every circumstance.
• 19:52
  When suffering is acute, when the future is dark, when
• 19:55
  opposition is intense. If we get this command wrong,
• 19:58
  we're either crushed by the weight of forced cheerfulness or
• 20:01
  we become cynical about it even being possible.
• 20:03
  Thanksgiving is not an accessory for easy days.
• 20:06
  It's an act of worship designed to survive and thrive in contact
• 20:10
  with real life altering pain. We have to be absolutely clear
• 20:13
  on what this command is not. It is not calling for a brittle
• 20:17
  positivity. It's not demanding the denial of
• 20:20
  honest sorrow. The Scriptures are not stoic.
• 20:23
  They are profoundly real about suffering.
• 20:27
  The believer who is suffering is permitted to grieve honestly and
• 20:30
  to lament bitterly. We are not commanded to call
• 20:33
  evil good, or to pretend that a major loss, a job, a loved one
• 20:38
  or your health is trivial. So what are we commanded to do?
• 20:41
  What does it mean to give thanks in the circumstance rather than
• 20:44
  for the circumstance? That linguistic distinction is
• 20:47
  everything the Greek word Eucharistite.
• 20:49
  It implies A deliberate, active acknowledgement of grace.
• 20:53
  It's a confession that God remains good within the
• 20:55
  circumstance, even if the circumstance itself is terrible.
• 20:59
  So Thanksgiving is the active, Worshipful submission that
• 21:02
  acknowledges that even when secondary gifts are removed, God
• 21:04
  continues to give the greatest gifts, His presence, His
• 21:07
  promises, and His sanctifying work.
• 21:09
  When my body is failing, I don't thank God for the disease, but I
• 21:13
  give thanks in the disease because Christ remains faithful,
• 21:16
  the Spirit remains present, and I am still bound for glory.
• 21:19
  This is where we need to spend some serious time on the
• 21:22
  theology that makes this rational.
• 21:24
  How does the reformed view of Providence make this command
• 21:28
  possible and sane? Thanksgiving in all
• 21:31
  circumstances is literally impossible if you believe the
• 21:34
  world is governed by blind chance or chaos or some
• 21:37
  struggling well meaning deity who isn't fully in control.
• 21:41
  The command only makes sense if you confess that the God of
• 21:44
  Scripture reigns absolutely. The Scriptures present a God who
• 21:48
  directs all things, from the steps of the mighty to the fall
• 21:50
  of a Sparrow, according to his wise and loving counsel.
• 21:54
  Suffering is never random, it's governed.
• 21:57
  And while God does not author the sin that causes some
• 22:00
  suffering, He governs all things, including sinful acts
• 22:04
  for holy, predetermined ends. Can you give us an example that
• 22:07
  illustrates that tension? Well, the best Old Testament
• 22:09
  example is Joseph. His brothers intended evil
• 22:12
  toward him. They sold him into slavery,
• 22:14
  intending harm, motivated by envy and hate.
• 22:17
  That was their sin. Yet decades later, when Joseph
• 22:19
  stands before them in power, he says, you meant evil against me,
• 22:22
  but God meant it for good. He doesn't deny the evil.
• 22:25
  He doesn't deny the evil, the betrayal, or the years of
• 22:28
  suffering in the pit, in the prison, but he interprets his
• 22:31
  life through the lens of God's governing wisdom.
• 22:34
  God took the malice of human hearts and used it as the
• 22:37
  necessary means to preserve a whole nation.
• 22:41
  His gratitude was based on hindsight, yes, but the posture
• 22:44
  of submission was necessary all along.
• 22:46
  And the clearest, most well, the most distinct demonstration of
• 22:50
  this truth has to be the cross itself.
• 22:52
  Absolutely. The crucifixion of Jesus was
• 22:54
  simultaneously the most wicked, darkest event in human history,
• 22:58
  the unjust murder of God's sinless Son.
• 23:01
  Yet Acts 2 and four both state explicitly that this act was
• 23:04
  according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.
• 23:07
  God took the supreme act of human malice and turned it into
• 23:10
  the brightest display of His saving purpose.
• 23:12
  If God can bring infinite good, eternal redemption, and ultimate
• 23:15
  victory out of the shame of Calvary, then He can be trusted
• 23:18
  utterly in our lesser sorrows. So the reason you can give
• 23:21
  thanks and trials is not because the trials feel pleasant.
• 23:23
  No, it's because God uses them to achieve His purpose, to
• 23:28
  conform His people to the image of Christ, to wean them from
• 23:32
  their idols, and to fix their hope on the coming Kingdom where
• 23:35
  trials will cease. Thanksgiving, therefore, is
• 23:38
  about interpreting life through the lens of God's wisdom, which
• 23:41
  is proven at the cross, rather than through the lens of our
• 23:44
  immediate comfort or pain. This gratitude posture also
• 23:47
  seems like a massive congregational safeguard.
• 23:49
  What happens when a church stops being thankful?
• 23:52
  It begins to grumble. And grumbling is not a
• 23:54
  personality quirk. It's a spiritual posture rooted
• 23:57
  in unbelief and entitlement that acts like a poison.
• 24:00
  It corrodes unity. It dims the church's witness to
• 24:02
  the world. A church that's characterized by
• 24:04
  constant murmuring becomes suspicious, harshly critical and
• 24:08
  easily offended. Assuming that God or their
• 24:10
  leaders owe them more comfort or more results.
• 24:13
  Or more ease and gratitude is the antidote.
• 24:16
  It kills envy. I can't truly envy my brother's
• 24:19
  blessings if I'm thankful for what God has given me.
• 24:22
  A quiet rivalry. And it trains the heart to
• 24:25
  receive what God provides rather than demanding what we feel
• 24:28
  entitled to. When Christians give thanks
• 24:31
  together, they are declaring we are not victims of chaos.
• 24:33
  We are children of a wise father.
• 24:36
  We need to acknowledge that entitlement.
• 24:38
  It's subtle, but it's always present in the human heart.
• 24:41
  That feeling that we deserve comfort and that God is somehow
• 24:45
  unfair when that comfort is removed.
• 24:47
  That is the core of it. We have to call for repentance
• 24:50
  from that entitlement, and we cultivate the opposite posture
• 24:53
  through discipline. And this discipline?
• 24:55
  It involves naming specific mercies in prayer, thanking God
• 24:58
  aloud and family life as a testimony, and crucially,
• 25:01
  keeping a mercies record, especially during affliction.
• 25:04
  What do you mean by that? When you were going through a
• 25:06
  difficult time, you need to actively look for the specific
• 25:10
  providences, the daily bread, the preserved faith, the timely
• 25:14
  encouragements, the specific promises that sustained you.
• 25:18
  This is an act of spiritual warfare against the natural
• 25:21
  human impulse to focus only on what has been lost.
• 25:24
  And the anchor has to always return to the gospel.
• 25:27
  Always, if God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us
• 25:31
  all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all
• 25:34
  things? That passage from Romans 8 is
• 25:37
  the rationale for Thanksgiving. Even when lesser gifts are
• 25:40
  stripped away, the greatest gift, Christ himself, remains
• 25:43
  secure. We give thanks not for the pain
• 25:46
  itself, but for the truth that God is faithful, Christ is
• 25:49
  reigning, and the affliction is being used for our ultimate
• 25:51
  good. This posture magnifies God even
• 25:54
  when we're walking through the darkest valley.
• 25:56
  This brings us to the final indispensable clause, the one
• 26:00
  that prevents the entire triad from collapsing into impossible
• 26:03
  moralism or idealistic self improvement.
• 26:06
  For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
• 26:08
  The word for acts as the rationale.
• 26:10
  It gives the theological grounds for the commands.
• 26:13
  Paul is telling the church that this radical posture, joy,
• 26:16
  prayer, gratitude is not just a nice idea, but God's reveal
• 26:22
  desire for his redeemed people. It's non negotiable but also
• 26:26
  entirely possible because of grace.
• 26:29
  And we have to pause to define the will of God here because
• 26:31
  Christians spend so much time worrying about this phrase.
• 26:34
  Paul is not referring primarily to God's secret decree, those
• 26:38
  hidden purposes by which God governs all things that we can't
• 26:40
  know until they happen. Right?
• 26:42
  He's pointing to God's revealed moral will, what God commands
• 26:46
  and what he approves of seeing in the lives of his people.
• 26:49
  He uses the same language earlier in the letter when he
• 26:51
  says this is the will of God, your sanctification.
• 26:54
  That distinction should bring immense clarity to the listener.
• 26:57
  So many people, especially younger believers, treat God's
• 27:00
  will as this mysterious code they have to crack.
• 27:03
  They worry endlessly about the right career, the right spouse,
• 27:06
  the right move. We call it decision idolatry.
• 27:09
  And Paul removes that pressure. He's not handing them a
• 27:12
  mysterious puzzle to solve about their geographical location 10
• 27:15
  years from now. He's handing them a path to walk
• 27:17
  today. God wills your holiness, which
• 27:20
  is expressed through this continuous Worshipful posture of
• 27:23
  joy, prayer, and gratitude. If you are focused on rejoicing
• 27:27
  and praying and giving thanks, you are living squarely within
• 27:30
  the center of God's revealed will for your life.
• 27:32
  So now we come to the key in Christ Jesus.
• 27:35
  This is the gospel key that unlocks the power.
• 27:38
  It shows us that obedience here is not a self improvement
• 27:40
  project using religious language.
• 27:43
  It is a new life flowing entirely from our union with the
• 27:46
  Lord. Yeah, the imperatives, the
• 27:48
  commands we must obey. They rest on the gospel
• 27:51
  indicatives, the objective facts of what Christ has already done
• 27:54
  for us. And if we attempt this triad
• 27:56
  apart from union with Christ, we fall into exhausting legalism.
• 27:59
  Legalism hears the command and concludes I must perform these
• 28:03
  perfectly to be loved or accepted by God.
• 28:05
  And the result is a cycle of shame, striving and burnout.
• 28:09
  Always the gospel replies that our acceptance, our
• 28:12
  justification, rests entirely on Christ's perfect obedience, not
• 28:17
  the quality or quantity of our current joy or prayer.
• 28:20
  Therefore, because you are already loved and accepted in
• 28:23
  Christ, you can and must obey, not to earn, but to express the
• 28:28
  life given to you. Let's try to integrate those 3
• 28:31
  theological benefits, justification, adoption, and
• 28:34
  sanctification, with the triad. How does this union with Christ
• 28:38
  make these three commands feasible in a single practical
• 28:41
  scenario? Let's take the example of a
• 28:42
  person facing a devastating financial loss.
• 28:44
  It's a. Great way to tie it together.
• 28:45
  The devastating loss immediately triggers fear, self pity, and
• 28:48
  anxiety. Right?
• 28:49
  So first, justification guards against performance anxiety.
• 28:53
  When the loss hits, the believer might think I must have done
• 28:56
  something wrong or I haven't prayed hard enough.
• 28:58
  But because of justification, because Christ's righteousness
• 29:01
  is permanently credited to them, they know they're standing with
• 29:04
  God is secure and independent of their financial success or
• 29:08
  failure. This truth is the deep settled
• 29:11
  anchor that allows them to reject self pity and choose to
• 29:14
  rejoice in God's character despite the external
• 29:17
  circumstances. OK, that covers rejoicing. 2nd
• 29:20
  adoption makes prayer natural. The loss creams intense need.
• 29:24
  If they were strangers, they might be afraid to approach God,
• 29:28
  but the adopted child approaches the Father, knowing that the
• 29:31
  Father loves them unconditionally.
• 29:33
  Prayer becomes the approach of a child running to a loving parent
• 29:36
  for help, not an anxious salesman trying to earn a
• 29:39
  hearing. This secures the continuous
• 29:41
  dependence required by praying without ceasing.
• 29:44
  And the things. 3rd Sanctification makes gratitude
• 29:48
  possible. The Spirit who is conforming the
• 29:50
  believer to Christ trains the heart to see the loss not as
• 29:53
  pointless destruction but as a severe mercy, a difficult tool
• 29:57
  God is using to deepen faith, kill material idolatry, and fix
• 30:02
  their hope heavenward. This sanctifying work makes them
• 30:05
  able to give thanks in the circumstance because they trust
• 30:08
  God is using it for their ultimate good.
• 30:10
  So the life commanded is genuinely the life God supplies.
• 30:13
  The strength doesn't come from anywhere within us.
• 30:16
  The Lord who commands rejoicing gives the joy itself.
• 30:19
  The Lord who commands unceasing prayer gives the Holy Spirit to
• 30:22
  help us pray in our weakness. It is the perfect balance.
• 30:25
  The Christian life is never passive.
• 30:27
  We are active. We strive, we obey, but we obey
• 30:30
  because of the grace that precedes and enables our
• 30:32
  striving. It's spirit enabled striving in
• 30:34
  the ordinary means of grace. The Word renews the mind.
• 30:37
  Prayer leans on God's strength, and corporate worship recenters
• 30:41
  the heart on the crucified and risen Christ.
• 30:43
  If a church tries to obey these commands using purely human
• 30:46
  techniques, manufactured enthusiasm, or forced
• 30:49
  self-discipline, they will eventually become hollow and
• 30:52
  exhausted. But when a church lives truly in
• 30:55
  Christ Jesus, these imperatives become the natural, necessary
• 30:59
  expression of their communion with them.
• 31:01
  Joy is the essential melody of faith, prayer is its continuous
• 31:04
  breathing, and Thanksgiving is its ready speech.
• 31:08
  And Paul finishes that sentence with appointed for You,
• 31:11
  addressing not just isolated individuals, but the covenant
• 31:14
  community. This means we are called to
• 31:17
  sustain this posture together so that as a community, the church
• 31:20
  doesn't collapse into despair and suffering or drift into
• 31:23
  complacent forgetfulness and prosperity.
• 31:26
  That's right. That brings us full circle to
• 31:28
  the image we started with the steady pulse of the church.
• 31:31
  Paul's triad rejoicing, praying and thanking is the spirit
• 31:35
  taught integrated posture of people living between the
• 31:38
  comings of Christ. The world around us is
• 31:40
  circumstance driven. Its feelings, its actions, its
• 31:43
  beliefs are all dictated by the latest headline or personal
• 31:46
  trauma. The church, because of its union
• 31:48
  with Christ, is Christ anchored. The call Paul issues is simple,
• 31:52
  yet it's searching for every believer.
• 31:54
  It requires active repentance. Repent of joyless cynicism, that
• 31:59
  spirit of unbelieving self-reliance that expresses
• 32:01
  itself in prayerlessness, and the subtle, thankless
• 32:05
  entitlement that measures God's goodness solely by our comfort.
• 32:09
  The path forward is to return to the ordinary means of grace, the
• 32:13
  faithful reading of the Word, genuine private and corporate
• 32:16
  prayer and gathering for worship, and just let these
• 32:19
  virtues mature in the soil of your union with Christ.
• 32:22
  And we finish with the great tension.
• 32:24
  This passage highlights the difference between the posture
• 32:27
  of the world demands and the posture Christ enables.
• 32:30
  The world says, Be ruled by what happens to you.
• 32:33
  Let the immediate circumstances dictate your mood and your
• 32:35
  action. Christ, speaking through Paul,
• 32:38
  says, simply live from me. And when the Church embraces
• 32:41
  this unified posture, it makes them ready and steady, radiant
• 32:45
  in trial, humble and blessing, and watchful in hope, until the
• 32:48
  day faith becomes sight and our present imperfect gladness,
• 32:51
  dependence and gratitude are swallowed up in everlasting
• 32:54
  praise.