12/15/19 1 Thess. 5:16-24 “Nothing Fake Here!”

13 Dec 12/15/19 1 Thess. 5:16-24 “Nothing Fake Here!”

12/15/19     1 Thess. 5:16-24    “Nothing Fake Here!”

We are finally getting close to Christmas.  How is everyone doing?  I hope that there isn’t too much stress for you this holiday.  I once knew a couple who lived far away from Fargo that would almost take all the joy out of Christmas.  They couldn’t do this and they couldn’t do that.  They didn’t have enough money for the dinner but they had to cook it even though they didn’t have enough room for the 12+ people who were coming for dinner.  This poor couple would get so worked up about all these minor little details that they totally forgot the reason we celebrate.  Jesus Christ was born over 2000 years ago so that you and I and this poor couple could get our salvation by just believing that Jesus was exactly who He said He was.  If you find yourself out of sorts like this during the next few days and it does happen, just take a step back and settle down into the arms of Jesus for a few moments.  Things will be better.  Today we are going to look at some of the things that Jesus gives us.  Unfortunately, we don’t always accept them as this poor couple had forgotten everything Jesus had taught them.  Let’s see if we can listen, follow and obey these few things that will make your life so much better.  It’s all about perspective.

I don’t know where this story originated but there was once a blind boy who sat on the steps of a building with a hat and a sign that said, “I am blind, please help.”  There were only a couple of coins in his hat when a man stopped and took a few coins from his pocket and put them in the hat.  Then the man took the sign and wrote something on the backside.  He then set the new sign out so all could see it and he walked away.

Soon the hat began to fill up as more and more people were giving money to this blind boy.  Later in the day the man who changed the sign came back to see how things were going.  The boy recognized the footsteps of the man and asked, “Were you the one who changed my sign this morning?  What did you write?”  The man replied, “I only wrote the truth.  I said what you said in your sign but in a different way.  I wrote ‘Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it.’”  Both signs said basically the same thing but the second sign reminded people that they were so lucky they weren’t blind.  Is it any wonder that the second sign was more effective?  It’s all perspective just like the couple I just referred to a moment ago.

This sermon is going to be about perspective.  There is enough material here for many sermons but I’m going to try to put these ideas together a little so we can see the big picture.  We begin by saying be joyful always.  Wow!  Is that ever a statement!  You have heard me say this many times that you cannot have joy without Jesus Christ and you are in charge of whether or not you have joy.  Now here we have it again in the Bible.  Now don’t get me wrong here.  If you don’t have Jesus Christ living in your heart, you can still have some sort of semblance to joy but it’s not the real thing.  This is one of those points that non-believers will argue.  They will claim that they have joy and happiness and all that goes with this but they don’t.  They may have all the joy that they can attain in this world but it pales, absolutely pales in comparison to what we can have in Jesus Christ.

Now I realize that you cannot be joyful all the time.  I get that because we are human.  However, I don’t think that we have to be joyless.  This is a very bad place to be.   Being joylessness inevitably leads to selfishness and an innate inability to see the good in others. When we are joyless, we are not able to praise anyone or anything!  I think that usually you can see joy on people.  It just flows out of them.  Try this sometime.  When you are in a crowd or if you see a crowd on TV, push the pause button and look at their faces.  I guarantee that you won’t see a lot of joy because it’s not there most of the time in daily transactions.

People, Jesus wants you to be joyful all the time!  Joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit.  These aren’t gifts for just some of us.  These fruits are things that we should all strive for in our lives.  The reason for this is that you will have a better life if you have the fruit of joy.  Last summer I asked you to pray for another fruit, patience.  Some of you did and the results were wonderful.  Today I’m asking you to pray for joy.  I once again guarantee that you will like the results.  Having joy or not is totally up to you.  If you don’t have it, then ask Jesus for help.  There is a whole sermon on this but we have to move ahead.

The next thing Paul tells us to do is also something that I stress all the time.  I could be one of the most important things that you ever learn to do.  I just asked you to pray for joy and now I ask you to pray continually.  This is not as hard as it seems.  What we are talking about here is the ability to keep Jesus on your mind in all that you do.  It’s not that hard but it does take a little training because the evil one definitely doesn’t want you to do this.  As you are out in the world, try to look at everything from the standpoint of Jesus.  The old saying of “What would Jesus do?” is really a good saying for life.  Now I don’t want you to wear a wristband or a piece of jewelry that says this unless it helps you to actually do this.  I used to tell the confirmation classes that the only bad prayer was the one not prayed.  Jesus doesn’t care about how your prayer sounds or if it is just right according to some human source.  Just pray.  I remember when I first became a Christian and I asked Jesus how to pray.  Do you know what He said?  He said you are praying now.  It’s not hard plus it’s very effective for you and those you pray for.

We all know of the early Christian leader, Constantine.  Anyway, when he was young he was anything but Christian.  He was pretty wild even by our standards.  He partied and indulged in all kinds of sinful behavior.  However, he had a mother who loved God and she prayed for him every day for 30 years.  Finally he saw the uselessness of his life and turned it over to Jesus Christ.  Prayer works.  This could almost be my story as I didn’t come to know Jesus until I was about 40 years old and totally broken.  Anyway, keep praying.

Now we come to the third part of this opening where we are to give thanks in all circumstances.  You are probably asking yourself, “You got to be kidding me, Pastor John.”  I’m absolutely serious about this one and the others we just talked about.  As we have been making ourselves out to be gods, we have quickly become a very thankless society. We were at a gathering of old friends not too long ago when this came up.  One of the people had done something and had received a hand written thank you note.  This is almost unheard of in our modern world but it sure made this person feel good.  It’s not hard to say thank for anything that is done for you and while we are at it, you might as well say please in all things also, please.

If we tie these together, joy, continuous prayer and thankfulness, we won’t always know what we are to be joyful for or thankful for.  We may not even know what to pray for.  It’s crazy but it’s what Jesus is telling us to do.  A few weeks ago, after we had many inches of snow in our area and the crops were still in the field, I told people to be thankful to the Lord.  I know some people looked at me like I had lost my mind but that is what we are called to do.  Even in the direst circumstances, we are to be thankful.  I still don’t know what I’m thankful for in this instance but I know what I did was right.

I base all this on the last part of verse 18.  It says, “for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  You see, I’m not just telling you on my own to do these things but God is telling us all to do these things all the time.  I have never known Jesus to be wrong and I don’t think He has ever been wrong so I’m going to try to follow this the best I can.  If you want a better life, then you should follow this also.

Next we are told not to put out the Spirit’s fire.  This means that you are to pay attention to what the Spirit is saying and doing in your life.  The Spirit is none other than God Himself here on earth.  What happens when you decide to ignore the Spirit or God, is that it gets a little easier to ignore Him the next time.  If you keep doing this pretty soon you will find yourself far away from God and He hasn’t moved!  You have all heard that sometimes when people pray they feel so far away from God.  This is their dousing the Spirit to the point where they can barely hear Him anymore.  This is no place to be.  If you find yourself there, then try to claw your way back by getting in some earnest prayer time.  You will see the difference.

I’m just going to touch on three other things that will grieve the Spirit or put out His fire and there are more.  The first is using abusive or foul language or the Lord’s name in profanity.  Most of the time I’m preaching to the choir here but we need to be reminded that this language grieves the Spirit.  I have even been at church functions where someone will be swearing at something.  Young people will often resort to swearing as a way to prove they are grown up.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Usually when someone realizes that I’m a pastor and they try to apologize to me, I stop them.  I say, “Don’t worry about offending me.  Worry, instead, about offending God.  You need to apologize to Him”

Another thing that grieves the Spirit is bitterness. Bitterness is the inability to let go of a hurt.  We all know people like this.  The guy down the street has been bitter at his ex-wife because she left him, probably because he was bitter about something else.  And this all happened in 1989!  If you are holding onto a grudge, get rid of it.  You do this by prayer to Jesus.  That is the best way to start.  If you don’t get rid of this now, then you will become that bitter person that you don’t even like.

The last thing I’m going to talk about today is your anger or rage.  I just read about a person of fame who flew off the handle at one of the political candidates.  When people do this, they may feel proud of themselves but they will get no respect from me or most people.  Rage and anger never solve problems.  It only creates new ones.  So if you have this problem or if you know of someone close who has this problem, then seek help.  The best place to start that I know about is Jesus Christ.  Now you may think that is my standard reaction to situations.  When you really start with Jesus, He will direct you in what to do.  He may have an immediate answer or He may suggest professional help.  But always start with Jesus.

Also do not treat prophecies with contempt.  This basically means that the Bible is right 100% of the time.  These prophecies that we talk about will come true.  All the ones in the past have come true and the ones that haven’t happened yet will come true in God’s perfect timing.  Any other type of thinking is blasphemous and grieves the Spirit.  Hold onto all good things that come from the Bible.  It is the best book you will ever read.  It’s so good that I have read it many, many times and I usually don’t read any book twice.  Avoid evil by reading the good things of the Bible, by doing what Jesus tells you and by basking in the love of Jesus in all your moments.

At the end it tells us that God will help you do all of these things.  He goes so far as to say that your whole spirit, soul and body will be held blameless.  Blameless!  My gosh, can you imagine someone so powerful that He can absolutely purify you so that you can join Him, who created all, in a place that is so wonderful that our words cannot even come close to describing it?  That is something to look forward to this Advent and every Advent.

This is a great time of year and one of the reasons is that there are so many specials on TV that are great.  The other evening we went to see some acrobats tell a Christmas story.  What those people could do almost defied our human bodies!  And if you get a chance, please visit a local children’s Christmas program.  They are usually wonderful.  A few years ago, I saw a special Christmas program put on by one of the famous magicians that we have in this country.  I don’t remember which one it was but it was quite good.  They were able to teleport people.  They could make people disappear and fly.  They could do all the tricks that you can think of and then some.  Plus they did them very well.  But there was one thing that I had to keep in mind at all times and that was that this was all fake.  It would have been easy to get caught up in this but the fact remains that it was fake.  Everything they did was a trick and they just were trying to entertain us.  They did a good job.

Here is a little thought for you.  You know the one who is real.  There is nothing fake about Jesus Christ.  He could walk on water, feed 5000 and then 4000 people with next to nothing plus He could be in one place and suddenly be in another.  These were no tricks.  These were real.  The great part of all this is that you can have all of this if you want.  Jesus Christ will share everything He has with you if you just believe.  Jesus came to you as a baby and lived a life here on earth so that you would know the way to get back to Him.  He did all this plus way more just for you.  He loves you that much and He will never stop.  Thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.