Grace, mercy, and peace to you in the name of
Christ our Saviour. Amen.
This
week, we have come to the end of reading the first letter from Paul to the
Thessalonians. And in this last section, Paul gives a set of general
instructions concerning the maintenance of Christian fellowship.
Paul’s
call is simple and direct: rejoice, pray, give thanks always and no matter what
happens.
He
asks for love, for acceptance of one another. He asks for joy, constancy in
prayer and a thankful heart in their relationship with the Lord. Finally, he
asks for the acceptance, exercise, and testing of the Word.
In
total, there are seven appeals in this short passage, and all of them worthy of
taking to heart. Let’s see how we can apply them to our lives today.
1. Rejoice always
Joy is a mark of Christian life and a fruit of
the Spirit. Christians can find reasons to be joyful in all seasons of life. In
fact, Christians have the ultimate hope of being with Christ to be joyful
about. Even in the darkest of times, we have the Light of Christ within us, a
light that we can shine for others, to give hope to the world. We have be
tasked to spread the Gospel that God is with us on Earth, and that is truly
something to rejoice each and every day.
2. Pray without ceasing
Praying is one of the most important things
that a Christian is to be doing….and one of the hardest. We all know we should
be doing it, and yet it feels hard and strange to do. People are unsure how to
pray or what to pray for. Really, praying is just a conversation with God. It
doesn’t matter how you do it, it’s just important that you do it. When we pray,
we recognise how powerless we are but how powerful God is. And Paul is telling us that we are to pray
frequently and repeatedly. Jesus prayed all the time, so why shouldn’t we?
3. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of
God in Christ Jesus for you
Some days, it doesn’t feel like there is very
much to be thankful for. Especially as we hear about all of the war and
violence that is happening in the Middle East and in Russia and Ukraine. And it’s
hard to be thankful when we are aware of the rates of unemployment and
homelessness in Canada.
But Paul is asking us to be thankful anyway,
stating that Christians are to be thankful in all circumstances. How can one
give thanks in poor circumstances? We remember Christ who was in the poorest
circumstance when he was going to the cross to die for our sins.
Today, Christians have ultimate hope in the
glory that we will share with Christ. We can be thankful for the technology to
still be in touch with one another. We can be thankful for scientists
continuing to work on the long-term effects of COVID. We can be thankful for
all that we have, and we can be thankful for a God who watches over us, even in
the darkest of times.
4. Do not quench the Spirit
On the day of Pentecost, we celebrate the early
Christians receiving the Holy Spirit and thus bringing to light the meaning of
the Gospel of Christ. Apart from the Holy Spirit causing us to believe in the
Gospel, the Gospel would have meant nothing for us. The Holy Spirit is our
helper and is the one who helps us live lives that are pleasing to God.
Paul is pleading with us not to let that spirit
go out, to not extinguish it. We need to recognise the Spirit is working in our
lives and we should not reject that help in any way. Keeping the light of the
Spirit alive in our hearts will help bring us hope, love, and joy. These are
things that are desperately needed as we come to the end of some very difficult
years.
5. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything
I grew up in a church that didn’t allow for
questioning. Each Sunday, we heard the Word and we were taught to accept it as
it was and to not question, because to question the prophets (the writers of
the Bible, the priests) was to question God. And how dare we question God.
What I admire about this particular exhortation
is that Paul is actually asking us to question. He is saying that we should be
open to the disclosure of God’s will through fellow Christians exercising the
gift of prophecy, but that it is okay if we question what we are hearing. In
fact, it is more than okay. Paul tells us to test everything and not assume
that the speaker’s or writer’s claims are automatically true.
When we bring this plea into our lives, we are
told to read the Bible knowing that it is good to have questions, to want
clarification, and to seek out revelation.
6. Hold fast what is good
This is a plea for gratitude if I ever saw one.
Paul is asking us to cling to what is good in our lives, even to seek good in
our enemies.
One day, a friend of mine posted that she was
having a rough day and rather than stew in the feeling, she decided to write
some statements of gratitude. She said that doing so really helped her to get
out of the funk that she was in.
Although we are told we are on the other side
of the pandemic, the seemingly never-ending days of the pandemic bring out
fear, anger, and anxiety in everyone. Sometimes all we can do is grasp onto the
good we find in each day – a ray of sunshine on a December morning, the cuddle
of a cat in your lap, a good book – any small amount of good can change the
whole outlook on your day.
7. Abstain from every form of evil
While we are seeking out the good in our days,
we need to reject the evil. Romans 12:9 uses some pretty strong language about
how we should feel about evil, “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold
fast to what is good.”
Evil
is a difficult and complicated topic. Simply put, evil is the absence of good.
So these final two appeals should work together. Finding the good in your life
should, in theory, push the evil out. Pushing the evil out should, in theory,
bring the good in. It is an interdependent relationship that can be difficult
for many of us to manage in our lives.
Paul’s
appeal to us is simple and direct; rejoice, pray, give thanks always and no
matter what happens.
He
asks for love, for acceptance of one another. He asks for joy, constancy in
prayer and a thankful heart in their relationship with the Lord. Finally, he
asks for the acceptance, exercise, and testing of the Word.
Paul’s
appeals to the Thessalonians guides us to the type of Christian fellowship that
will help sustain us in our lives.
My
prayer for you is that you are able to take Paul’s exhortations to heart so
that they can help carry you through every season of your life. And as Paul
says, “May the God of peace sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul
and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Amen.
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