If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.
I have a lot to be thankful for, and I could stand up here and share that today.
And I thought about that, but it sounds mighty me-centered, and so I'll be quick about it.
As a point of testimony, I want to say I'm thankful for my salvation, for without it,
I'd be eternally lost. I want to thank God for my raising, my family.
My parents were always committed to the Lord, my life, throughout my life they have been,
and always had me in church, and I'm thankful for that. It wasn't a choice.
I'm thankful for my marriage. God's blessed us, and I'm thankful for my children.
He's blessed us. I'm thankful for this church and my calling that God's placed upon my life.
I'm thankful for my health. As far as I know, I'm doing all right.
And I'm thankful that every morning I wake up, the Lord's ready and waiting to spend time with me.
And I'm thankful for that time.
I want to focus instead not on what I'm thankful for, but what we ought to be thankful for.
Possibly some things that we don't automatically think of, because what I've just said would be on the tip of your tongue
if we were having a testimony time in this service probably.
Many of those same things that you could thank God for.
I think we ought to always be thankful, and while we're thankful, we ought to also inform our face that we're thankful.
I think we ought to radiate thankfulness for what God has given to us and act like it.
1 Thessalonians tells us that we ought to ooze with thanksgiving.
I mean, be serious about it.
Paul's letters are great.
They're inspired. They're doctrinal. They're instructional.
But I like the end of them the best.
Because the Apostle Paul has a way of ending most of his letters with short bullet points
that hit to the core of how we ought to live.
It don't take a lot of explanation to understand what he's saying.
That's good news for you this morning, by the way.
But it hits right where we live.
It is good, practical stuff, and I want to look at some today.
It's in 1 Thessalonians 5, beginning in verse 16.
He said,
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, giving thanks in all circumstances,
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
It's interesting, that phrase, rejoice always, is the shortest verse in the New Testament.
Now, somebody quick is going to say, no, Jesus wept.
Well, I was speaking of the Greek.
The original Greek, that is the shortest verse in all the New Testament.
Yet it is one of the most powerful verses in the New Testament.
Rejoice always.
Literally, to enjoy your state of well-being at all times.
Romans 14, 17 says,
The kingdom of God is about, among many other things, having joy in the Holy Spirit.
And I want you to notice that Paul's not saying, when he says rejoice always,
he's not saying, look like you're rejoicing.
He's not saying, act like you're rejoicing.
He's saying, rejoice.
Be rejoicing.
And I'm not talking about church joy, okay?
You know what church joy is, don't you?
You know?
I mean, rough ride to church, and then you get out smiling, you know?
Have a hard time brushing the kid's hair for hitting them in the head with it.
And I'm not advocating that by any means, but you know, there's mornings like that.
And then everybody gets in the car, nobody speaks to anybody,
and then you get to church, and everything's perfect, you know?
We're wonderful, you know?
That's that church joy.
I'll tell you how you do it.
You get up really early, and you drive to church alone.
That's how I do it, you know?
It works, but no, this speaks of real joy.
I mean, this speaks of not based on our circumstances,
because circumstances are going to change.
You're going to have good days, you're going to have bad days,
it's going to be up and down.
And your joy in the Lord, and your rejoicing in the Lord,
should not be based upon those things.
It can't be.
Joy is a fruit of the Spirit.
That means it's a spiritually natural budding
that bears fruit in the lives of those who truly walk with God.
It's not godly to be grumpy.
It's not.
Even to those who live with you.
And over and over again in Scripture,
you'll see the imperative, and it's a command.
Rejoice.
And if you are rejoicing, inform your faith, you know?
Rejoice.
Verse 17 says, pray without ceasing.
Now, that does not mean to pray without any interruption, really.
I mean, you know?
And it does not mean to go home and get on your knees
and never come back up.
That's not what it's saying at all.
It's actually a word that would be used
when they talk about somebody who has a hacking cough.
You know, he just won't stop coughing.
Well, that's the kind of terminology,
or like a hiccup, you know?
That it's irritating you.
Well, how do you think the fellow who's hiccuping feels, you know?
I mean, how about him?
And it just keeps coming.
It just won't stop.
That's what he's talking about.
Don't stop praying.
Don't give up.
Let prayer be on the tip of your tongue.
Are you consistently praying about matters?
If not, realize that and then get after it
and pray without ceasing.
When do I stop praying about this?
Don't.
Don't stop praying about it.
And sometimes it is our natural tendency
to try to take care of matters,
to do what we need to do,
and to make sure that we're doing all we can do.
And if we're not careful,
we'll get so much into that mode,
especially when we're in emergency mode there,
that we'll fail to pray through those things.
And I'm just telling you,
we need to bring God in on those things.
He's already there.
He don't need the informing, okay?
If you don't get the diagnosis right in the prayer, it's okay.
God can handle it, okay?
But you need, and I need,
to surrender the matters that's in our lives to him
and realize we ain't toting this alone.
As a matter of fact, he'll tote it for us
if we just give it to him.
And we, how often do you,
you just keep doing it.
You just keep doing it.
Pray without ceasing.
And then he says,
we ought to be thankful in all circumstances.
Even when things don't go well,
we ought to be thankful.
Romans 8, 26 through 28 says this,
likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness.
For we don't know what to pray for as we ought,
but the spirit himself intercedes for us
with groanings too deep for words.
And he who searches hearts knows
what is the mind of the spirit
because the spirit intercedes for the saints
according to the will of God.
And we know that those who love God,
all things work together for good
for those who are called according to his purpose.
What I mean by that is
God is up to something bigger than we can see,
always.
And so even in the midst of our circumstances,
we're thankful.
God's already there.
And so we give thanks.
Thankful for what then?
I mean, what are we thankful for?
Let me give you some perspective.
One, I think you ought to be thankful for the church.
I really do.
Colossians 3, 15 through 17 says this,
and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts
to which indeed you were called in one body
and be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,
teaching and admonishing one another
in all wisdom,
singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs
with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
And whatever you do,
man, this is a key passage.
Whatever you do,
it'll change what you do, by the way.
But in whatever you do in word or de,
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Folks, to me, that's what church is about.
Let the word of God be first and foremost.
Let's speak and teach one another the word of God.
Let's chat about the word of God.
Let's discuss the word of God.
Let's understand the word of God.
Let's pine together for the word of God.
Let's seek out the word of God.
Even let that flow into song.
And that means that when the congregation sings,
we sing, you know?
As I study the word, I often break into song.
Just an overflow of thankfulness.
And that's what the church is about.
We need to be thankful for it
and we need to be dedicated to it.
Faithfulness to congregated worship
is less a priority today
than it used to be for Christians.
And we suffer because of it.
Baptist Press put out an article
just a couple of weeks ago
that said churches are now,
the churches that were surveyed,
100% of them are now having worship in person.
But they're finding that attendance is lagging
since COVID.
It seems to me
that the same numbers of people are coming.
I know of exceptions there,
but for the most part,
the same numbers of people are coming.
But the consistency is not what it needs to be.
It is common today
for good Christians to go to church
if nothing else is going on.
If we got anything booked on Sunday,
then we're liable to go to church.
When it's better to prioritize what's going on
and remain faithful to church,
I encourage you to make this your policy.
Miss for the extraordinary,
but don't just miss for the ordinary.
I mean, there's good things that come.
I get it, you know.
I get it.
Miss for the extraordinary,
but if we're not careful,
and when you do miss,
then get yourself right back the following week
because the devil has a heyday
with uncommitted, compromised Christians
that are not circulating in the body of Christ
on a regular basis
and quite honestly,
usually are not making a whole lot of difference for Christ.
Don't misunderstand me.
Church attendance does not make you a Christian.
That's why I will probably close this message out
like I do just about every other message
by saying,
if you've never given your heart and life
to the Lord Jesus Christ,
I'm thankful today that he will save you
and change you
and you need to surrender your life
and give your life to Christ.
And you don't get that simply by attending church.
That don't come that way.
It comes through a life commitment,
not just committing to attendance.
Church attendance does not make you a Christian,
but if you're a Christian,
you'll want to be in church.
It's evidence
because remember what Colossians told us,
do everything in his name.
Everything.
And when your life is circulating around
everything being in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
giving thanks to God in everything that I face,
then it's going to naturally adhere you
to the body of Christ
and to the people of God.
Be thankful for the church.
The second thing is
be thankful for the opportunity to give.
God's been good to us this year
and he is faithful.
Even in hard times,
even when gas goes to nearly $5
and all that stuff,
God's still faithful.
So let's make sure we are.
May we be faithful through the end of the year
and into the next
and give faithfully.
However, when I say that,
that's not really the giving that I'm speaking of.
I instead speak of giving your gifts,
giving your abilities that God has gifted you with,
that God has granted you with,
giving those back to God,
those individual treasures
that we contribute to the church
and help us become a better,
more productive,
more winsome people.
Don't shelf what God has given you to give.
Don't hoard that up.
Don't bury that.
Use that for his glory.
I'm thankful that we began worship today
with children giving their gifts to the Lord
and leading us in worship.
How wonderful that is
for instrumentalists
and for the choir
and for the band
and for the orchestra
and for the solo.
Giving what they have to the Lord.
When you come tonight,
did you get that?
When you come?
When you do,
you'll see a room
that is decorated
and ready to go.
We've got special things on the table
that we want to take care of tonight.
We've got a photo booth set up.
All that stuff didn't come
just out of nowhere.
And it all wasn't set up
by the staff of this church.
It was people living out,
using their gifts,
working in God's family
and strengthening the church through that.
And you don't know
what a blessing that is for a pastor.
To know when those things are taken care of.
There was something
that I was going to add.
And somebody saw me with them
and said,
just don't worry about it.
I'm coming early.
I'll take care of that.
That's using
what God has given you
for the kingdom of God.
That's what it's about, folks.
And that's when you start getting
Tuesday morning when our men met
at 6 o'clock and at 9 o'clock.
Men, it's not too late
to get involved in that.
And we are meeting this week,
by the way.
So, but we're reading through a book
and it's 10 questions
to diagnose your spiritual health.
And this week's question was,
do you delight in the bride of Christ?
Do you delight in the church of Jesus Christ?
Do you find contentment there?
And we talked about how important it is
to take a step deeper
into the body of Christ
and really absorb yourself
in the life of this church
because I say it often
and I'm not taking anything away
from the hour that we have together,
but I'm just telling you,
it gets a whole lot better than this.
The more you invest your lives
with the people of this church,
the more you'll be blessed, honestly.
I'm thankful for that
and it gives us an opportunity
to not bury or hoard
what God has given to us,
but to use it for His glory.
And if you're a guest here
and God is leading you
to be a part of this church,
let's talk about that.
I'm more than available.
My phone number's on the front of the bulletin.
You can contact me anytime.
If I'm sleeping, I won't answer,
but you can contact me, you know.
But be careful,
especially in the meantime,
be careful not to be noncommittal
because before long,
you won't be committed.
It's a strategy that the evil one
loves to somehow get people
between church
and then,
and if they're in between too long,
that church really becomes no church.
So just do as God leads
and follow His lead
and be thankful for the opportunity to give,
but also be thankful
for the opportunity to receive
because I love how it works two ways
in the body of Christ.
We are all to serve the Lord
and we're all to be served
by God's people.
That's the,
that's the,
that's the sweet spirit of,
there's a mutuality in the church
that's pretty special.
We all have gifts to give
and we all are to be given to.
We all serve
and we're all to be served
and things get out of order
when it's all giving
and not receiving.
People get wore out
and if it's all receiving
and not giving,
that's not healthy either.
Both extremes are disruptive.
So we do both.
We give and we receive
and I am thankful for that.
I love to hear people talk about
how their church came through
when they needed them to come through
in whatever way they needed to do that.
And I want to do all I can
for people to be able to rely upon me
because I deeply rely upon you.
And it's a great opportunity tonight
to just reciprocate that love
to each other
and our time together.
And we take the Lord's Supper
around the table.
It builds a bond.
It's biblical.
Breaking bread together
is how the New Testament church did it.
So if you have trouble
with how many fellowships we have,
just look at the New Testament, okay?
Acts was eaten every day together.
I'm not going there, okay?
But I'm just telling you,
it's biblical.
So let's be thankful to be a part of it
and be faithful to be a part of it.
Be thankful for the opportunity to receive.
Also, be thankful for the opportunity to check.
And I want you to hear me.
When we come together,
it's a checkup time.
It's a time for us to check our gauges in life of sorts.
Check your heart.
You want to know how to check your heart?
Hebrews 4.12 says this,
You know what that means?
That means the Word of God
gets to the heart of the matter.
And it can get uncomfortable at times.
But it gets to the heart of the matter.
Because by the Holy Spirit of God,
the Word of God is personal.
But we need it.
So we check our heart.
Second thing we do is we check our direction.
We check our direction.
When I hike, I have a GPS app on my phone
that tells us the inclines,
the distance,
the landmarks,
and I'm the navigator of the bunch, you know?
So when we slow down, I'll go,
look, we ain't but halfway there.
You got to keep going, you know?
It gives us the guidance each step of the way.
And I can spoil a trip or a hike by overplanning.
That's just the way I am, you know?
The Word of God is what guides us on the path of life.
A passage that has marked my life and probably yours too,
if you've rested in the Word of God,
is Proverbs 3, 5, and 6.
Trust in the Lord.
Lean not on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him.
And He will make your path straight.
He'll direct your paths.
He'll smooth bumps.
Psalm 119, 105 says,
Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
I don't know if you've noticed,
but we live in an ever-increasing dark world.
And if we're not guided by the Word of God,
and if we don't stick to the Word of God,
we will wonder in darkness when we need to be walking in the light.
So we check our direction.
The other thing we do is we check our focus.
What's our focus in life?
Check our focus.
Hebrews 12, 1 and 2 says this,
Let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so easily,
and let us run with endurance that race
that is set before us, looking to Jesus,
the founder and perfecter of our faith.
There are a lot of places to put your eyes today,
so check your focus.
Where's your focus at?
They need to be focused on the Lord.
Don't look back and live in the past.
Because the devil loves to rip up and bring back the past.
And if you're a child of God
and you've asked for forgiveness for your sins,
those things are gone.
The slate is clean.
The past is forgiven.
It's under the blood.
It's gone.
Don't look back.
Don't look around.
This world's a mess.
I promise you.
It's a mess.
So don't get caught up in it.
Look ahead to the one who started us on this journey
and the one who will perfect us
and the one who will lead us to that goal.
Be thankful for the opportunity to check our lives
by the power and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
And we're thankful by making sure that we do put a check
on where our mind is,
on where our heart is,
on what our direction is in life
and what our focus is in life.
And then be thankful for the fellowship.
I love the Church of Jesus Christ.
Greatest thing my parents ever did for me
was to share Christ with me
and take me to church every week.
Every week.
Whether I felt like it or not,
whether I wanted to or not.
It did not take the whole family
to stay home with somebody
and wipe their nose.
That didn't happen.
My brother got sick.
He stayed home.
We all went, you know.
I mean, that's the way
somebody would stay with him, I guess.
I don't remember that.
But anyway,
they didn't stay with me.
There was not a break.
There was consistency.
There was dedication.
And I don't believe it was legalism.
Because I ain't much on legalism.
Because Jesus tears legalism down so much.
It's based on love.
Love for the body of Christ.
And that means love for the church
in the glory days when things are wonderful.
And love for the church when things are slow.
And things are not so great.
The fellowship is fabulous.
The first church I pastored was a graying church.
I think I was the first half-time
or part-time pastor they had ever had.
They had been through it.
They had split twice in 10 years.
And the people that were left
wasn't too happy about it.
They were bruised and beaten
and old and wore out.
And I'd walk through that nursery area
and there wouldn't be a kid inside.
Didn't even cut the lights on for Sunday school.
I'd pray over that parking lot.
Little as much as God is in it.
God make it much, you know.
But it was great fellowship.
There was nobody there my age.
Nobody.
So, I started dating Dom, brought her in, you know.
So, second church I pastored,
we had babies together.
Well, about the same time.
Not together, but about the same time.
We raised families together.
Built bonds together.
In my third church, I watched young families grow
and I buried some of my heroes.
And we did great things for the Lord together.
And if you, in my new church,
knew how excited I was about what God has in store for us,
oh my, you'd get excited too.
Because I believe that God's got his hand in it.
And I believe you ought to believe that too.
And I believe it ought to show
in what we do and how we do it.
Lastly, I think we ought to be thankful
that this is not all there is.
Because when you give your life to Christ,
he takes control.
And he gives you life,
and as Jesus put it,
life more abundantly.
That's not just a quantity of life forever,
it's a quality of life.
It's an uptick that happens
when we give our heart and life
to the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the Holy Spirit indwells us,
and we build a bond
and begin building a stronger bond
with the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then one day,
we get to see him face to face.
1 Corinthians 15, 19 says this,
if in Christ we have hope in this life only,
we are of all people most to be pitied.
But I am thankful, folks.
This is not all there is.
There's more.
And for that, I'm thankful.
There's coming a day
When no heartache shall come
No more clouds in the sky
No more tears to dim the eye
All is peace forevermore
On that happy golden shore
What a day, glorious day
That will be
Do you know it?
Sing it.
What a day
That will be
When my Jesus
I shall see
And I look
Upon his face
The one who saved
Me by his grace
When he takes
Me by the hand
And leads me
Through
The promised land
What a day
Glorious day
That will be
Amen
Every head bowed
And every eye closed
If you don't know
The Lord Jesus today
I got news for you
Today is the day of salvation
He'll save you
He'll change you
And you can know
Not only where you'll
Spend eternity
But you can know
That right now
He gives you the power
And the strength
That you need
To live for him
It's the best thing
Going folks
It's the greatest opportunity
We have in this life
And if you've never
Given your heart and life
To the Lord Jesus Christ
We're going to stand
And we're going to sing
In just a moment
And I want you to come down
And tell me that
I'd love to have you guided
Through what it means
To give your heart and life
To Christ
Maybe you're here
And you have done that
But God's drawing you
Into this fellowship
And you know that
I encourage you to come
Let nothing hinder you
In God's timing
For you to just
Simply be obedient
Maybe you're here
And you have received Christ
But you've never
Publicly acknowledged that
You've never been
Baptized as a believer
You need to make
That right today
You need to show
Your thankfulness
By getting those things
Right with God
Maybe you just need
To get your heart
Right with God
There's just matters
In your life
That you've tried
To take care of yourself
And you ain't
Turned it over to Him
And in order to live
A thankful life
We give it all to Him
And then we thank God
For it
Whether that's
Whether you deal
With that where you are
Or whether you deal
With this altar
Or whether you want
The pastor to pray with you
It makes little difference
To me as long as you do
What God tells you to do
Just be obedient
You'll never be satisfied
Until you're obedient
To the Lord
Don't ever do more
Than He asks you
And never do less
Just simply follow
As He leads
Lord Jesus
Lead us Lord
We're thankful today
For the power
Of Your presence
For how You worked
And moved in our life
God lead us
Right now
To simply be obedient
To You Father
In Jesus precious name
Amen