December 15, 2002 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
16 Be joyful always; 17 pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
19 Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; 20 do not treat prophecies with contempt. 21 Test everything. Hold on to the good. 22 Avoid every kind of evil.
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. (NIV)
Have you ever gotten bored while listening to a sermon? That’s kind of a dumb question, now isn’t it? Sometimes when I read my own sermons to review for Sunday I fall asleep. But I have always had a hard time keeping attention for a long period of time. When I was in high school my mind could not stay focused for more than five minutes most of the times. One professor remarked that I had the attention span of a gerbil. Not exactly a compliment.
One thing that bothered me was being taught something I already knew. Repetition is the mother of learning. But it can also be the father of boredom. Now let me ask you this - how many times have you heard the story of Jesus’ birth? How many times have you heard that you are a sinner? How many times have you heard that Jesus died for you? Most of us have been told that we are sinners in need of salvation for years. We’ve also been certain of our salvation for years. It’s nothing new. Does that mean we should be bored with Christianity? Is there nothing to do? Paul answers that question today. Just because we are sure of our salvation doesn’t mean that we have to be bored as Christians. We still have things to do. So the theme for today is,
I’m Going to Heaven. Ok, Now What?
I. Have the right attitude
First of all - have the right attitude. Christmas is getting closer and closer. Have you noticed the attitude and change in atmosphere around the stores? I can walk in a store, and I’m ready and willing to smile at people and say “hi.” And people are smiling back. That’s a good attitude. It’s that time of year when I am in a good mood, and so is everybody else.
But it isn’t always that way. I can remember working at Shopko during high school. I had to help promote for Christmas by putting up the signs and making the store look nice. I was an environmental engineer - in other words - a janitor. It was fun for a while. I used to love the Christmas season. But after a while, the season lost it’s fun. They would start promoting the holiday so early, that by the time it got here, I was already sick of all of the Christmas songs and everything else. Day after day they would be pumping the Christmas music through the speakers, and all of the people would come streaming in. Finally, I got sick of all the hoopla. It took a lot of work to keep the store clean and prepare for the season. So by the time it got closer, I just couldn’t wait for it to get over.
As we prepare for Christmas and the second coming of Christ, do we have the same temptation? Have you become a Christian Scrooge? The Thessalonians had good reasons to be spiritual scrooges. The minute they were brought to faith in Jesus, the Jews started persecuting them. They were waiting and waiting for Jesus to come rescue them on Judgment Day, but He wasn’t coming. They could have very easily gotten frustrated with life and become crabs.
This can easily happen to us. The longer we live on this earth, the easier it is to become more and more frustrated with life. I remember visiting with a shut in in Norfolk when I was vicaring there. This may sound bad, but I couldn’t stand visiting this guy. He had been in a nursing home for years. He had all kind of health problems. That’s not what bothered me. It was this guy’s attitude. He was one of the crabbiest men I ever knew. Every time I went to visit him he had a terrible attitude. I’d knock on the door, and he’d yell out, “what do you want!” As hard as I tried, I did not enjoy visiting with this man. He was cranky with me and with everyone else. I tried to put myself in his shoes and understand his attitude, but I could not and I still cannot understand being that angry and disgusted with life.
Paul says we don’t need to have that attitude. Be joyful always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances. But how can I be joyful always? It’s impossible! How can I be thankful when God allows me to have cancer? I can’t! Even Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus. Was he sinning? Of course not. So what does Paul mean? He explains that this is “God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” There will be times in our lives when we will be just filled with sorrow. At the death of a lost one, in the middle of a serious illness, of course we’ll be sad. Yet even in sorrow, we have a basis of joy that cannot be drowned out by death or sickness. We have the comfort of knowing that Jesus lived and died for us. We know that Jesus uses these trials to make us grow in faith. So we can thank God in all circumstances, pray for strength, and be joyful. With Jesus at the center of our happiness, we’ll always find reasons to be thankful and joyful. This is the attitude that God wants you to have as you wait for heaven to come. Be a joyful Christian!
II. Hold on to the good
But this kind of attitude doesn’t just come out of the sky. In spite of what all the self help gurus tell you, you can’t just convince yourself, “I’m gonna be happy.” Something has to plant that happiness in your mind and keep it growing. That source of faith is the Word of God. All of us were brought to faith through the Word of God. Now Paul tells us what to do to keep that faith burning. As we wait for Christ to come, Paul tells us “do not put out the Spirit’s fire. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.”
During the time of the Thessalonians, there were false prophets all over the place. They told the Thessalonians that Paul had written a letter that said that Jesus already came a second time. These groups were trying to rip the joy from the Thessalonians’ hearts. They were telling the Thessalonians that they had gotten left behind on Judgment Day, and that they weren’t really going to heaven. The only way the Thessalonians could keep joyful in their salvation would be if they followed these instructions of Paul.
As you wait for the second coming of Christ, it is pertinent that you follow these instructions. Do not put out the Spirit’s fire. All of you have the fire of faith burning in your hearts. But it can go out! There are things that keep your faith burning, and things that put it out. Paul tells you how to keep it burning, when he tells you to hold onto what is good. There was an old add on TV that shows a football player who had to much stick-um on his hands, so that he couldn’t let go of the football. The referee had to pull and pull to try and get that football away from him. That’s how God wants your faith to be. HOLD onto what is good - the true Word of God. When you continue to learn what God says in the Word, your faith will continue to grow. When you continue to take the Lord’s Supper, you continue to grow. If you’re having home devotions, HOLD ONTO them - keep doing it! Paul said to hold onto these good things. Don’t treat prophecies, the Word of God, with contempt. Don’t let go of them. They will keep your faith burning brightly.
But there are also things that can and do snuff out your faith. So Paul said to “avoid every kind of evil. The literal word for “avoid” is actually the opposite of holding onto - it means to let go of. We need to let go of “every kind of evil.” If the Thessalonians would have kept listening to these false prophets, their faith would have died. Some that were following Paul eventually fell from the faith. They needed to let go of these false preachers and avoid them so their faith could keep burning.
This applies to our world in a variety of ways - first of all spiritually. Just because someone is a good preacher who is able to keep your attention, it doesn’t mean that you should listen to what he has to say. If you’ve tested his teaching and know that all of his teachings don’t follow in line with the Bible - then Paul warns to avoid it. It’s just like eating food. If you knew someone sneezed on your dinner, there’s no way you would eat it - no matter how hungry you were. It’s not that eating it would kill you, but it still wouldn’t be very healthy for you no matter how good it tasted. It probably won’t kill you to listen to other preachers, but why put yourself in harms way. It’s much safer just to avoid it.
The same applies to the TV shows you watch or the people you hang out with. Maybe a dirty joke or two won’t snuff out your faith. Yet Paul warns to let go of ALL forms of evil. It might mean a break in your routine of watching your favorite comedy every Tuesday night. It might mean that you stop hanging out with a certain friend. It might mean that you stop going on the Internet. It may mean that you stop visiting a local hot spot. Let go of every kind of evil.
Why does Paul tell us these things? Not to rob us of our freedom, but to give us joy. So as we wait for the Second Coming of Christ, God wants us to be sure that we continually receive a steady diet of what God’s Word says, so that we grow in faith. When we stay in the pure Word of God and avoid every kind of evil, the devil won’t be able to take our joy from our hearts. Already God has given us enough to do in these first eight commands that we could be busy for the rest of our lives. You can never complain about being bored, until you have taught the devil to death and the muscles of your face fall off from smiling so much.
III. Trust that God will keep you blameless
But Paul isn’t done. He concludes with this last prayer that you would “be kept blameless” until Judgment Day comes. Thankfully, Paul isn’t talking to us. Paul prayed, may “God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” When it comes to being holy before God, or “sanctified,” as Paul says, this has nothing to do with us. This is completely God’s job. Here you can take your gloves off, untie your shoes, and just sit back and listen. Let Jesus put your gloves on, put on your boots, and get in the trenches and do the job for you. Here you can be like the old county workers back in Wisconsin. We can all just sit back and watch one guy do all the work.
God doesn’t want us to even attempt to make ourselves holy. You see, God is a perfectionist. He doesn’t want us to be just partially sanctified, kind of holy. He wants us to be completely holy - sanctified “through and through.” If we tried to do it, there’s no way we could succeed. So He has to get dirty and do the perfect job Himself. And that’s what Jesus did. As we celebrate Christmas, we will see how He got down in the trenches - He put on his working gloves, and started to work when he took on flesh and blood in the manger. He got out his hammer and saw, and started building that stairway to heaven, as he obeyed every law for us. Every time that Jesus avoided evil, another step was being built. Every time that Jesus learned God’s Word, another step was being built. And then at the height of his work, He slaughtered Himself and gave us His perfect covering for our sins, so that we could stand before God as blameless. Jesus made us blameless. His job of salvation is complete. Jesus did His work.
Now Paul was praying that the Holy Spirit’ would put on the gloves and do HIS job. At you baptism, He performed His work of entering your body and cleansing your soul with the blood of Christ. He has made us completely holy through His blood. Now He has to keep us in the faith. Therefore Paul’s prayer is that the Holy Spirit wouldn’t quit, but that he would keep us in the faith. We can thank God that the Holy Spirit is a workaholic. For Paul tells us that, 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. He doesn’t take a day off. If He did, we would fall. But since the Holy Spirit continues to work through the Word and sacrament, we will be kept blameless until the day Jesus comes.
When I was a kid, I used to come bopping in the kitchen and say to my mom, “I’m bored.” This was the wrong thing to say, as she would find plenty of work for me to do. So I hope that Paul has answered the question for you Christians - “ok, now what?” As Christians living in the hope of the resurrection, you can never be bored. Now you know what to do. Rejoice! Enjoy life. Stay in the Word. Avoid every kind of evil. And finally, pray that the Holy Spirit will keep you blameless until the Judgment Day. We’ve got plenty to do, and so does the Holy Spirit. Thanks to God, we’ll never be bored again. Amen.
