Ron Hinesly
Immanuel Sermon Audio
Knowing God's Will (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
Good morning, I hope you have access to your Bible this morning. You have the handout of notes that we put in the bulletin as we continue to talk about this idea of knowing God's will. We humans are curious creatures. We roll from December 31st to January 1st and somehow we think those days are so different than we begin to question and look back at our life and what is it I want to accomplish this year? What is it I want to do? Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? What about my job? What is it about God that I should know about doing His will? And we have launched in to this little four-part series that we're going to talk about this month of January about knowing God's will. And we found out rather quickly last week that God's will is not some great hidden agenda or some mystery that we have to spend our lives trying to decipher and trying to decode. Now God is very clear about what His will is for our life. He wants us to know it. He wants us to live our lives for Him. And Peter says that God has given us everything we need to live a life of holiness and faith. And so God has spelled out to us exactly in His word what it is. He wants us to know as we think about this question, what is God's will for my life? So the very first thing that we talked about last week, you'll see in your notes, week one. God's will for your life involves your sanctification. What it is, you're becoming more and more like Jesus Christ each and every day. Find your copy of Scriptures, be finding 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. That's where we're going to find our study this week in knowing God's will. God tells us exactly what it is that He wants us to do. And so that will be our idea this week. God's will for our life and for your life involves rejoicing, prayer and thankfulness. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 16, the word says, rejoice always, pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Let's pray. Father, we hear your word this morning, you're very clear to us, we're to rejoice, we're to pray, we're to give thanks. Father, I pray that you take your word this morning and that you illuminate and that we see truths from your word today that it can impact our life and change our lives to be more and more into that that you want for us. We want to find your will, we want to serve you and we lift this to you in Christ's name. The Scripture is playing, here's God's will for you, rejoice, pray and give thanks and do that all the time. Now, you know, there's no wiggle room here, there's no, well, it's open to interpretation. So let me think about this and no, no, no, no. This is God's will for you, rejoice, pray and give thanks. It's like a 10 commandment kind of thing, you know, don't steal, don't lie, rejoice, give thanks, pray all the time. These are commands. Let's be quick to remember though, that when God commands us to do something, He gives us the power to do it. He does not give us commands that are not doable commands, these are very doable. And we want to figure out how it is that we can do them. So let's take these things apart. These are attitudes that we're commanded to have as we approach God. So let's look at them. The first command is the command to rejoice, well, what does that mean? It means to be full of joy. This is a command to feel a certain way. That's contrary to what we normally think about when we think about feelings or emotions. You know, life acts upon us and then we feel a certain way, right? We have no control over it is over what it is we feel. But that goes against scripture. God commands us all kinds of places to feel certain things. Joshua 1.9, for example, he says, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong. Be courageous. Don't fear. Do not be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. God has given us commands to feel certain ways." So I want to know how can I rejoice on command? How can I be full of joy and follow the command of God? Well it's helpful to remember some things. The first thing to remember is to know joy is not happiness. Joy is not happiness. Happiness is dependent upon circumstances. Happiness is dependent upon my reaction to the good things that are happening in life. That is not joy. Joy is birth in the relationship that I have with God. It is joy is delight without regard to circumstances. That's how Paul could say things like, "You know what? I am in a set of circumstances that I am always sorrowful but I am always rejoicing." So joy is not happiness. Second, joy is a fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5.23 shows us that joy is commanded in Scripture and it's a fruit of the Spirit so it is definitely and uniquely for the believer. In fact, joy should be a mark of the believer. It should be something that characterizes our lives. Now, stop here and be honest with me a minute. Think about the majority of the conversations and comments that you had last week. Are they joyful expressions of the Christian? Are they Spirit-filled comments? No, I'm afraid if you're like me, most of what we talk about makes us look much more like this fellow. If I could have found Eor with a nice cross necklace and maybe some cross earrings or something, it would fit. Do you see that he is not experiencing the fruit of the Spirit? You know, that's a lot of our conversations, "Oh, the Muslims are taking this over. The Republicans, the Democrats, they're ruining our country. This world is going to hell in a handbasket." You know what? It is. The Scripture says it is. The Scripture says that there will be a time of ever-increasing wickedness as we wait upon the Savior. In fact, instead of being like Eor, we should be full of joy because we see the Scripture coming true before our very eyes. You know what, we don't have to be Eor. We don't have to be Eor at all. In fact, what we should be is joy-filled Christians as we seek God to fill us with joy. We're commanded to rejoice, and if we act like Him, we're sinning. We're quenching the Spirit in our life. We're not allowing Him to overflow in our life. We're harming our testimony. Who wants to be like that? The joy of the Lord is my strength. No. Let's pay attention here. Let's repent of our Eor tendencies, and let's let the Spirit produce His fruit in us. It should be a mark of us. Now, this mark of joy is primarily derived from our salvation. Primarily derived from our salvation. I get this from Luke 10. The 72 are coming back from their missionary journey. Jesus had set out His disciples. And so they have come back and they've reported to Jesus how great things they have done, and they are pumped and excited. And in fact, Jesus has pumped and excited with them. And we see that He's excited about their ministry report, but He takes them aside and He says to them, "You know what? You may have thrown out demons in my name, but don't rejoice because you had success in this endeavor. Rejoice because your names are written in heaven." See, the fruit of joy comes in being a follower of Christ because my name is written in heaven. If you are a Christ follower, you've got a place in heaven with a reserve sign ready for you. Rejoice. Rejoice. If you have nothing else in this life but you have Jesus, you have enough to rejoice. Rejoice. Rejoice comes from our salvation. And then the last thing here, joy is produced when we worship and obey. When we worship and obey. In John 15, 11, Jesus is talking to His disciples, it's right before His crucifixion. And He tells them, "These things I've said to you that your joy may be full." Well, what things has He said to them? Well, He's given them this picture about being a vine and about us being the branches. And we're woven into this vine and we're connected to Him. And He says, "You abide in me and I abide in you and my words abide in you and my love abides in you. And we are together here. And if you love me, you obey my commands. You obey me. We have joy when we worship and when we obey." Now this connection between obedience and joy is one of the points I wish I had understood earlier in my Christian walk. I didn't understand that when we as believers have joyful obedience connected to a committed relationship to Christ, there is much joy produced. I want to say that again. When we are exercised, joyful obedience in connection to a committed relationship to Jesus Christ, much joy is produced in our lives. That is contrary to what you would think. You would think that the commandments are those things which tie you in and restrain you, but no, the commandments are those things which give you joy and peace. They foster your relationship with Christ Jesus. And so you will find joy as you worship and as you obey. If I ever got that as a young Christian or I ever heard that, I must have been asleep. But I want you to get that today when you worship and when you obey and you tie that little mystery together, your life is producing much joy in your experience. So that's the first part of our talk today, the first part of his will, rejoice, be full of joy. All right, the second command is to pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. Obviously to this does not mean that we constantly pray. If we're commanded to constantly pray, then I'm standing right now because I'm talking to you, you're standing because you're listening to me or you better be and you then would be in sin. No, no, no, no. That's not what he's talking about. To pray without ceasing means to have a consistent prayer life. Everything without ceasing means to be consistent, not a constant prayer life, but a consistent prayer life. Now, as I studied this passage, every single time I would begin to look at this, the reference would go back to Luke 18 one, Luke 18 one, do you recall from Luke 18 one? That is where Jesus tells his disciples that they are always to pray and not to lose heart. Do you remember why he told them that? He told them that because just before he had been talking about, he was going to be away from them for a time. He told them, you know what, the days are coming when you're going to long for the days of the son of man. Oh, Christian, are you longing for the days of the son of man? Then you are always to pray and not lose heart. And then Jesus tells him this parable and this parable is about the widow and the unrighteous judge, the judge who neither fears God nor man and the widow keeps after him and she keeps on and he keeps on and he's finally like, whatever, I'll do it just to get rid of her pestering. And the point of the parable was not that we should pester God or that we should keep after him for the things that we want. The point is that we are to be persistent in our prayer. We're to be consistent in our prayer. We're to go to him. We're to seek him. We're to always look to him as our source and our sustenance. We are to be persistent. We're to have a consistent prayer life. Now the idea of his choice of the widow is very interesting to me. See, we as believers are much like that widow in that our bridegroom is physically away from us for a while. We miss him. We long for him. And it reminds me of my grandmother. She's my mammal. There's her picture. She's holding Mallory and I think Mallory's about 30 months old there. That's my mammal. My papal died when he was 57 and she was just 55. She spent the remaining 21 years of her life as a widow. She never really, you know, like got over his death. She wasn't unhealthy about it. She wasn't distraught. She didn't give up on life. She just never quite got over his death. She missed him. She missed him terribly. And she had a wonderful sense of humor and one day she was laughing and she was telling us we'd think she was crazy if we ever caught her. Because she went around the house talking to him. She said, you know, I just go about my daily chore or whatever and I just talking to him, you know. His name was Anthony. I wish you were here because I don't know what to do with the car. And the car is driving me crazy and it's... What I do, I wish you were here. And she would tell him about her day and she would just talk. Just talk. And she would say, I know he doesn't hear me, but it just helps me to talk to him. It just helps me to talk. You know what? We're like her. We're like her. Our bridegroom is away. Jesus is not with us physically and we miss him. We need to talk to him. We need to talk to him. He wants us to talk to him. The difference between her and us is that while he's physically away from us, when we talk to him he hears us. He hears us. So this kind of prayer, this kind of thing that we're talking to Jesus about, this kind of praying without ceasing is intimate prayer, it's intimate prayer. It's much more like just me and Jesus' time. It's an abiding in Christ kind of time. It's not a genie list of all of the things that I want him to do for me. This is much more a time of seeking the face of the Savior and saying, you know, God, I'm tired of me. I'm tired of what I've become. I want what you want. I want to become what you want me to be. I want to be the man you have called me to be. It's seeking his face. It's lining up my thinking and my attitude with his. It's seeking his presence and seeking his face. You may be like me and go, well, you know, I practice the kind of popcorn kind of prayer all during the day. I just send these little prayers up to Jesus all the time. You know what? I do too, but the problem with that kind of praying, 9/10 of that praying is about me. It's about me. Lord, would you help me deal with this customer? Lord, would you? Here's a good prayer. Lord, would you hold that traffic light for me? Lord, would you clear this out so I can get to work on time? Lord, would you do? Would you do? Would you do? Would you do for me? And that's not the kind of prayer that God is talking about here. That is not the praying without ceasing. That is to me focused. God wants us to seek him and to seek his face and for us to be made in the image of his dear son. So that's our second command. Pray without seeking. We're to seek times of intimate one-on-one time with the Lord in our prayer tonight. All right, third command is to give thanks in all circumstances. Give thanks. Thanksgiving. Turkey and dressing. Hey, let's roll out the turkey and dressing. No, no, no, no, no, no, it's not a feast we're talking about. Not a once-a-year kind of, "Ah, thank you for this and I thank you for that kind of thing." No, this is a lifestyle of thanksgiving. What we're talking about is developing a thankful attitude and heart toward God. So let's define it this week. Giving thanks in all circumstances is a prayerful recognition of God's plan and purpose in every part of your life, a prayerful recognition of God's plan and purpose in every part of your life. Hey, that's a pretty easy command. My job's going, "Well, thank you, Lord." Kids are doing what they're supposed to. Thank you, God. But what happens when that kid gets desperately sick? What happens when he or she is laying in the hospital? What do we do when we get the test result back that has the C word in it? What do we do when it's the phone call in the middle of the night and your life is changed forever? How do we give thanks in all circumstances when it's that kind of thing? Because life is not always pleasant. We can give thanks in all circumstances when we affirm and understand that God is in control of all of it. Romans 828 tells us that God uses everything in the life of the believer for the good of the believer, does not say he makes all things good. It says he makes things good for the believer, he works it to our spiritual good. No matter what we're going through, no matter how rough life can be, God is using all of those circumstances for the good of the believer. He uses both sunshine and rain, good times and bad, health and illness, all for his purposes. Even if the circumstances are so desperate, we can thank him for his work in our lives. Even if that thanks comes through tears. Now the driving force of giving thanks in all circumstances is going to be his presence. And I get that from Psalm 75 1, Psalm 75 1 says, "We give thanks to you, O God. We give thanks for your name is near." Over and over again throughout Scripture, we're given the assurance of God's presence in the lives of his children. Over and again, I've listed several places there you can look up later that assure us of his constant presence. Think about it, the Almighty God of heaven wants you as his child, wants me as his child. That is amazing. He has no need of us. But he chooses us. That he even wants a child is an amazing thing. We have his presence. We have him, even in the midst of what life hands us, whether it's good or whether it's bad. We can thank God for his walking through every step of the way with it, with us. His abiding presence is worthy of continual thanksgiving. Psalm 75 1 goes on to say, "We give thanks to you. We give thanks for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds." And that tells me that giving thanks is ignited when we remember all that God has done. When we remember all that God has done, when we begin to think of the ways God has worked in our lives, what He's done for us, what He's kept us from, then we can begin to thank Him. It's ignited. We know that God has done miraculous things for us. We want to know even more than He's done for you. Get in the Word. See His plan of redemption from start to finish. See what He did to accomplish the salvation for you. You've got to be in the Word. Let the Word acquire Christ dwell in you richly. You've got to be in the Word. If this, if you're going to be a person of thanksgiving, you've got to be a person of the book. You've got to be in the Word consistently. God commands us. Give thanks in all circumstances. Always have a thankful attitude toward God. Okay. So we've talked about rejoicing in the Lord always, praying without ceasing, giving thanks in all circumstances. So what in the world does all this mean for me? What's the point? Should I just leave here today feeling guilty because I don't do all these things on a consistent basis? No. No. God is not at all the point. What I do want us to see is that God commands this because He wants the very best for us. I want us to see that we should want these things that He wants for us because they produce in us a life that we could never have outside them. We want to be the kind of people that God wants us to be. We want to pursue Him. They're good for us. If we're not doing them, then we're missing out on His best. I mentioned at the very beginning of our time that these three commands are commands to have a certain attitude toward God. We're to rejoice in Him. We're to pray to Him. We're to give thanks to Him. Here's the deal. God wants for you to desire Him in your life constantly and to seek Him always. That's why every one of these commands has to do with all the time, all the time, all the time, consistently, all the time, without ceasing. You and I were made for God to be in a relationship with Him, to be connected in a very real way as we go about these lives. These are not separate commands. These are meant to be tied together in the lives of His children as a call upon our lives. The bottom line is, we were called to a lifestyle of worship. We are called to a lifestyle of worship. He wants you, He wants your affections. He wants for you to filter your life through the lens of His relationship with you. As we do that, then we'll find that He is our satisfaction in life. He's our joy in life. He's the one that will fill up everything it is that we're longing for. How does this help me find God's will? Well this adds another dimension to what we learned last week. Last week we learned that God wants us to be more and more holy, to be more and more like Jesus. So when we ask our self questions about what job do we pursue, who do we marry, what house do we buy, do those things make me more holy? This week we say, do those things help me worship God, or will they hinder my worship of God? God's not going to tell you, you need to move to 5205 Arbor Court. Whether 5205 Arbor Court is a place that you can worship Him, that's where you should go. If that's a place you can be more holy, that's where you should go. Which job is it that will help me worship my God? He wants our lives. He wants our lives. He's very clear to us. Love Him and want to be like Jesus, that's the will of God for your life. Let's pray. Father we rejoice at your commands. They're the source of life, the source of health, the source of healing for our lives. We thank you that you did not leave us without a plan. We thank you that you want us to be in relationship with you. And we want to run to do your will, to worship you and to become more and more like Jesus. That's to be people of the book so that we learn how to obey your Word. Father, use this time, use these words to be those that call us to life and we'll be careful to give you praise in Christ's name, amen.