HOW TO STAY IN THE WILL OF GOD 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 The first time I visited JOHN MACARTHUR S church in Los Angeles, I went to a guest reception after the service. They gave me a booklet written by MacArthur entitled, Found: God s Will. In it MacArthur addresses the question how to find God s will for your life. MacArthur s answer: God s will is not lost! His point is that scripture is clear about what the will of God is. And if you obey was scripture explicitly states is God s will, you can do whatever you want. Psalm 37:4 says it this way: Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. So what is God s will for your life? There are two direct statements about God s will in 1 Thessalonians. Paul wrote this letter to Christians who faced persecution for their faith. He points them to the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and exhorts them to live in light of this blessed hope. In this letter, the apostle makes two statements about God s will for every Christian. First, 1 Thessalonians 4:3 says: For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality. After salvation, God s primary will for your life is that you be sanctified. And the best place to begin to grow in sanctification is with sexual purity. Likewise, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. JAMES DENNEY famously called these verses the standing orders of the gospel. These exhortations apply to all Christians in every place and any situation: Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances. This passage is well known and obscure at the same time. The commands are familiar. But the justification for the commands is often overlooked. Why should Christians be joyful, prayerful, and thankful? Verse 18b explains: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. This applies to verses 16-18. These three exhortations are God s will for you. They are not comprehensive. But they are essential. Do you want to know God s will for you in any situation? It is God s will that you rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all circumstances. You are not in God s will if you are not joyful, prayerful, and thankful. God s will for your life is about your response more than it is about your circumstances. Verse 18 says: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. This passage only applies to those who are in Christ Jesus. Unsaved people do not rejoice in God, pray to God, or give thanks to God. Religious people rejoice sometimes, pray when they feel like it, and give thanks when things are going well. But Christians rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all circumstances. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 teaches three ways to stay in the will of God no matter what happens in your life. I. REJOICE ALWAYS. Do you know what the shortest verse in the New Testament is? This obvious answer is John 11:35: Jesus wept. It is the shortest verse in our English 1
translations of the Bible. But the shortest verse in the Greek New Testament is 1 Thessalonians 5:16: Rejoice always. It is a little verse with big implications. In verses 12-15, Paul instructs his readers how to treat other people. These instructions culminate in verse 15: See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. This verse assumes people will wrong you. They will say offensive things to you and do hurtful things to you. But you must not get even with them. This is relatively easy to do if you can bless evildoers with your absence and not have anything to do with them. But you must seek to do good to those who do you wrong. How can you treat people right no matter how they treat you? Verse 16 says: Rejoice always. The word rejoice is a call to joy. It was a watchword among the early Christians. More than a term of worship, it was a word of salutation. Jesus used it as a greeting in Matthew 28:9. Paul used it as a farewell in 2 Corinthians 13:11. We typically greet one another with Hello and Goodbye. But what an encouragement it would be if we entered and departed one another s presence with a call to rejoice. In verse 16, Paul exhorts the saints to rejoice. It is a command, which makes it clear that joy is more than happiness. Happiness is an emotional response to favorable, pleasant, or rewarding circumstances. You cannot compel a person to be happy. It s based on what happens. But Christians are commanded by God to rejoice. No situation cancels out this command. To live in grief, sadness, or depression is a sin. 2 Corinthians 6:10 says we are as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. This command to rejoice is in the present tense, It means, Keep on rejoicing. This makes this verse a hard command. The command would make sense if it simply said, Rejoice. There are many times and reasons and occasions that naturally call for rejoicing. But the command is to rejoice always, not sometimes. The way to distinguish between mere happiness and Christian joy is your ability to keep rejoicing at all times. Habakkuk 3:17-18 says: Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stall, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. In Matthew 5:11-12 Jesus said: Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. In Philippians 3:1, Paul says, Finally, brothers, rejoice in the Lord. And Philippians 4:4 exhorts: Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, Rejoice. The king of a particular country traveled often. But one day a man living near the palace remarked to a friend, Well, it looks like the king is home tonight. How do you know? asked the other. The man pointed up toward the castle. Because when the king is home, he said, the palace is all lit up! That s the way it is with Christian joy. Joy is the flag the flies over the believer s heart to signify the King is in residence. REJOICE, THE LORD IS KING! YOUR LORD AND KING ADORE; MORTALS GIVE THANKS AND SING, AND TRIUMPH EVERMORE; LIFT UP YOUR HEART, LIFE UP YOUR VOICE; REJOICE, AGAIN I SAY, REJOICE! 2
II. PRAY WITHOUT CEASING. There are four words for prayer in the Greek New Testament. The word used in verse 17 is the most common and comprehensive term for prayer. It is to pray or offer prayers. It includes all the ways a Christian may approach God in prayer, including thanksgiving, confession,, supplication, intercession, or submission. The use of this general term here indicates this verse is not about how to pray. It is about when to pray: pray without ceasing. What does it mean to pray without ceasing? It cannot be that you should always be on your knees talking to God in formal prayer. That is impossible. But do not use that as a loophole. You cannot always be in prayer. But you can always be prayerful. D. EDMOND HEIBERT wisely comments: In the Christian life the act of prayer is intermittent but the spirit of prayer should be incessant. The adverb without ceasing means to do something continuously. It is used in 1 Thessalonians 1:2, where Paul says, We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers. And in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul reports: And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. Paul constantly prayed and gave thanks for the Thessalonians. In the same sense, he exhorted them to constantly pray. They could not pray all the time. But they were commanded to pray without ceasing. The term was used to describe a hacking cough. Have you ever had a bad cough you couldn t shake? You cough throughout the day. In the midst of a conversation, you have to stop and cough. You try not to draw attention to yourself, but you cannot hide your need to cough. The need to cough wakes you up at night. I like to say it happens after prayer. But it may be better to say it happens if you don t stop praying. Luke 18:1 says: And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to ray and not lose heart. Romans 12:12 says: Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Ephesians 6:18 says: praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverant, making supplication for all the saints. Philippians 4:6 says: do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Colossians 4:2 says: Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. Pray without ceasing. Pray when you feeling like. Pray when you don t feel like it. Pray until you feel like it! Like the call to rejoice in verse 16, this call to prayer is a divine command. But you have totally missed the point of this verse is you only see in it a command to pray without ceasing. This verse is a command and privilege. It is a duty and delight. It is an imperative and invitation. It is an obligation and opportunity. It is something you ought to do and get to do. To pray without ceasing means the Father in heaven has an open-door policy. None of us can just show up at the White House whenever we want and walk into the Oval Office to tell POTUS about our needs. But Hebrews 3
4:14-16 says: Since then we have so great a high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been temped as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. III. GIVE THANKS IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. True Christians are marked by thanksgiving. It is more than a holiday. It is a way of life. An ungrateful Christian is an oxymoron. One of the worst things you can call a person is ungrateful. How much worse is it for a person who is saved by grace to be ungrateful? Ingratitude is the characteristic of an unbelieving sinner, not a child of God. Romans 1:18 says: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Romans 1:21 explains: For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 2 Timothy 3:1-2 says: But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy. Here is a simple way to distinguish saints from sinners. Sinners are ungrateful. Saints are thankful. I am not saying non- Christians cannot be sincerely grateful or genuinely thankful. I am saying that only Christians can obey 1 Thessalonians 5:18: give thanks in all circumstances. In verses 16-17, the adverb covers time: always and without ceasing. But verse 18 focuses on circumstances rather than time. Many commentators are quick to note the verse says give thanks in all circumstances, not for all circumstances. Yet Ephesians 5:20 says to be giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, we should not thank God for our sin. In fact, here is a simple question you should ask when trying to determine if you should do something: Can I thank God for it? Colossians 3:17 says: And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And we should not thank God when evil things happen. But we should not let evil cause us to stop giving thanks. The Puritan commentator, Matthew Henry, was robbed one while walking down the street one day. But later that evening, Henry wrote in his journal reasons to be thankful: I am thankful that during these years I have never been robbed until now. Also, even though they took my money, they did not take my life. And although they took all I had, it was not much. Finally, I am grateful that it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed. This is what it means to give thanks in all circumstances. Giving thanks in all circumstances requires stubborn trust in sovereign providence. APPLE changed the game when they installed cameras in the iphone. But people started taking more pictures of themselves than anything else. It s called a Selfie. But you cannot give thanks in all circumstances if selfie is your perspective on life. You need to be able to use the panorama button in Romans 8:28: And we 4
know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. You cannot give thanks in all circumstances if you focus on your circumstances. You must run to the cross and look at Jesus. Jesus lived a righteous life that you can never live. Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins by his blood. And Jesus rose from the dead to give you new life. Jesus ascended to glory to sit on the right hand of God the Father. And Jesus is coming back again to take you to glory with him. Do you believe that? If you believe you have enough reason to give thanks in all circumstances. I VE HAD MANY TEARS AND SORROWS, I VE HAD QUESTIONS FOR TOMORROW THERE VE BEEN TIMES I DIDN T KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG BUT IN EVERY SITUATION GOD GAVE BLESSED CONSOLATION THAT MY TRIALS COME TO ONLY MAKE ME STRONG I VE BEEN TO LOTS OF PLACES AND I VE SEEN A LOT OF FACES THERE VE BEEN TIMES I FELT SO ALL ALONG BUT IN MY LONELY HOURS, YES, THOSE PRECIOUS LONELY HOURS JESUS LET ME KNOW THAT I WAS HIS OWN I THANK GOD FOR THE MOUNTAINS, AND I THANK GOD FOR THE VALLEYS I THANK HIM FOR THE STORMS HE BROUGHT ME THROUGH FOR IF I D NEVER HAD A PROBLEM I WOULDN T KNOW HE COULD SOLVE THEM I D NEVER KNOW WHAT FAITH IN GOD CAN DO 5