Sermon Transcript
Well, good morning everyone. If we haven’t met, my name is Dave Collegian. I have the privilege of working with students here at Bridges Community Church. I’m happy to share with you this morning. So Thanksgiving, yes, I hope you guys had plenty of turkey or whatever your family does on Thanksgiving.
And this is a time that we put aside as a nation to be thankful, to pause and stop and think about all the blessings that we have in our life. So I would love to ask you this question this morning. How grateful are you? And I, you know, once again, this time of year, it’s, that’s awesome. But how grateful are you 12 months of the year?
Is thankfulness and gratitude a part of the fabric? Is it embedded in the fabric of your life? And are you growing in that thankfulness? And then beyond that, what does God’s word, what does God want in my attitude and my practice as far as being grateful? So we’re going to look at that.
If you guys have your Bibles, turn with me, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 16. Paul writes this, be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. And did you catch that? Like, okay, I’m supposed to be joyful always, supposed to pray all the time, and I’m supposed to give thanks in all circumstances.
That seems impossible. And Paul’s like, well, yes, you’re right. Like, to do that seems impossible. But the good news is, is that with God, all things are possible. Let me pray for us this morning.
Lord, thank you so much for today. We thank you for this time of year where we hopefully will stop and slow down a little bit, dear God, and just realize all the blessings that you have given to us. Lord, we thank you that you are a loving and gracious God. And Lord, we— I pray that you open up our hearts and our minds to understand you and understand our life with you in a deeper way. In your name, amen.
All right, so let’s look at the text as far as exactly what Paul is laying out here. He says, be joyful always. Okay, what exactly does that mean? See, in contrast, if you’re going to live a life for God, it will be countercultural. You will be swimming up against the stream, so to speak.
It will be countercultural, but In contrast, like our culture says, be happy, I think is a good way of looking at it. Be happy. It’s based off of our situation and it’s temporary. These things don’t last forever. But that’s not what Paul is talking about here.
This word joyful has to do with something deep and eternal, something long-lasting. That’s what it is. And actually back in the book of Philippians, the day, they would actually use this as a greeting. Kind of like how for me, I will say hello. Lloyd, where did Lloyd go?
Lloyd actually greeted me with this today. There he is over there. All right. He said, blessings, brother. Okay.
What did he mean by that? It wasn’t just he was giving me blessing. It’s an acknowledgment that this is something beyond us. Blessings. God.
He’s pointing to God. This is something not natural, this is something supernatural, this is something from God. And in the same way, this was used— joyful— this was used to acknowledge that this isn’t something that just happens. This joy is a joy that comes from God. So we’re supposed to be joyful always, we’re supposed to pray continually.
When I first became a Christian, I thought praying was just communication with God, kind of like a text or an email, right? God, this is what I want, and then you just kind of sit there for a while and see if he answers you, right? But I don’t believe that that’s what prayer is. As I’ve grown closer and closer to God, I’ve realized that prayer is primarily communion with God. It’s being with God.
And the way I kind of look at this, like, in our society, we’re like, we want to, like chat with one another, talk with one another. So what do we typically do? Hey, what are you doing? We want to go grab some coffee, right? So you meet, whether it’s in the morning, afternoon, evening, you meet with that individual, you guys chat, catch up on things, and then you guys part ways.
I don’t think that’s a good representation of communion with God, being with God. I think a better one is kind of a glimpse of my childhood. My dad, who grew up on a farm, I think the only reason why he had kids was so that he had a workforce. So I was part of that workforce. And the beautiful thing is, is that he would say, hey, Dave, tomorrow we’re going to be working on such and such.
Go ahead and get up at 8 o’clock. I’ll meet you in the kitchen. We will eat breakfast together and then spend the rest of the day together. I think that’s a picture of communion with God. Meeting to pray, yes, but then it’s spending the rest of the day with God.
It’s being with God. And so, once again, Paul lays out here, he says, be joyful always, pray continually, and then give thanks in all circumstances. So wait, we’re supposed to give thanks when we hear we have cancer? And we’re supposed to give thanks when we hear we’re, you know, my spouse wants a divorce. We’re supposed to give thanks when we lose our job and we have no idea how we’re going to pay our bills.
And we’re supposed to give thanks when my body is hurting beyond what the painkillers can do. Paul lays out here, absolutely, these things seem impossible, but the good news It’s found in 2 Corinthians 5:17. It says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come.
We are new creatures. If you are a son and daughter of Jesus Christ, if you have given your life to God, he didn’t just say that one day you will get to heaven. He says he is birthing in you. He has changed your heart to know him and to love him and have a relationship with him. And God himself says, I will not just be up in heaven waiting for you.
God says that I’m going to be with you every step of the way. Next month, we’re going to be singing a lot of songs, and one of those songs that we will be singing is Emmanuel, God with us. And that’s a picture of what it is to live a life with God.
So that’s a picture of what we want to do. How in the world are we going to be able to pull this off? Once again, it is with God. But there are 3 points that I want to go through to gain some perspective on actually how to live this life out. Because if you’re like me sitting there, you’re like, I can maybe maintain this for 3 days.
Maybe a week. But God says this is the desire. It’s not if you have time to do these things. These are commands. This is what God wants for our lives.
And he’s going to be able to make sure that we are able to do that and carry that out. Once again, that picture of God with us. But in order for this to pull this off, we need to have the correct perspective. There’s really 3 points that I have. First one is possessions will never fully satisfy us.
Possessions will never fully satisfy us. When I was young, I had a desire to have a remote control car. And it was probably around this time I would beg my parents, please, please, please, can I get this remote control car? And it wasn’t just any remote control car. It was a 1977 Pontiac Trans Am.
That’s what I wanted. There you go. That’s the best car ever, all right? If I have this, I will be completely satisfied. My life will be complete once I receive this car.
And so I got the car on Christmas. It was awesome. Drove it around on the kitchen floor with the linoleum. And then I decided, hey, I am going to take this out because everyone’s going to see my car and see how awesome I am with my car. And so I take it outside and I’m having fun with it.
Once again, temporarily, for a little while, until one of my friends in the neighborhood had a remote control vehicle as well. But his remote control vehicle was not a car, it was a truck. And where my car couldn’t go— gravel, grass, on the mud— his car could. His truck took those, you know, went over all of that stuff. And everyone in the neighborhood stopped looking at my car And looked at his.
And I did the same thing. I looked at what I had and I said, yeah, this is good, but what I really want is that. That is what’s going to give me satisfaction. That is what’s going to give me joy. I was discontent with what I had and I focused on not what I had, but really what I wanted.
And that’s why The truth that possessions will never fully satisfy us. God did not create us to be satisfied with stuff. God created us to be satisfied with Him. Second point, living in light of eternity. In order to pull this off, in order to be joyful and pray and give thanks, we need to live in light of eternity.
You guys are probably familiar, if you’re a parent, you’re probably familiar with these little blue, I don’t know, swimming pools, right? They’re about, I don’t know, that big, and they have little fishes on them. You fill them up with a little bit of water and let your little guy or girl splash in it, right? So I did that for both my sons, but one son in particular, my oldest, One day he was splashing around in there having a great time, and I’m like, hey, I got great news for you, buddy. We’re going to go pretty soon to an awesome place.
If you like splashing around in this, you will have no idea where we’re going to. It is called Lake Tahoe. And Lake Tahoe is like this, like times a million. It is so awesome there. And he’s like, oh, you know, splashing around.
OK, Dad. Fine and all, but I’m like happy here. Like, this is good for me. And I just kind of had to step back and smile because I knew what awaited him. And, you know, a couple weeks later when we went up to Lake Tahoe, it was awesome because one of my favorite pictures is my son jumping off of a rock, hands raised, into this great big lake.
He got to live out this awesome lake, this awesome experience. And I think God sometimes kind of says to us, splashing around in our little lives here, He says, man, you have no idea what is in store for you. We need to live in light of eternity. And finally, the third point is peace. True peace comes from trusting from knowing and trusting God.
True peace comes from knowing and trusting God. It’s kind of interesting because this church that Paul was writing to in Thessalonica, this church, I mean, it was a group of people, not just a building, but a group of people that Paul was writing to. During that time, they had this idea that Caesar is Lord, right? That with rule, with this power, there will be peace on earth. Caesar will see to it that you live in peace.
And so Caesar was Lord, that’s kind of a saying that they would have. But here’s kind of the deal with that. Archaeologists kind of dug up this place and they found that a lot of the homes there had no windows. And they believe that they didn’t have any windows because crime was so high during that time that people would break in. So they would have to build houses without any windows.
That peace isn’t the kind of peace that comes from knowing God and having a person, a political leader, as Lord. True peace only comes from knowing the living God. It’s an eternal peace, and God offers that to us. And so, once again, in conclusion, to be able to do these things, we need to be able to live in light of the fact that possessions will never truly satisfy us, live in light of eternity, and knowing that peace, true peace, will only come from trusting God. And because of these things, because we could rest in these things, We can be joyful always.
We can pray continually, and we can give thanks in all circumstances, because we know that this is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus. Let me pray. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you how you desire for us for us to live this life that is countercultural, that kind of goes against the grain of always coming up with what’s next or what can fill my life. You want us as people to pause and not only be grateful and thankful, dear God, but to acknowledge that we need you in our lives every single day.
Lord, I thank you and I praise you for your word this morning. And I pray that we will become a people who are known for our thankfulness and gratitude to you. In your name, amen.
