Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:18
“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”
A tribal king had a close friend with whom he grew up. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) as well as the lives of others and remarking, “This is good!” He based it on two scriptures: 1 Thessalonians 5:18, which we just read, and Romans 8:28 which assures us that God can turn every situation (good or bad) into ultimate good. The king loved his friend’s positive outlook and took him with him wherever he went.
One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. As the king fired his gun, at a pheasant that flew up from the long grass, the rifle backfired and blew off his right thumb. Looking at the king’s bleeding hand; his friend remarked as usual, “This is good!”
The king was angry and replied, “No, this is NOT good!” and proceeded to send his friend to jail for his insensitivity.
About a year later, the king was hunting all alone in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, and were going to cook him in a big pot. As they set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb on his right hand. Being very superstitious, cannibals never eat anyone who is less than perfect. So, they released the king.
Walking home he kept staring at his right hand without a thumb. “This IS good!” he said out loud. He was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his shabby treatment of his friend. So, he went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend.
“You were right,” he said, “it was good that my thumb was blown off.” And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. “And so, I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this.”
“No,” his friend replied as usual, “This is good!” “What do you mean, ‘This is good?’ How could it be good that I put my friend in jail for over a year?” “Well,” replied his friend, “if I had not been here in jail, I would have been out there with you!”
So, I challenge, you. Give thanks in all circumstances, not just when the circumstances around you look good at the moment, but especially when it looks really bad, give thanks, because you can trust God to take care of you and make all things work out for your good.
In this the season of Thanksgiving, we are accustomed to giving thanks for family, and health and all kinds of blessings. We can try to count our blessing as the song says, but we know there’s always way more than we can really count. We give thanks for good and loving relationships among family and friends, gainful employment, economic security and political and religious freedom. We give thanks for our national security and all our armed forces that protect our liberties and prosperity. It is good to give thanks! And we give thanks to God for making it all possible.
Giving thanks is so important, God even commanded us to do it. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” That’s command language! It’s kind of a funny thought for parents, thinking about how much they do for their children and wanting to tell them, “You ought to thank me!” Can you imagine looking your children in the eye and saying to them, “Be thankful you have me for a father no matter what happens. That’s my will for you.”
We tend to refrain from commanding anyone’s gratitude. We just carry on with what we sometimes call the thankless task of parenting. Sure, we would enjoy experiencing their expressions of gratitude, but not if we force it out of them. It kind of defeats our real desires if we tell them they have to. So how come God gets away with commanding our thanks?
The answer to that lies in the facts of human existence. We would prefer to be self-made, owing nothing to anyone and having no need to thank anyone for what we want to believe we have accomplished on our own. The best of us work hard to make our own way, build our own reputation and secure our own financial security. Nothing wrong with that, except that it’s not really the whole story. All of our accomplishments are only possible because God provides the resources we use to accomplish anything.
We should remember that easily, but there is an inbuilt refusal to thank God for our blessings that started with Adam and Eve. It’s called a “sinful nature.” All of us are born with that ever since our original parents broke the world with their first act of ingratitude. We think of the original sin as that great act of disobedience, in which they partook of the forbidden fruit. But Martin Luther pointed out that the real original sin was ingratitude. Adam and Eve fell into satan’s trap of wanting something more the moment they stopped thanking God for all the paradise they already had. If they had only been grateful for all the blessings already granted, they never would have wanted to be more like God by eating of that fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.
Since God knows that ingratitude is the root of all coveting, and coveting is the root of all acts of selfish sin, God wants us to know the importance of giving thanks to him, and so he and perhaps he alone, is right to command us to give thanks in all things! It is self-destructively deadly if we don’t!
And that, dear parents, is why we don’t force our kids to thank us. We need to teach them to thank God for everything, by setting an example of thanking God for everything right along with them. And that includes thanking God for them, too! (Even when they act like ungrateful little imps!)
So, when we celebrate Thanksgiving, we best be giving thanks to God, more than to our relatives, for good and loving relationships among family and friends. We should give thanks to God, more than to doctors, for good health and for healing when we need it. We give thanks to God, more than to our soldiers, for our national security and all our armed forces that protect our liberties and prosperity. We give thanks to God, more than ourselves, or to anyone else, for friends, gainful employment, economic security and political and religious freedom and all kinds of blessings. There is no such thing as a self-made man, or woman either.
However, none of the material blessings we may enjoy on this earth can compare with the glory and riches of the spiritual blessings that are ours through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. And yet, many people alive today, if not most of us to be honest, are much more focused on the material blessings we want, than on the spiritual blessings we have in Christ.
And, this is a particularly American issue. Yesterday, Kathy and I went down to a Voice of the Martyr’s Conference in Grand Rapids. There we heard a lot of stories about the kinds of things our brothers and sisters around the world give thanks for. They live in places where they are not blessed with good jobs or good neighbors or a good economy or freedom to worship, or much freedom at all. They are ostracized and oppressed as low-class citizens just because they believe in and talk about Jesus. They are persecuted, imprisoned, and tortured in places where the state has declared Christianity illegal.
Let me tell you what they give thanks for. In Acts 5:41 “The apostles left the high council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.” Romans 8:17-18 “And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 2 Corinthians 1:5 “For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ.”
That verse reminds me of the story of the Christian who was arrested and was beaten while in jail, just last year. He told of how God reminded him that he is supposed to love his enemies. But he said back to God, “Not now, not while this man is hitting me. I just can’t.” God said, “Ask me what I think of him.” And while he was still being hit again and again by this angry unbeliever, our brother did ask God about His love for this sinner. Then, he said that God’s love for the sinner flowed into him and helped him also love that man, who had a wife and children that God also loved, and this gave him more strength to endure his torture too!
2 Corinthians 12:10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Philippians 1:29 For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him.” This does not mean that our persecuted brothers and sisters want to get arrested and tortured. Nobody wants that. But it does mean that they have taken those risks into account and have determined that they will take reasonable precautions and go and do the work of evangelism anyway, in spite of the risks.
Philippians 3:10-11, I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!” 2 Thessalonians 1:5 And God will use this persecution to show his justice and to make you worthy of his Kingdom, for which you are suffering.” 2 Timothy 3:12 Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Hebrews 10:34 You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever. James 1:2, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.” 1 Peter 3:14 But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats.” 1 Peter 4:12-13 “Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.”
Our persecuted brothers and sisters give thanks for all these truths, that encourage them to persevere in the faith, in spite of great suffering. And this bears fruit. Gracia Burnham told us that of the 20 or so rebel soldiers who held her captive for nearly a year, and caused the death of her husband, most of whom are now in jail, 5 have given their hearts to the Lord for forgiveness and salvation because of the ministry of the gospel in that jail, partly due to Gracia’s ability to write them letters expressing her forgiveness of them.
Dr. Fu told us that in China, the persecuted church has now grown to more than 200 million, and the renewed efforts to wipe the church out, led by self-proclaimed emperor Xi, will be like throwing water on a grease fire. The church will spread even more. So, some of the Christians there give thanks for the ways that God is using the emperor to strengthen the Church so that it will keep growing very fast!
VOM heard about and was able to contact the family of one of the many Chinese pastors who have been arrested and put in prison. He was sentenced to five years. VOM offered support for the family and legal aid for the pastor. But such assistance was refused. The family said, “It’s only 5 years! And God will get more glory if we endure this without your support.”
Tod Nettleton, VOM radio host observed, “Suffering is not the worst thing that can happen to a Christian.” Afterward, I spoke with him and pointed out that he never answered the question of what is the worst thing that can happen to a Christian. I told him my answer to that question would have to be, “Nothing.” The worst thing that can happen to a Christian is nothing, because if you are doing nothing for Jesus, the devil will leave you alone.
Faith in Jesus puts you in a good relationship with Jesus and offers forgiveness of all your sins, but it doesn’t mean you get an easy life from here on out. Jesus assured us that in this world, we, even his children, would still have trials and tribulations, but that He, Jesus, our Heavenly Older Brother, will be with us through it all to help us and strengthen us to deal with everything in the power of the Spirit, not so it becomes easy, but so that it becomes worth the effort. The Spirit helps us in our weakness. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
So, since God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Believe that and let him help you live up to it. That’s why we participate in the fellowship of believers and the worship of God. We’re celebrating life in Christ.
We’re giving thanks for so great salvation. Thank you, Lord, for choosing us! Such love as yours is overwhelming! We thank you Lord for the gift of the blessed Holy Spirit who dwells within and assures us of our life with you, secured in Christ when we trust him. Thank you for your glorious grace, poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. Thank you for being so rich in kindness and grace that you purchased our freedom with the blood of your Son and forgave our sins.
Thank for showering this kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. Thank you for revealing to us what used to be your mysterious will regarding Christ, and for fulfilling your good plan. Thank you for inviting us to partner with you in sharing this great news with everyone else around us. And thank you for planning to bring everything together under the authority of Christ, at just the right time. We know you bring what is the very best for all humanity who trusts in you!
“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”
A tribal king had a close friend with whom he grew up. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) as well as the lives of others and remarking, “This is good!” He based it on two scriptures: 1 Thessalonians 5:18, which we just read, and Romans 8:28 which assures us that God can turn every situation (good or bad) into ultimate good. The king loved his friend’s positive outlook and took him with him wherever he went.
One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. As the king fired his gun, at a pheasant that flew up from the long grass, the rifle backfired and blew off his right thumb. Looking at the king’s bleeding hand; his friend remarked as usual, “This is good!”
The king was angry and replied, “No, this is NOT good!” and proceeded to send his friend to jail for his insensitivity.
About a year later, the king was hunting all alone in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, and were going to cook him in a big pot. As they set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb on his right hand. Being very superstitious, cannibals never eat anyone who is less than perfect. So, they released the king.
Walking home he kept staring at his right hand without a thumb. “This IS good!” he said out loud. He was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his shabby treatment of his friend. So, he went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend.
“You were right,” he said, “it was good that my thumb was blown off.” And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. “And so, I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this.”
“No,” his friend replied as usual, “This is good!” “What do you mean, ‘This is good?’ How could it be good that I put my friend in jail for over a year?” “Well,” replied his friend, “if I had not been here in jail, I would have been out there with you!”
So, I challenge, you. Give thanks in all circumstances, not just when the circumstances around you look good at the moment, but especially when it looks really bad, give thanks, because you can trust God to take care of you and make all things work out for your good.
In this the season of Thanksgiving, we are accustomed to giving thanks for family, and health and all kinds of blessings. We can try to count our blessing as the song says, but we know there’s always way more than we can really count. We give thanks for good and loving relationships among family and friends, gainful employment, economic security and political and religious freedom. We give thanks for our national security and all our armed forces that protect our liberties and prosperity. It is good to give thanks! And we give thanks to God for making it all possible.
Giving thanks is so important, God even commanded us to do it. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” That’s command language! It’s kind of a funny thought for parents, thinking about how much they do for their children and wanting to tell them, “You ought to thank me!” Can you imagine looking your children in the eye and saying to them, “Be thankful you have me for a father no matter what happens. That’s my will for you.”
We tend to refrain from commanding anyone’s gratitude. We just carry on with what we sometimes call the thankless task of parenting. Sure, we would enjoy experiencing their expressions of gratitude, but not if we force it out of them. It kind of defeats our real desires if we tell them they have to. So how come God gets away with commanding our thanks?
The answer to that lies in the facts of human existence. We would prefer to be self-made, owing nothing to anyone and having no need to thank anyone for what we want to believe we have accomplished on our own. The best of us work hard to make our own way, build our own reputation and secure our own financial security. Nothing wrong with that, except that it’s not really the whole story. All of our accomplishments are only possible because God provides the resources we use to accomplish anything.
We should remember that easily, but there is an inbuilt refusal to thank God for our blessings that started with Adam and Eve. It’s called a “sinful nature.” All of us are born with that ever since our original parents broke the world with their first act of ingratitude. We think of the original sin as that great act of disobedience, in which they partook of the forbidden fruit. But Martin Luther pointed out that the real original sin was ingratitude. Adam and Eve fell into satan’s trap of wanting something more the moment they stopped thanking God for all the paradise they already had. If they had only been grateful for all the blessings already granted, they never would have wanted to be more like God by eating of that fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.
Since God knows that ingratitude is the root of all coveting, and coveting is the root of all acts of selfish sin, God wants us to know the importance of giving thanks to him, and so he and perhaps he alone, is right to command us to give thanks in all things! It is self-destructively deadly if we don’t!
And that, dear parents, is why we don’t force our kids to thank us. We need to teach them to thank God for everything, by setting an example of thanking God for everything right along with them. And that includes thanking God for them, too! (Even when they act like ungrateful little imps!)
So, when we celebrate Thanksgiving, we best be giving thanks to God, more than to our relatives, for good and loving relationships among family and friends. We should give thanks to God, more than to doctors, for good health and for healing when we need it. We give thanks to God, more than to our soldiers, for our national security and all our armed forces that protect our liberties and prosperity. We give thanks to God, more than ourselves, or to anyone else, for friends, gainful employment, economic security and political and religious freedom and all kinds of blessings. There is no such thing as a self-made man, or woman either.
However, none of the material blessings we may enjoy on this earth can compare with the glory and riches of the spiritual blessings that are ours through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. And yet, many people alive today, if not most of us to be honest, are much more focused on the material blessings we want, than on the spiritual blessings we have in Christ.
And, this is a particularly American issue. Yesterday, Kathy and I went down to a Voice of the Martyr’s Conference in Grand Rapids. There we heard a lot of stories about the kinds of things our brothers and sisters around the world give thanks for. They live in places where they are not blessed with good jobs or good neighbors or a good economy or freedom to worship, or much freedom at all. They are ostracized and oppressed as low-class citizens just because they believe in and talk about Jesus. They are persecuted, imprisoned, and tortured in places where the state has declared Christianity illegal.
Let me tell you what they give thanks for. In Acts 5:41 “The apostles left the high council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.” Romans 8:17-18 “And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 2 Corinthians 1:5 “For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ.”
That verse reminds me of the story of the Christian who was arrested and was beaten while in jail, just last year. He told of how God reminded him that he is supposed to love his enemies. But he said back to God, “Not now, not while this man is hitting me. I just can’t.” God said, “Ask me what I think of him.” And while he was still being hit again and again by this angry unbeliever, our brother did ask God about His love for this sinner. Then, he said that God’s love for the sinner flowed into him and helped him also love that man, who had a wife and children that God also loved, and this gave him more strength to endure his torture too!
2 Corinthians 12:10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Philippians 1:29 For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him.” This does not mean that our persecuted brothers and sisters want to get arrested and tortured. Nobody wants that. But it does mean that they have taken those risks into account and have determined that they will take reasonable precautions and go and do the work of evangelism anyway, in spite of the risks.
Philippians 3:10-11, I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!” 2 Thessalonians 1:5 And God will use this persecution to show his justice and to make you worthy of his Kingdom, for which you are suffering.” 2 Timothy 3:12 Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Hebrews 10:34 You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever. James 1:2, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.” 1 Peter 3:14 But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats.” 1 Peter 4:12-13 “Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.”
Our persecuted brothers and sisters give thanks for all these truths, that encourage them to persevere in the faith, in spite of great suffering. And this bears fruit. Gracia Burnham told us that of the 20 or so rebel soldiers who held her captive for nearly a year, and caused the death of her husband, most of whom are now in jail, 5 have given their hearts to the Lord for forgiveness and salvation because of the ministry of the gospel in that jail, partly due to Gracia’s ability to write them letters expressing her forgiveness of them.
Dr. Fu told us that in China, the persecuted church has now grown to more than 200 million, and the renewed efforts to wipe the church out, led by self-proclaimed emperor Xi, will be like throwing water on a grease fire. The church will spread even more. So, some of the Christians there give thanks for the ways that God is using the emperor to strengthen the Church so that it will keep growing very fast!
VOM heard about and was able to contact the family of one of the many Chinese pastors who have been arrested and put in prison. He was sentenced to five years. VOM offered support for the family and legal aid for the pastor. But such assistance was refused. The family said, “It’s only 5 years! And God will get more glory if we endure this without your support.”
Tod Nettleton, VOM radio host observed, “Suffering is not the worst thing that can happen to a Christian.” Afterward, I spoke with him and pointed out that he never answered the question of what is the worst thing that can happen to a Christian. I told him my answer to that question would have to be, “Nothing.” The worst thing that can happen to a Christian is nothing, because if you are doing nothing for Jesus, the devil will leave you alone.
Faith in Jesus puts you in a good relationship with Jesus and offers forgiveness of all your sins, but it doesn’t mean you get an easy life from here on out. Jesus assured us that in this world, we, even his children, would still have trials and tribulations, but that He, Jesus, our Heavenly Older Brother, will be with us through it all to help us and strengthen us to deal with everything in the power of the Spirit, not so it becomes easy, but so that it becomes worth the effort. The Spirit helps us in our weakness. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
So, since God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Believe that and let him help you live up to it. That’s why we participate in the fellowship of believers and the worship of God. We’re celebrating life in Christ.
We’re giving thanks for so great salvation. Thank you, Lord, for choosing us! Such love as yours is overwhelming! We thank you Lord for the gift of the blessed Holy Spirit who dwells within and assures us of our life with you, secured in Christ when we trust him. Thank you for your glorious grace, poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. Thank you for being so rich in kindness and grace that you purchased our freedom with the blood of your Son and forgave our sins.
Thank for showering this kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. Thank you for revealing to us what used to be your mysterious will regarding Christ, and for fulfilling your good plan. Thank you for inviting us to partner with you in sharing this great news with everyone else around us. And thank you for planning to bring everything together under the authority of Christ, at just the right time. We know you bring what is the very best for all humanity who trusts in you!
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