All Circumstances

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

October 20, 2024 (Generosity Sunday) • Mount Pleasant UMC

I grew up going to church. I don’t ever remember asking why we went to church because that was just what we did. It was important to my parents so my brother and I weren’t given an option. It wasn’t until I was older, probably not really until I was in college, that I began asking questions like that—questions like, “Why is church important to me?” When I got out on my own, I had to decide if being part of a church was important to me or if it was just something I had been made to do. I think it’s pretty clear what I decided, since I answered a call to spend my whole life in the church, and even now, I still believe the church is vital to the community and to the world. Even with all of its flaws and brokenness, the church is still Jesus’ plan for the world. You may have lots of thoughts or reasons why you come here, and maybe some of you wandered in here today for the first time and have no idea why except that it seemed like a good idea. Some of us come because we have friends here. Some of us come because we like the music; some of us come in spite of not liking the music. Some come because of our kids and some come because it’s something we’ve always done. Some of you may have even grown up here and never known another church than Mount Pleasant. All of those reasons are great, but the main reason we come to this place Sunday after Sunday is to proclaim with our lives the fact that Jesus is Lord over all of creation—even if that creation doesn’t actually recognize it yet. He is Lord and he will be Lord when all is said and done. His kingdom is the only one that will last. And that truth should fill us with the kind of joy that leads to thankfulness (cf. Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians, pg. 133).

That’s the primary message Paul has for us in the brief Scripture passage we read this morning as we wrap up our series on “A Thousand Thank Yous.” There’s still time, by the way, to add your thank yous on the wall in the foyer. I hope you’ve stopped by there at some point in the last three weeks to express your gratitude. It’s been fun to see it fill up over these days. Today we come back to a Scripture we touched briefly on a couple of weeks ago and that is Paul’s command to “give thanks in all circumstances” (5:18). Sometimes, though, we rush to that verse without noticing that there are a few things that lead up to it.

This verse is actually in the midst of a series of instructions Paul seems to be throwing out at the end of this letter to the people in Thessaloniki. He’s trying to help them learn the Christian way of living which includes love for one another, respect for their leaders, and doing what is good for the community rather than just for yourself (5:12-15). Then Paul quickly covers three other aspects of the Christian life, three things that are supposed to be happening continually, all the time. Rejoicing, praying and thanking. I don’t think these are random, like Paul was just checking off a laundry list of things he wanted to say. No, I believe Paul is very intentional here in grouping these three things together, in telling us these things are supposed to happen all the time. I believe one leads to the other. Joy leads to prayer which leads to thankfulness, and in the larger context of the letter, these are all things that grow out of our realization that we are dependent on God alone—just the thing we have been talking about the last three weeks. Everything we have comes from God, and so even when life is not the way it’s supposed to be, we can rejoice and we can pray and we can give thanks because we know God is working for our good, even when we can’t see it. That’s what Paul says elsewhere: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28). He doesn’t say all things are good; he says God is working for good and can even bend the worst of circumstances for good. Look what he did with the cross—he turned it into the resurrection, which is why you hear me say all the time, “The worst thing is never the last thing.” God is bringing good out of everything; that’s why we can rejoice and we can pray and we can give thanks in all circumstances.

There are practices that will help us with this, but before we get to those let me say a word about the “continually” idea in these verses. How do we do these things all the time? I mean sometimes we have to take out the garbage or clean up a mess. We can’t just sit around and be happy or sing songs or never show any kind of sad emotion. Thankfully, that’s not what Paul means here. Paul is realist. He knows life is hard; he’s lived it, which is why what he’s talking about here is living with a settled heart because we are dependent on God. It’s keeping those lines of communication open, to where when anything happens our first tendency is to tell it to God. You know how you have that person in your life you want to tell things to, good or bad? Paul says that should be the way we connect with and respond to God. Always, continually, without ceasing. There’s never a moment in our life when we’re not conscious of the truth that God is with us. And what’s true of prayer should also be true of our life of gratitude. “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (Thomas, “1 Thessalonians,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 11, pg. 291).

So there are some things we can do that place us in a position or you might even say train our souls to live this way. As we practice these things often, they become like muscle memory, or we might say soul memory, so we get to the place where they become natural, second nature. The first practice, then, is to remember (Vaughn, Radical Gratitude, pg. 111ff). Remembering is important in the Bible. When the Israelites are rescued from slavery in Egypt, they are told to remember that they once were slaves; don’t forget where you have come from (cf. Deuteronomy 24:18). When they cross into the promised land, they set up a pillar of stones and are told that the stones are to help them remember how God helped them (cf. Joshua 4:4-9). And even later, a prophet named Samuel sets up a stone and calls it “Ebenezer,” which means, “Thus far the Lord has helped us” (1 Samuel 7:12). So if you’ve ever sung that song that says, “There I raise my Ebenezer,” now you know what that means. It means to remember, actively remember, the way God has worked in your life. And, of course, Jesus took bread and juice during the final meal he shared with his disciples and gave them new meaning, telling his followers to do the same thing “in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). “Remember” is a huge recurring theme in the Scriptures. “Our primary challenge is simply to remember what we know” (Vaughn 113).

I was a brand new pastor in the first month of my first appointment and I had two weddings approaching that were left to me by my predecessor. And not only did I have two weddings, but they were both on the same day. One was at 2:00 and one was at 6:00. I had met with the two couples, and everything was good to go except I was scared to death of calling them by the wrong name. Worse yet, their rehearsals were in the opposite order of their weddings. The 6:00 rehearsal was first and then the 2:00. I was so confused, so I wrote the names on post-it notes and put them in my Book of Worship so as to make sure I could remember what I knew when the pressure was on. All I really had to remember then was to change the post-its between the weddings! The challenge is to remember what we know, to remember who God is and what he has done for us and in us in the past. I think about the covid pandemic, and how many people blamed God or gave up on God or walked away from their faith and their church during that time. How quickly we forgot the ways God had brought us through things like that before and that he would again. To move from joy to prayer to gratitude, we must remember.

But we also must forget (cf. Vaughn 130ff). Now you’re thinking—is the pastor confused? Not at all. Well, not about this. Maybe about other things but not about this. This practice is not about the kind of forgetting we typically practice—you know, the kind where you move from one room to another and can’t remember why you went there in the first place? Or the kind that forgets you put your cell phone on top of the car and then you pull out and…well, you know what happens then. No, not that kind of forgetting. It’s the kind of forgetting that leaves behind the things that are harmful to our soul: the complaints, the hurts, the wounds, the broken relationships, the things you wish you hadn’t said, the sins that have been forgiven and the shame that so easily shapes our soul. Let’s admit that these are the things we easily remember. Satan loves to help us remember these things. You know how it works: you’re having a difficult day, and suddenly you remember all sorts of other things, true and untrue, that reinforce how you’re feeling. You make a mistake and you remember all the other times you did something wrong. You say the wrong thing and begin to imagine how that one thing will end all relationships and friendships forever. You have a lonely day and remember people you’ve known who died alone. And I’m not making light of any of these—not at all. I’ve felt every single one of these and remember the wrong things all the time. Or that sin that keeps coming back up—when it happens again, you remember the other times it happened and you begin to believe the voice of the evil one that says God can’t possibly forgive you again for the same thing. But do you know what the Scripture says about that? It says God “remembers our sin no more” (cf. Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 8:12). If God forgets it, then we should too. Here’s the practice: remember God’s faithfulness. Forget your mistakes and sins.

And then, third: look up (Vaughn 138ff). I think it’s easier to forget when we remember what God is like; we look up to see God as God. Now, I’m not talking about a literal looking up, though watching the sky as the sun sets can inspire you to worship which is what we’re really talking about. Worship—giving God the “worth” he is due. This begins to come naturally as you realize that the one who is so grand and glorious loves you just the way you are.

Author Ellen Vaughn observes that our world has largely lost any sense of reverence, of there being anything greater than ourselves. We live in a world where “my truth” is all that matters and the idea that there is something as absolute truth is made fun of. She says everything in our world is measured by the question, “How does it affect me?” Or “what’s in it for me?” And the reality that there is someone else, someone other, by whom everything should be measured is thought of as ridiculous. In the book of Acts, we meet a man named Saul of Tarsus who lived much the same way. His way was all that mattered, and he took it upon himself, with the blessing of the religious leaders, to get rid of those who thought differently—specifically Christians. He was on his way to arrest some of those Jesus followers when he was knocked down and blinded by a bright light. He couldn’t see and yet he found himself looking up when he heard the words, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:1-6). When he looked up and realized God had a bigger plan than his own, his whole life changed. He became Paul and later he would write, “Give thanks in all circumstances” (5:18). Look up; see who God really is.

And then, look around (cf. Vaughn 158ff.). Look around and consider the world we live in, the community we live in, the people and the situations around us. And if you’re anything like me, when I look around, I have two reactions, both centered in gratitude. The first is to be grateful for what I have been given. Remember Paul says to give thanks in all circumstances. I did a deep intensive word study of the word “all” and I found that it means… “all.” Every single one. So even when I’m having a bad day, I can still find something to be thankful for. This was driven home to me a couple of years ago when we went to Mayfield, Kentucky to work on tornado recovery. We went in November, and it was cold. The days weren’t bad, but it got cold in the mornings and the evenings. And the room we guys were staying in, because of the way it was constructed, was cold. I hate being cold. So I had to begin to look around for things to be thankful for: for the strength to work, for the opportunity to help, for the wonderful team we worked with. Did it help me be warm? No, not a bit. But it changed my attitude. And I can tell you that for several weeks after returning home, I thanked God every night when I climbed into a warm bed. Look around and you will find reasons to be grateful.

And when I look around, I have another reason to be grateful. I am grateful to be involved in a church where our mission is to transform the world. This world is a mess; I don’t know if you’ve noticed. Politicians promise us they are all going to make it better but we know from past experiences that none of them really will. The only hope for truly transforming the world is Jesus, and the way that Jesus has chosen to do that is through his church. That’s our mission: making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. And those are not just words. That’s what we really believe we are called to do here. And so we reach out to people with special needs and seek to create normalcy for folks who have often been pushed to the edges of society. We want them to know they are loved and valued by Jesus even when others around them don’t do the same. We host Celebrate Recovery so that those with hurts, habits and hangups can find freedom in Christ. We send groups on mission trips and support missionaries locally and in other countries so that people can come to know the hope found in Jesus and so that the world can be made a better place. Tornado recovery and community outreach changes the world because of the love of Jesus. We host a preschool not only so that kids can learn their A B C’s but so that they can know they are loved. We live in such a busy and screen-filled world that kids don’t always get that message. And we try to find ways to care for each other, like providing meals and blankets made by the Yarn Spinners and visiting one another in the hospital or at home during illnesses and innumerable other things that this congregation knows that I probably don’t even know about. One act of kindness, one act of gratitude, one act of care at a time—we are making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Or, if I can put it another way, we are making disciples of Jesus Christ who are transforming the world. I am grateful to be a part of it all. Look around.

This mission that we have, though, is not the work of one person, or just the staff, or even just the Leadership Council. Transforming the world will take all of us being “all in” on this mission. It will take each of us finding our place to serve, which is what the new “Serve” button in the app is all about. I wholeheartedly believe God has put this congregation together in a way that all of the gifts and abilities we need to accomplish our mission are already here. The challenge is that some of us haven’t exercised our gifts yet. God gave them to you to use. You have a place and the Scriptures are clear: God gives us gifts to be used in community for the sake of God’s kingdom.

There’s something else the Scriptures are clear about when it comes to the community called the church: another way we have a part in accomplishing our mission is that we give of our resources to help it happen. “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7), Paul says, and the Scriptures often talk about giving of what we have out of gratitude for what God has done and out of concern for the world around us. Remember. Look around. So today is what we call “Generosity Sunday,” the one day of the year when we invite you to fill out a promise card—a promise to God and the church for what your financial investment in God’s mission will be for the coming year. I’m going to ask the ushers to hand out those cards right now so that we can go over them, and as they’re doing that I want to share just a couple of reasons why we do this. First of all, one reason I fill out a promise card every year is so that the church leadership knows they can count on me, that me and my family are “all in” on the mission that Mount Pleasant is carrying out. Another reason I do it is as an expression of my gratitude. I believe we give cheerfully when we are grateful, and I want to live up to that expectation that Paul set out. And finally, as I mentioned last week, I give because it loosens the hold that money has over me. When I hold tightly onto it, I can’t receive anything from God because my hands are closed. When I loosen my grip, give up some of what I think belongs to me (but really doesn’t), then my hands are more open to receive blessings from above. I can’t hold onto both; I think that’s some of what Jesus was getting at when he said, “You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:24).

So, now that you have your promise cards in hand, let’s go over them briefly so that you know what you’re filling out.

[Explanation of Pledge Cards]

Now, just before we fill out and present our pledge cards for 2025, I want to say one more thing about giving, and that has to do with who we are giving to. Or let me just speak for myself: about who I am giving to. When I give, I remind myself that I’m not really giving to the church or to an institution or to a budget. Yes, all of those things are important and yes, they all need funding to function. But that is secondary to the main reason I’m giving and the main person I am giving to. I give to the Lord Jesus, out of gratitude for all that he has done for me. I give to Jesus through his church and trust him to work through the church to spend it rightly and righteously. Does “the church” always do what I think they should do? Not always. Do they always get it right? Again, not always, but when I give, what I have given is no longer mine. Like when I give a monetary gift to one of my children. I give it to them and it becomes theirs. I no longer have a say over how they spend it. I may not always like the way they spend it, I may not agree with how they spend it, but I gave it to them out of love and not so that I could control them. That’s the way it is with our giving to God. Once it’s given, it’s no longer mine. I trust that my gift of gratitude will be used in some way to help someone else come to know Jesus and experience that same kind of gratitude. So my prayer this morning, as we come to make our pledges to God through his church, is that we will be people of gratitude, and that because of our willing gifts, a thousand thank yous will flow from this place and change the world. Let’s pray.