Words on the Run - 2022-10-30

“Words on the Run”

1 Thessalonians 5:16-28

Message #13 in 1 Thess. Series

McEwen Bible Fellowship

30 October 2022

INTRODUCTION:

There are occasions when we have time to sit down for a nice chat with someone, perhaps at a coffee bar or in a quiet restaurant someplace. It is great to be able to visit with a friend for an unhurried conversation, to share ideas or talk about old times. It is nice to sit by the fireplace in comfortable chairs with our feet up and just talk, laughing over shared memories or discussing our views about politics, religion, or anything else.

However, we live busy lives and most of our conversations happen on the run. We talk by cell phone while driving 70 mph down the freeway. We text one another using emojis or short, pithy phrases or code language because it is so hard to type in complete sentences with your thumbs. We write short emails and memos sharing a minimum of information, knowing that if the email is too long no one will read the whole thing. 

We have become experts at using words on the run. Let’s think of a few other examples:

·        The words of a coach to his team just before the start of the game: “Listen fellows, get out there and make me proud. Remember the plays. Use your heads. Do not let them get you flustered. You are champions! Let’s go!”

·        The words of a sergeant to his men as they are going into battle: “Keep your heads down, men. Do not take unnecessary risks. Check your weapons. Grab extra ammo. Keep your eyes on your buddies. Cover one another’s backs.”

·        The words of a mother to her kids just before going into church: “Keep your hands off each other. No fighting in church. Do not whisper during the service. If you throw a fit like you did last Sunday, I am going to snatch you bald headed. Wipe those scrambled eggs off your shirt. Let’s go.”

All these examples involve boiling down the instruction to a few well-chosen words delivered with maximum emotion for maximum effect. They are messages delivered when time is at a premium.

 

Our text for today is just such a speech. The apostle Paul is finishing off his letter to the Thessalonians. He has already talked about many important subjects. Now he closes the letter with a series of brief, powerful instructions. They are words spoken on the run. Let’s read them in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-28. 

TRANSITION:

¹⁶ Be joyful always; ¹⁷ pray continually; ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. ¹⁹ Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; ²⁰ do not treat prophecies with contempt. ²¹ Test everything. Hold on to the good. ²² Avoid every kind of evil. ²³ May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. ²⁵ Brothers pray for us. ²⁶ Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. ²⁷ I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. ²⁸ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 

MAIN BODY:

Verse 16: Be joyful always.

·        “Rejoice always” NASV. In Philippians 4:4 Paul wrote: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, rejoice!”

·        Christians should be the most joy-filled people on the planet. By the way, that is what “joy-ful” means—full of joy. But what is the source of that joy? Where can we get it? Jesus said in John 15:9-11: “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Now remain in My love. ¹⁰ If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have obeyed My Father’s commands and remain in His love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” So, according to Jesus, walking with Him and obeying His commands is what gives us joy. If that is true, no wonder carnal Christians have so little joy in their lives, and unbelievers have none, at least not the kind of joy to which Jesus is referring.

·        “Be joyful always.” Always is an adverb and modifies the verb. You can turn the sentence around to say, “Always be joyful.” It means at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances. Nehemiah told his people, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Joy is power. It is divinely powerful to see us through any situation, no matter how dark and gloomy it might appear to be.

Verse 17: Pray continually.

·        NASV says, “Pray without ceasing.” It means to pray without stopping, without giving up.

·        Is that even possible? How can we pray continually? We must eat and sleep sometime. And we must work during the day. How can we pray continually?

·        What you need to understand is that prayer is not an event but an attitude. It is the recognition that we are ever in the presence of the Lord and always under His watchful, loving gaze. Even when we are behind locked doors with no other human seeing what we do or hearing what we mutter, God knows it all. Nothing is hidden from His sight or closeted away from His hearing.

·        That knowledge can take you in two directions: 1) You can freak out and try to run from Him. In that case, you need to read David’s words in Psalm 139. Listen to what he says in verses 7-12 of that Psalm – Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? ⁸ If I go up to the heavens, You are there.   If I make my bed in the depths, You are there. ⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, ¹⁰ even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast. ¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” ¹² even the darkness will not be dark to You; the night will shine like the day.

·        Or secondly, 2) You can learn to live in His presence in the awareness that He is constantly with us, ready to hear us, watching us with the loving eyes of a Father. To “pray continually” simply means to live in a constant state of communication with Him, of constant devotion. Our thought-life becomes one long continuous prayer throughout our day. As things come up you immediately whisper them to Him, asking for His guidance. You thank Him many times through the day. You talk to Him as you would to a friend who is ever by your side. 

Verse 18: Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

·        NASV says, “In everything give thanks.” Nobody ever said this was going to be easy. It is hard to be thankful in every circumstance. When we are hurting or sad it is hard to give thanks to God. But notice that Paul does not say, “for everything give thanks.” He says, “in all circumstances.” In every situation that we face we can find things for which to be grateful. “Thank you, Lord, that I only broke one leg when I fell off the roof, instead of both of them.” Or “Thank you, Lord, that I at least still have a job, even though they have cut my hours way back.”

·        However, Paul also talked about this in a few other places too. For example, in Ephesians 5:20 he upped the ante when he wrote, “...always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.” Oops! That is harder, isn’t it? “In all things” is doable. “For all things” is really tough. “Thank You Lord, that I fell off the roof and broke my leg. I know You allowed this for a reason, and I thank You in advance for what You are going to teach me through this experience.” Or “Thank You Lord, that You took my mother to be with You.” Or “Thank You Father, that I got laid off from the factory and have no idea how we are going to pay our mortgage.”

·        The real test of our faith is whether we can truly thank God from the heart for everything He allows to come into our lives. The last part of verse 18 explains it: “...for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” We do not always like God’s will for us, but the longer we know Him the easier it becomes to trust that He knows exactly what He is doing, even when we do not have a clue.

Verse 19: Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.

·        NASV says, “Do not quench the Spirit.” Literally, based on the verb tense, Paul tells the Thessalonians, “STOP quenching the Spirit.” Apparently, there was some of that going on in their church. As Christians sometimes we get to thinking that we have the Holy Spirit all figured out. The Pentecostals think He works one way. The non-Pentecostals think He operates another way. In both cases, we try to put Him in a bottle and control Him like a Genie. But look at what Jesus said to Nicodemus about the Spirit in John 3:8, “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” In Matthew 3:11 the Spirit’s ministry is associated with fire, which is also uncontrollable.

·        One thing I know for sure... the Holy Spirit is going about His work, convicting, and convincing people about sin and righteousness and judgment. That is what the Bible says. He is exalting Christ and building the Kingdom of God. We, on the other hand, often get in His way. Some Christians seem to think that they are called to be Smokey Bears. Every time the Holy Spirit begins to light a little fire, one of us runs over and stomps out the flames and pours cold water on the ashes.

·        That is what Paul is talking about. We need to learn to recognize God’s fingerprints on things. Just because we see something happening that we do not understand and cannot explain from our limited theological framework does not mean that it is a work of the devil. God works through some of the most unlikely people in some of the oddest places. Jesus was constantly criticized by the religious elite of His day because He operated outside the box of their narrowminded theology. They could neither understand Him nor explain Him.

·        We need to be careful not to throw cold water on things the Holy Spirit is doing and on revival fires that He is trying to ignite. He might just want to set this church on fire. And because it would be a new experience for us, that scares us. We want God to work in our midst so long as He does not do anything too “weird” or anything that will make us the least bit uncomfortable. 

Verse 20: Do not treat prophecies with contempt.

·        The NASV puts it this way: “Do not despise prophetic utterances.” Either way it is a little confusing I think, so let’s unpack it piece by piece. The verb here translated, “do not treat with contempt,” or “do not despise” literally means, “do not look down upon, or undervalue.” It is the same word we find in 1 Timothy 4:12 where the old apostle Paul says to young Timothy, “Let no one look down on [KJV = despise] your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.” To “despise” then is to underrate or undervalue something that is of great worth.

·        Plug that meaning back into this verse. In 1 Corinthians 14:1 believers are urged to seek the gift of prophecy, the Spirit-guided public utterances of deep eternal truths. As in the Corinthian church, this gift may have been abused in the Thessalonian church; but abuse does not preclude use. The prophet’s task is to tell what God has told him, including things to come. Paul says that we should not undervalue that ministry because it is one of the things God uses to shape and perfect His Church. 

Verse 21: Test everything. Hold on to the good.

·        This verse needs to be understood in the light of the previous verse. Paul is still talking about prophetic utterances, prophetic preaching. The Thessalonian believers are not to take everything at face value but are to be like the Bereans, checking everything, every word against the inspired Word of God. Paul says, test everything, examine everything, and hold it all up to the light to make sure that you are dealing with the real thing, not a counterfeit. Christianity is a rational religion. God does not ask us to check our brains at the door. If the biblical account is true and if the Scriptures are a trustworthy revelation of the mind of God, then it makes perfect sense to trust them. Given the presuppositions of our faith, it makes perfect sense to conclude that God exists, and that what He has said is true, and what He has promised He will do.

·        This statement by Paul was made to people who grew up believing in pagan religions. Paul is challenging them to put God and His Word to the test, and to verify the things that were being preached and taught in the church. But then he exhorts them to “hold fast, hold tightly” to the truth. James says that “a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” The Bible says that in the Holy Scriptures “we have the mind of Christ.” 

Verse 22: Avoid every kind of evil.

·        How many kinds of evil are there for crying out loud? LOTS! And that includes some of our favourite things that we do not like to classify as evil. Many of us have things in our lives that we prefer to call by euphemistic names, such as “weaknesses, mistakes, my bad, character flaws, errors in judgment, sudden lapses, strong personalities, etc.” However, God calls all these things “SIN” and we need to get used to calling them by their correct name too. Paul says, “AVOID” all these things.

·        How do we avoid evil? The same way we avoid traffic accidents:

1.      We make sure that our equipment is in tip-top shape.

2.     We travel at or below the posted speed limit.

3.     We keep our eyes open and watch out for people who can hurt us.

4.     We avoid getting distracted because that is when accidents always happen.

·        If we apply these same rules to our spiritual lives, we will still not be sinless but of a certainty we will sin less. Get it?

Verses 23: May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

·        This is a prayer from Paul’s heart to God’s ear. He asks God to make them holy (sanctified) and “blameless” through and through, in every part of their life and being. He prays for their bodies, their souls, and their spirits—that they will be truly holy and Christlike in every part, right up until the day that they step into the Lord’s glorious presence.

·        By the way, this is one of the passages that leads me to believe that man is tripartite, meaning made up of three parts—body, soul, and spirit. Theologians argue about this, but I believe the Bible teaches that man is unique in this regard. Animals have bodies and souls. Thus, they are bipartite. The soul consists of intellect, emotion, and volition (will). Even dogs and cats have those qualities to some degree. But what makes man unique is his spirit, the part of him that has the capacity to relate in a personal way with the living God. Before we come to know Christ, the Bible says that our spirits are dead, inactive, turned off. But when we come to know Christ, we become spiritually alive and able to commune with God and have a personal, eternal relationship with Him. I do not believe animals can do that. 

Verse 24: The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.

·        This is an interesting verse, not only for what it says, but also for what it does not say.

·        “The One who calls you” is obviously God. In many passages we read that we have been called unto salvation. God, by His mercy and grace has called us to Himself. Then secondly Paul points out that God is Faithful. This is one of His immutable attributes. He is faithful because it is part of His nature, not merely a choice He makes on a case-by-case basis. To state it negatively, He is never not faithful.

·        One more thing... notice that the word “calls” is in the present tense, not the past tense. Here Paul is emphasizing that the same One who called us to salvation in the past is the same One who is constantly calling us to sanctification in the present. I take that from what he just said in verse 23. The subject here is still sanctification.

·        But the last part of the verse is purposely left open-ended... “He will do it.” What will He do? It! But that word, “it,” must be understood in the context—Paul is talking about the sanctifying work of the Spirit in believers’ lives. So, in that context what does “IT” mean? Whatever needs to be done to make us more holy He will do. Whatever is right to do. Whatever is best for His children. Whatever brings Him the greatest glory. Whatever builds His Church. Whatever best moulds and strengthens His children. He will do IT! You can fill in the blank! 

Verse 25: Brothers, pray for us.

·        This is the shortest prayer request on record. But notice that the Great Apostle, the one who has been called in history, the “Great Lion of God,” Paul himself, was not too proud to ask people to pray for him and his colleagues as they went about doing their ministry. He knew that he was as much in need of prayer as the newest baby Christian in the church. We never outgrow our need to have people pray for us. The greatest gift you can give to another person is to pray faithfully for him. Paul requests prayer in other places too. (e.g., Eph. 6:19; Col. 4:3; etc).

Verse 26: Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.

·        This is a great verse! Oh, but wait, it says “brothers.” RATS! You mean I have to kiss Mark and Brian and Ken? What is Paul talking about?

·        Of course, there is a cultural component here. And the word “brothers” is generic meaning both brothers and sisters. In those days people greeted close friends and members of their family with a kiss on each cheek. In many parts of the world people still do that. For example, that was the custom in Brazil.

·        The point is that we need to treat one another as close friends and family. We need to show warm, albeit non-sexual, affection toward one another. Americans have almost forgotten how to do this. But we at least need to shake hands warmly and greet one another with genuine affection. And frankly, I love giving and getting hugs from both men and women. We have become so paranoid about sexual perverts that we are becoming less and less affectionate with one another. The only caution I would mention is in Paul’s phrase, “a HOLY kiss.”

Verse 27: I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.

·        Obviously, the Thessalonians obeyed Paul’s order. It has come all the way down to us and we are still learning from his words. 

Verse 28: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

·        Here Paul pronounces a benediction upon them. A benediction is a spoken blessing. Bene is the Latin word meaning “well, correctly, or profitably.” [Seen in words like beneficent, benefactor, benefit, etc.] Coupled with the Latin word dictus, meaning “spoken” we see that a benediction is a blessing spoken over someone, asking for God’s blessing on them.

·        Paul is asking God to pour out His grace on the Thessalonians in such a way that it will remain and abide with them always.

CONCLUSION:

Paul ends several of his letters with a barrage of instructions like we have here. Personally, I like to get things boiled down and easy to understand. He is talking here as a spiritual father to his children, and he is giving them some last-minute instructions before he sticks the letter in the envelope and drops it in the post.

FEEDBACK:

Which of these zingers struck you? Did one of Paul’s arrows grab your attention more than the rest? Why?

BENEDICTION:

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father, who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts, and strengthen you in every good deed and word. Amen. (2 Thess. 2:16-17)