Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
Pastor Dennis Tuuri

1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verses 16 through 18. Please stand for the word of our Lord. “Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ concerning you.” Please be seated.

Fruitcake. I’ve been thinking about fruitcake lately. I was at a gathering and I thought about it last night. We were at Doug H.’s house, several other couples for a little kind of Christmas get together and I don’t think they had any fruitcake there. That was probably the only thing they didn’t have in terms of goodies to eat.

But my mother each year makes a thing called bishop’s bread or bishop’s cake—bishop’s bread, whatever it is—which is kind of like a fruitcake, sort of, but not much fruit in it, but it’s real good. And I had a fruitcake several years ago, and to my surprise, I liked it. The reason I thought of it last night was because Doug read from the gospel account of the birth of our Savior and reminded me again that he, of course, was born in Bethlehem in the region of Ephratah.

Bethlehem means “house of bread”—beth, house, bread. And Ephratah, that region, I think means fruitful. And so we’ve got fruitful bread, or fruit bread, or fruitcake is one way to think of those two terms together. And I think that’s not such a bad way to look upon fruitcake at this time of the year. Fruitcake, you know, is incredibly rich, dense stuff with all kinds of goodies packed in there.

And Christmas is always a tough time for me to figure out what to do in terms of a sermon because there’s so much—there’s so much in the incarnation of our Lord and Savior that needs to be said or that we rejoice in this time of the year. It’s really chunky, dense stuff, the celebration of the incarnation of the Christ child. And I don’t want to get in the way of all of that, and yet I want to kind of accentuate certain things. And so I’m going to try to do that a little bit today from the text that God has in His providence brought us to for this particular service.

I’ve already mentioned Christmas, and we do at this church normally celebrate Christmas in some way in terms of my preaching schedule. Normally I speak to the season of Christmas. Some Reformed churches don’t do that. We don’t know that our Savior was born this time of the year. There’s lots of evidence that He was. Some commentators have brought other evidence to bear where maybe it was the conception of our Savior at this time of the year that’s celebrated.

Of course, the incarnation really doesn’t occur with the birth. It does occur at the conception, actually, if you think about it. And it’s an important thing to remember in this day and age when children aren’t treated as children until they’re born. But there is a long-standing tradition in the church of celebrating Christmas at this time of the year. And whether or not it’s what God intends, it is interesting to think of either the conception or birth of the Christ child in correlation to the winter solstice in our part of the world anyway in terms of God’s providence.

This is the time of year when the days—if you don’t know it, this is the first day of winter. The days now are getting longer. The sunshine is shining brighter every day now, or longer every day. And so that’s a correlation.

I brought a copy of a magazine that some of you have seen, but it’s occurred to me that it’s been several years. It was 1983 when this was first published in March. It’s a tourist magazine put out by the state of West Virginia called Wonderful West Virginia. On the front here and on the back there are pictures of rock carvings, letters, petroglyphs, rock writings from rock formations in West Virginia. And you can look at this later around the meal if you’d like. But this was translated by a fellow named Barry Fell, who probably is one of the premier translators of foreign languages, archaic or old languages in this country.

And this petroglyph, by Fell, is dated to about 600 or 700 AD. They are old Celtic runes or letters probably written on the shores of our country on the rocks of West Virginia many years before Columbus came by Irish or Celtic missionaries. And this particular translation of this one rock drawing is on the front of this, and it says:

“At the time of sunrise a ray grazes the notch on the left side on Christmas day. A feast day of the church, the first season of the Christmas of the Christian year, the season of the blessed advent of the Savior, Lord Christ, Salvatorio Domini Christi. Behold, he is born of Mary, a woman.”

And the reason why this translation was particularly important is that at the winter solstice mark, indeed on this particular date, the notch does graze this rock at the particular place where it says this. This internal verification of the accuracy of the translation is remarkable.

This other rock drawing that was close to there, the Horse Creek petroglyph, translated, says this:

“A happy season is Christmas, a time of joy and goodwill to all people. A virgin was with child. God ordained her to conceive and be fruitful. Ah, behold a miracle. She gave birth to a son in a cave. The name of the cave was the cave of Bethlehem. His foster father gave him the name Jesus the Christ, Alpha and Omega. Festive season of prayer.”

So for many years this country has celebrated this particular time of the year as a celebration of the birth of the Savior. And these petroglyphs from over a thousand years ago really sum up the few little nuggets of the fruitcake, so to speak, that I want to talk about from our text. And that is to rejoice, to pray, and to give thanks during this Christmas season.

These three verses in 1 Thessalonians 5—one commentator calls them diamond drops of the scriptures. Another says these are the standing orders of the church. And I don’t want to get in the way. I don’t want to fog these things up. They’re simple enough of themselves, you know: to rejoice always, to be constantly praying, and to be thankful in all things.

On the other hand, sometimes you don’t rejoice always. And so it is good to consider some aspects of the scriptures that relate to joy in order to understand how we can be more joyful at this time of the year and the rest of the Christian year as well.

There was an old Puritan quote that talked about how people don’t have enough joy. A lot of times that’s because we don’t have enough light of the gospel. The further away we get from the light of God’s truth, the less joy we’re going to have. So I’m going to try to in some small way be used of God today to help us to focus upon the source of the joy that this season celebrates.

Young’s literal translation really provides the outline that you have in front of you. The first three points are literally the phrase can be translated: “Always rejoice ye, continually pray ye, and in everything give thanks.” So: rejoice, pray, and give thanks.

First, we’ll note that these three things do belong together. There are internal evidences in terms of the text, the grammatical links that link these three together. The adverbs are placed forward of the adverbial phrase in the third clause. These are what one commentator has called a triplet for personal development.

We’ve been talking about responsibilities to leaders and responsibilities to all and to other members of the church and then to all men in the last four verses. And these verses now change the flow of the text to talk about responsibilities as one commentator says in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary—these are responsibilities to oneself. These are religious duties in terms of oneself and then in terms of the next three or four verses, 19-22, in relationship to the Spirit.

But this particular set of three things that we’ve just read from the scriptures—these three verses—have to do with the devotional aspect of the Christian life. They have either their source in God, as in joy, or they are directed to God, in terms of prayer and thanksgiving. We must, I think, in seeing the correlation and the movement of this text, understand that it is our communion with God that gives us the capability or ability to fulfill the responsibilities we’ve just looked at for the last four or five verses in this chapter.

So it’s extremely vital to understand the need to understand our relationship to God and our close communion. These three religious duties speak in terms of our relationship to God. These are given as imperatives, and beginning with the word joy itself—it is true that these are imperatives. They’re commandments, in other words. And so you can say that if a person doesn’t rejoice in all things, it’s an indication of a lack of trust or a lack of trust in God’s power or His providence, His forgiveness—something. Sin is getting in the way of joy.

Well, frequently we do let adversities get in the way of our joy. And so it is good to recognize that God commands us to rejoice. But as one commentator said in his commentary, these are not really so much stressed as commandments. But very much like the Sermon on the Mount, we have here a picture of the transformation that comes over common life when men live in a new relationship of the kingdom.

This is what flows out of our relationship to Jesus Christ unless we gum up the works, so to speak.

Let’s talk about joy. The first thing we notice in this is that we’re to be rejoicing always. And the implication here, of course, is that in everything that happens we’re supposed to be joyful. This is really kind of a startling aspect of the New Testament. Repeatedly here, as well, we see Paul calling people to rejoice in times of difficulties or persecutions. Frequent theme throughout the epistles.

Remember here in 1 Thessalonians he’s talked before about how there’s a lot of persecution going on of them. The Jews are persecuting them. Some of them have probably died, martyrs’ deaths, etc. And yet he tells them to rejoice in all things.

The uniqueness of Christian joy is that it does find emergence even under the most trying and difficult of circumstances. In the very darkest hour, the Christian—while not being silly about it—still has a deep settled sense of joy if he understands properly what the scriptures teach in terms of the blessedness of the Christian life.

Now I mentioned the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. We read there: “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

Christian joy, as our Savior said, and then the Apostle Paul reiterates throughout the epistles, is in the light of persecutions. And our Savior puts forth as the example to us and to the believers that He spoke to directly in Matthew 5 that our joy is to be seen as the joy of the prophets who were persecuted before us.

Those prophets spoke for thousands of years of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. They patiently spoke to and prophesied of His future coming. And I think that one thing that the Savior is doing in the Sermon on the Mount is saying, “Here I am. The prophets were persecuted for preaching of me. And yet I’m here. I wasn’t stopped. The flow of history wasn’t stopped. What the prophets spoke to you of and spoke to those who persecuted them of was my coming. And I’m here in front of you now. And so I think that part of what the Savior was doing was giving them a perspective on the sense of history that will indeed yield a sense of joy in the life of the believer.

The future is bright for the believer in many ways. The future, of course, tells us that we have the promise of heaven. As our Savior said, “Rejoice because you are assured of heaven.” In Luke 10:20, He said, “Notwithstanding in this, rejoice ye. Rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

One of the sources of our joy is the promise of heaven—the sure knowledge that because God has brought us to a position of belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, to recognizing that we have sinned, that He has died for those sins, and He’s been resurrected for our justification—because of these things, our names are written in heaven and because of that, our future state is assured in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the Christmas songs that has always kind of intrigued me is an old English verse. One of the verses says:

“Adam lay abound’n, bound’n in a bond four thousand winter thought he not too long. It all was for an apple, an apple that he took, as clerks find’n record it written in their book.”

Adam lay bound for four thousand years, thought he not too long. The human race lay in bondage until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to make definitive release from sin possible and deliverance of people into the joys of heaven, the eternal state. So certainly we should be rejoicing in our salvation, that we have the promise of heaven.

We also rejoice because of the power over sin that God gives us in the present life as well. In Romans 5, we read that “we rejoice in glory and tribulation knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed. Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which he gives unto us.”

We know that persecutions are used by God to mature us here and now in the faith. We can ignore persecution because of where we’re going eternally. We can also rejoice for persecution and trials and tribulations because we know that it’s part of the deliverance from the power of sin that has been effected once for all by our Savior and works itself out in the context of our lives. And so we can rejoice in that.

And we can also rejoice in a very important aspect of our rejoicing. We can rejoice in the growth of the kingdom. In 1 Peter 4:12 and following: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you. But rejoice in the fiery trial, in as much as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”

The persecution of the early church, over and over again, was in the context of the victory of Jesus Christ over all of His enemies. We’ve read that earlier in 1 Thessalonians. Yes, the Jews are persecuting you. Their day of judgment is coming, specifically in AD 70. God works in history to remove those who would oppress the people of Jesus Christ and would by so doing persecute Him.

And so I think that in one sense 1 Peter 4 refers to that glory being revealed, the deliverance of His people that was to happen with God’s judgment upon the unbelieving Jewish state. And so there was a confidence in future salvation and vindication as being part of the community of God’s people that brings great joy in the context of whatever happens in the context of our lives. We see God’s hand in whatever is happening, and the certainty that God’s hand moves us in terms of future salvation. This is a matter of great joy and this gives us that deep settled joy that can indeed rejoice always in all things.

We’ve seen all three of these sorts of joy in the context of this church. We have shared each of us, of course, the joy of our own personal salvation, the joy of the knowledge that our names are indeed written in heaven. In these past few months, we’ve also shared the joy of others who have come to the faith in Jesus Christ—Jennifer, a newborn Christian, and the joy that she has. And we’ve experienced that joy and rejoiced in it with her.

And in terms of our own salvation as well, some of us in various ways, in various means have gone through deep waters in the last few months. Interpersonal tensions have developed in the context of the church, as it always does—part of the trials that God brings into our lives to mature us. Problems occur. I spoke on unnatural thanksgiving about a month ago, and I probably was preaching as much to myself as to you.

We now emerge, I think, on the other side of many of those things, strengthened, matured, and developed by God in the context of the faith. We have experienced power over sin and the ability to move in the power of the Holy Spirit—to not give way to sinful impulses and passions but rather to move in the power of the Spirit to deliverance and maturation in terms of specific problems that we encounter in our lives.

And we read in today’s very newspaper of one more indication of the great flow of history that talks about the joy of the establishment of Christ’s kingdom not just personally in our lives but globally as well. I meant to bring my Sunday paper that I bought yesterday. I forgot it, but the headline article is on the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Yesterday on Saturday, the vote was taken. Eleven of the twelve republics that used to form the Soviet Union came into a Commonwealth agreement, a republic of independent republics, a commonwealth of them. And the Soviet Union was declared officially dead yesterday, December 21st, 1991—a day that will go down in history.

I was reminded again last night. I was at the H.’s house, and there was a white elephant gift exchange, and I got this—this is what I brought home. A book that says “You Can Trust the Communists to be Communists.” This is indeed kind of a white elephant book now, maybe a very good book, I never read it. But yet now what we see is the dissolution of the communist empire.

Now this is extremely significant. 1905 was the beginning of the Russian revolution that led to the communist state. The atheistic development of which was obvious. The anti-Christian thrust of which was obvious. The subjugation and oppression of people over much of the known world was obvious. And yet God has moved in history to dissolve the Soviet Union. It is incredible that we have witnessed in the last few months the breakup of that and the restoration really of much of the national distinctives that God has built into that particular part of the country through geography and tongues and cultures.

You know, biblically, nations are not comprised of political entities. They’re comprised of people who have a shared culture, usually a shared tongue, and certain geographic factors that distinguish them from other people. The shift from geography to social studies in the American educational system is a shift from God’s way of working with people and his diversity of cultures—that is good in the context of his created order—to the idea of monolithic political entities that impose their will upon various nations really to form a larger nation subject only to the sword.

Well, the political entity that was the USSR is now dissolved, and so that is a tremendous shift back toward what God has established in terms of the nations. Any attempt politically to set up a tower of Babel, so to speak, to consolidate the diversity of cultures and languages and peoples under a monolithic political state is doomed in history to fail. And we have just witnessed in the context of this last year the failure of an attempt to thwart God’s purposes and to shake the fist at God—the plot of the kings against God and His anointed, but it’s failed.

Now we don’t know the future, what’s going to happen in that part of the world. There won’t be still wars, and maybe even—who knows—nuclear war, I suppose, is still a possibility, although it certainly looks much less likely than it has up to now. But in any event, we do know that there’s a tremendous shaking of everything over there by the hand of God. And I think it’s something that we can greatly rejoice in—not simply this shift from political entities back to God-given cultures and nations, but there is a revival going on in the context of what was once the Soviet Union that is nothing short of remarkable.

We’ve talked about Bill Gothard and the homeschooling graduates that have been sent over there to try to develop Christian material for the schools, etc. Let me read you another news article from the National and International Religion Report that I got this last week dealing with Campus Crusade’s work there.

“Campus Crusade for Christ has trained more than 1,700 Soviet educators this year in how to teach Christian ethics to elementary and high school students. Crusade officials announced over 3,000 more teachers reportedly will attend the training sessions over the next several months in various Soviet republics, not just Russia.

‘An entire generation is about to be captured for Christ,’ Paul Etchelman, coordinator of the ambitious project, said in predicting the long range impact of Crusade’s work in the former Soviet Union.

Under Crusade’s teacher training plan, educators convene at a central location for a four-day seminar. Their travel and lodging costs are underwritten by the Soviet Ministry of Education. Crusade staffers kick off the event by showing the popular Jesus film, which is based on the Gospel of Luke.

Viewers are challenged to make a profession of faith in Christ on the first night, and on subsequent days are taught the fundamentals of Christianity from a syllabus of standard Crusade materials. Participants are then sent home with a new Bible, a Jesus video, and four books by apologist Josh McDow.

During the first session held in Moscow, Etchelman said 48% of those attending made public professions of faith, while 80% expressed interest in attending a regular Bible study.

In addition, 96% agreed to show the film to their students.

The strategy did not originate with Crusade. It was actually the result of a plea from a high-ranking education officer in the Russian Republic who asked Etchelman months ago if Crusade could help produce morality and Christian principles to Soviet youth, to introduce it to them. The officials also asked if the ministry could supply 65,000 state-run schools with a Jesus video.

So far, Crusade has raised about two million dollars from donors to supply copies of the film for classroom use. Training sessions were held last month in the cities of Novgorod and Pushkin in the Russian Republic. Teachers are lining up for the course in Belarus, Russia, Moldova, and several other breakaway Soviet republics and in neighboring Romania and Albania as well. Because Jesus is available in the native languages spoken in each country, the movie has attracted wide attention and has sort of fueled the nationalistic fire, it is said.”

So here we have Campus Crusade training thousands of state teachers how to teach Christian morality and Christian ethics to the public school classrooms of the various republics of what once comprised the Soviet Union—dedicated to the abandonment of religion and official atheism. This is remarkable.

Now, you know, I would just as soon that they would have given them four books by Cornelius Van Til instead of Josh McDow, but you know, are we going to pick at that? I was reminded as I went through some verses this last week of Philippians 1, where Paul talks about how some preach Christ of contention, not sincerely supposing to add affliction to his bonds. But he is—what then? Notwithstanding, in every way either in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached. I therefore therein do rejoice. Yea, and I will rejoice.

I’m telling you that, yeah, we hope that they’ll come to a more holistic view of the scriptures—the new converts that are happening by the thousands and tens of thousands in the republics. But this is a thing to be greatly rejoicing to God for at this time of the year.

We just read responsibly that “a son is given and the government will be upon his shoulders.” That is a stated fact of history. What we read in the Oregonian today talking about the dissolution of the Soviet Union and what we read in this sort of newsletter talking about Campus Crusade and Bill Gothard’s ministry is simply the outworking of what occurred two thousand years ago when the Son came. The government was upon His shoulders, and at the increase of His government there shall be no end.

Nation upon nation, unbelieving group upon unbelieving group may rise up against Him. But they are all ground to dust under the feet of Jesus Christ. All things are working for the advancement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And this is a joyous reality. And we get to celebrate now at the end of less than 100 years of what seemed to be the largest enemy to the Christian faith—the dissolution of that enemy—and in the fact, in the ruins of that empire, are left instead a vast fertile ground for evangelism and thousands upon thousands coming to the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are other things in here I could talk about. Out in Iraq, 35 tons of Bibles were shipped into Iraq. It’s not enough to meet the demand. The war that devastated that part of the world has produced also a fertile ground for religious faith in Iraq. Lots of materials going in there. A lot of revival and evangelism going on.

There’s silly stuff too. There’s a YWAM—Youth With A Mission—band that is on an abstinence tour in Mongolia and China, and apparently the Mongolian youth are flocking by the hundreds to these concerts to profess faith in Jesus Christ. This heavy metal band—I guess they say it’s the descendants of Genghis Khan respond real well to the loud noises and the antics of these people on stage. I don’t know. But again, see, people are coming to faith in Jesus Christ. That’s a tremendous thing.

And if some of these instruments that are crooked are crooked that God uses to strike these blows, nonetheless, they’re straight blows in the sense of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And we should see that God’s hand is moving in history and it should give us a tremendous sense of joy for this particular Christmas season to see God moving in that part of the world to bring about reformation and revival.

This is a part of the world that really never went through the Reformation. They were Eastern Orthodox before, and now they’re being exposed to Reformation thinking—at least to the degree that the scriptures are the only basis of what’s being taught, the only authority. And so it is a good thing what is happening there. It’s an indication that indeed God has broken the yoke, the burden of the oppressor of those people in the Soviet Union, and established the government of Jesus Christ. We’re going to see great fruit coming as a result of that.

Isaiah 55:10 and following tells us of this joy as well:

“For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it.”

We’re familiar with that verse. And that’s what’s happening now in what was once the Soviet Union. We go on to read in that passage:

“For ye shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

That’s what’s happening. Curse to blessing in a major part of this world, and it is a joyous thing at this particular time of the year to consider this.

I could go on and on about all kinds of other trends. I thought this last week as I was working at my computer, what a tremendous tool God has given to us to be used for the study of the scriptures and interaction amongst Christian peoples. And it will be—that’s why God has given us that technology, to further the government, the manifestation of the government of Jesus Christ.

We have seen in this last decade or two essentially the death throes of rigid dispensationalism. There are very few who hold to a rigid dispensational position that denies God’s law. God’s law is on the ascendancy again. As I said a year or so ago, the wall that came down between East and West Germany was nothing compared to the wall that’s come down now between many evangelical churches and a renewed appreciation and love for God’s law. Works are being spoken of, written, and studied in the context of evangelical churches about this.

Even the onslaught of homosexuality in this country is not a bad thing if seen correctly. After all, Romans 1 tells us that God gives people over to homosexuality when they’re not thankful to God. It is a judgment of God. And if we see it galloping along, that shouldn’t make us run for the hills and get all fearful. We should say, “Thank God that He’s not allowing a godless nation of America in 1950 promiscuity to just slide along unjudged by Him, but rather that He’s turning them over to homosexuality, further defilements, and now AIDS in the cleansing of the community through death itself. God’s judgments are in place, and their judgments are to the establishment of Christ’s kingdom, and this should be a source of great joy for us.”

Lensky, who wrote of the German tradition, you know, in Germany you don’t have the Christmas tree for several weeks leading up to Christmas. The tree is decorated the night before, and then in the morning the children get to see it for the very first time. The doors are opened to the room and they get led in. Lensky said:

“If everything actually conspires to do us good, how can we do otherwise than always rejoice? What if we do not always at once see and feel the good? Is there not joy in anticipating the sight? The Christmas tree is already being decorated, though the doors are still closed, yet how the little hearts beat with expectant joy.”

As we look around us and read the papers, our heart should be filled and beating with the expectant joy of what God is accomplishing in the world around us in terms of the extension of the visible manifestation of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. There is great joy at this time of the year.

We’re to rejoice in all things, and we’re to be continually in an attitude of prayer. That’s the next verse. Continually pray. Prayer—the scriptures tell us—is the antidote to temptation. We’re tempted not to believe what God is doing.

Mark 14:38 says, Jesus tells us to “watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation.” Additionally, prayer is the antidote to losing heart. In Luke 18:1, Jesus speaks the parable of the importunate widow, and He does it to the end that “they ought always to pray and not to faint”—to be of good courage. And part of that is praying.

To pray continually doesn’t mean that you’re always involved in your closet and always on your knees praying to God. But I think rather it means to be ceaselessly praying in the sense of having an attitude of dependence or reliance upon God Himself. The idea then is that the prayer itself might be intermittent, but that the spirit of prayer should be incessant—continuing on and on and on.

This prayer—this incessant prayer to God and dependence upon Him and acknowledging His sovereignty in all things—is the means of cultivating the joyful attitude that we’ve just spoken of in times of trouble. This sort of prayer, as several commentators have said, essentially is the lifting of the heart to God. When one is occupied with miscellaneous duties, in the context of those duties, we can lift our heart to God. Lightfoot said it’s not in the moving of the lips but in the elevation of the heart to God that the essence of prayer consists. And this is to be ongoing in our lives.

We’re to realize our dependence upon God and pray in terms of His kingdom and the establishment of it, to the end that we might work in relationship to the law of that kingdom and being guided and directed by His will—ever seeking His presence, seeking to do His will.

The spirit of prayer, if we have it correctly, will indeed flow forth into various acts of prayer—spoken prayer as well. You know, throughout the Apostle Paul’s writings, he’ll write along and all of a sudden he’ll throw in a prayer. The Apostle Paul was in continual, incessant prayerful attitude toward God. And the proof of that is that he then actually broke into prayer—actual verbalized prayer—on a regular basis.

And so this verbalized prayer will also punctuate our lives if we are in a prayerful attitude to God.

There’s also a relationship of prayer to work. 1 Thessalonians 5:6 says, “Let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober.” 1 Peter 4:7: “The end of all things is at hand. Be therefore sober and watch unto prayer.” There’s work involved in prayer as well. Prayer is a reliance upon God and doing the work in obedience to God’s law as well.

And so the Puritans used to say that work is prayer when done correctly with that spirit, with the heart lifted up to God, doing things in terms of God’s standard.

So this joy is cultivated by this incessant attitude of prayerfulness, dependence, and reliance upon God. And it’s also put into place through thanksgiving given to God. And so the third verse says, “In everything give thanks”—in all things. Again, the adverbial phrase is placed forward for emphasis. In absolutely everything.

And Ephesians tells us, “At all times be thankful.” One commentator has said that it is thanklessness that clips the wings of prayer. Thankfulness is the essence of our prayers to God as well as our dependence upon Him. Thankfulness because God’s sovereignty rules in all things. And so therefore, we can be thankful to all things.

To fail to be thankful to God is the essence of the sin of unbelief. Romans 1:21 tells us that a group of people who end up in homosexual relationships and worse—they start off with being unthankful to God. Romans 1:21 tells us that they “refused to acknowledge God and neither were they thankful.”

Thankfulness is not a sign of stoic resignation nor is it Pollyanna-ish. You know, Pollyanna, apparently her idea was she had a “glad game” she played. She said she could be thankful because things could always be worse. So Pollyanna said, “Well, I can be glad when I have a broken leg because I could have two broken legs.”

But see, that’s not the kind of thankfulness that God speaks of. God wants us to be thankful because we acknowledge that Romans 8:28 tells us that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” We’re thankful, acknowledging that all things flow forth from the decree and will of God and therefore all things redound to His glory and to the well-being of His people.

We’re thankful because nothing—none of the persecution or trials or tribulations we go through—can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ. Rather, Romans 8:37 tells us that in all things, “all things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

Thankfulness stems from the acknowledgment that God has given to us victory in Jesus Christ and an acknowledgment of His sovereignty in all things.

This is the will of God—for you to be joyful at this time of the year and always, to be in prayer incessantly with an attitude of reliance and dependence upon God, and in prayer with thanksgiving, acknowledging God’s hand in all things and not grumbling or disputing against Him. This is the will of God.

We are told this phrase occurs earlier in the book of 1 Thessalonians in verse 3 of chapter 4, where we read, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.” So there are two things that Thessalonians tells us are the will of God. The first is our sanctification, and that was followed by a whole string of ethical commands to us. And here we’re told the will of God is to do all three of these things—to be joyful, to be prayerful, and to be thankful.

The devotional aspect of the Christian life—and you can see in these two sets the will of God. Really, the two component elements of the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “What is the chief end of man?” It’s to glorify God. It is the will of God for us to be sanctified, to walk in obedience to His ethical commands, and glorify Him through that. But it’s also to enjoy God—to be joyful in our relationship to God, to be constantly in communion with God through the great gift He’s given to us of prayer, and to be thankful in all things, knowing that they come forth from the loving Father who gives us good things and not evil things.

So these two things together comprise God’s will for our life: our sanctification and our joyous prayer of thanksgiving to Him as well. To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. This is the essence of the Christian life.

And of course, the summation of all this is that all this occurs in the context of the person and work of our Savior, Jesus Christ. This is the will of God for you in Jesus Christ—or in Christ Jesus. And recognize He uses both names there. Both names are what we have to think of at the coming of Christ at this time of the year.

Yes, we celebrate the baby Jesus. Yes, we celebrate personal salvation. Jesus means Savior. He saves us from our sins. But we also celebrate the coming of the Christ, the one that John saw in the Book of Revelation that we read at the opening of worship service—whose eyes are burning coals and who stands as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

Christ means “Anointed One,” the Messiah, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. And our joyfulness is in the work of Jesus Christ. He is the pattern for all of what we’re to do—commanded to do here in terms of our joy, in terms of our communion with God made possible through Jesus Christ in prayer, and in terms of our thankfulness. Here is the model. Here is the pattern. Here is the enablement to do all these things.

The Christ, Jesus, the Messiah, the Anointed One, our Savior.

The Hallelujah Chorus has been running through my mind this last week. “King of Kings, Lord of Lords, forever and ever. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.” In that acknowledgment, in that confession of ours, we bring forth the source of the joy and thankfulness and prayer that we are commanded and also that is shown as the characteristic of the Christian life of joy in what God has initiated us into—the kingdom of our Savior.

How is true biblical joy in this sense of the word possible without an optimistic view of what the future holds for us? I don’t really think it is. I think that we are uniquely qualified as a group of people to rejoice at this time of the year and to see that this is the beginning of the Christian year. As that rock carving from West Virginia said, “This is the beginning of the Christian year,” and that year is filled with the joy that the Christmas season heightens in our sense of appreciation and involvement in.

We recognize that all things are moving forward in terms of God’s foreordained order, and that order is the establishment, development, and growth of Christ’s kingdom. And just as the Soviet Union has been crushed to pieces, so will the United States be crushed to pieces if it fails to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ in its citizenry. So will every other group that rises up against Him in history.

How is biblical joy possible apart from an eschatological optimism? And how is true reliance upon God in terms of prayer possible without acknowledging God’s law as the standard for what we do, how we work as prayer, and how we demonstrate our dependence upon the will of God in all that we do? Prayer speaks to our acknowledgement of God’s standard—the standards of the King of Kings—in all that we do.

And how can we give thanks in all things? How is that possible if we do not believe in the sovereign God who superintends all things for the well-being of His people? If we have a reactive God who only sees what happens to us and then makes secondary plans, changes them, and turns them into blessing—well, until He turns them into blessing, we can’t be very thankful for those things. If people are in control at the end of the day, then how can we be thankful for what apostate man does?

But instead, if we acknowledge that God is the sovereign over all things, that His will, His decree is being worked out in the context of the world, then true thankfulness, true prayer, and true joy is indeed possible.

As I was thinking through much of this, I ran across a quote by one commentator in his commentary. He said this. He’s speaking of the early Christians. He said that they had a sense, in the first couple of centuries of the church, of a strange joyous exhilaration that possessed them—a sense of having thrown off a great weight and having stepped out of darkness into delight of living already in the fullness of the age to come.

This early Christian joy, founded on fellowship with Christ and testified to by the works of the Spirit, induced them to call their children Hilaris—Gadetius, which means “joy,” “joyous,” and “Victor”—which took them through fire and sword in a spiritual exultation which made the persecutions of the emperors look adolescent.

This must have been one of the most remarkable evidences to the pagan of the new order that had begun. Indeed, here were people that suffered things that hopefully we never will, or our children never will. And yet they named their children things like Victor (victory), Gadetius (rejoicing), and Hilaris (joy) in its most fullest sense in that particular Latin word.

This is the attitude that is to characterize us as well—to recognize that God has indeed given us joy because He’s ushered us into not simply salvation but a kingdom as well.

I think that if you understand some of the depth of this joy and thanksgiving that’s called for here, we all should do some repenting. We look at the world situation around us and the various events that happened, and we always look for something better. You know, it’s like I said about McDow—we wish it was Van Til they were reading. But you know, this is what God has brought to pass. It is a good and joyous thing in the context of the Soviet Union. And it is good and a joyous thing that He has brought this church into existence and that He’s brought each of us to the trials that we’ve come through in this past year.

The end of the year, the beginning of the year, as it were, is a time of evaluation, looking back and looking ahead. And if we look back with correct perspective, being thankful for all things that God has brought to pass in our lives, and we look forward with the sure knowledge that God is bringing all these things to pass for the manifestation of the kingdom of Jesus Christ—that’s joyousness.

If we have that kind of joy and certainty that history is moving in obedience to God’s dictates and for the establishment of His people and the exaltation of the King Jesus Christ and the manifestation of the joy of the Spirit to the entire created order as time progresses, then we have the joy that characterized the early church. And then we have the joy that also proves the demonstration to those around us of the truth of the Christian religion and becomes a great apologetic for the reality of the faith.

Let’s at this time of the year rejoice in our Christmas. Let’s rejoice in the celebration of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. And let’s recognize that what we celebrate here is the beginning of what comes next year and the year after and the year after. Let’s take the Christmas joy, Christmas thanksgiving, and the festive season of prayer as the rock carvings in West Virginia called it. Let’s take that into all of our lives as well.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you that you caused us to joy in the birth of the Christ child. We thank you for His incarnation. We thank you that after four thousand years of human bondage, we’ve been delivered through the one who is our Savior. We thank you also that upon Him the government rests. We thank you, Lord God, that it doesn’t rest upon our shoulders. Certainly we would be wearied by that and really unable to handle the implications of that.

We thank you, Lord God, that it rests upon His shoulders, that He is more than able to move it forward, and that the increase of His government there indeed shall be no end. We thank you, Father, for these things. We thank you for ushering us into that government, that kingdom, and that joy.

We thank you for what You’re accomplishing in the various parts of the world where men and nations who would exalt themselves against You have been brought low and the people are being converted to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We pray, Father, for those republics and for the missionary activity of Campus Crusade and Bill Gothard and others that are working over there. We pray that indeed we would see a tremendous revival and reformation, that biblical faith be planted there, and that they’d recognize the implications of the gospel of Jesus Christ in all things.

We thank you for bringing others to pass. We repent of the ungratefulness and peevishness almost that we can sometimes let come into our lives. We thank you, Father, that You’re accomplishing Your will throughout the created order. We thank you also for our own salvation and for Your giving us the deliverance over the power of sin in our lives.

We thank you, Father, that even here You’re maturing us and moving us from glory to glory, and that when tough times come upon us, they’re to the end that we might be matured and brought to an increased obedience and joy in the Christian life.

Father, we pray that this week would be a week in which we would cultivate these Christian duties, these diamond drops of scripture.