Dennis Tuuri

We’ll begin reading, however, with verse 12 and read to the end of the chapter, which is the end of the epistle as well. 1 Thessalonians 5, beginning at verse 12, focusing on verse 18. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves.

Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good, both for yourselves and for all. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the spirit. Do not despise prophecies.

Test all things. Hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it. Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

Let’s pray. And Father, we thank you for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, graciously granting us his word and spirit that we might be transformed. We pray now, Lord God, that you would take this text and change us. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

One of my favorite verses the last couple of years has been Numbers 23 and 24 and my children have heard me say it over the last couple of years. Verse 23 particularly. You know, the setting for these verses are the attempt by Balaam to curse God’s people and in verse 23 of Numbers 23 we read there is no sorcery against Jacob nor any divination against Israel. And now must be said of Jacob and of Israel what God has done, or in the King James version, what God hath wrought.

Look, a people rises like a lioness and lifts itself up like a lion. It shall not lie down until it devours the prey and drinks the blood of the slain. There is no divination against Israel. There’s no enchantment against Jacob. There is no black cat crossing our path that will alter the providence of God who prophesies here in this text of the progress of history.

We read of another prophecy in Psalm 83:3. We saw the fulfilled prophecy in Chronicles under Jehoshaphat and we’ve seen it ever since the world has been created that God moves history inexorably toward the fulfillment of his goal of having the whole earth be a praise to him.

We meet in the context of national difficulties. I saw on the news this last week that a Democratic operative is now openly and blatantly sending out people and making calls all over the country to find, to find at least a few of the hundreds of Bush electors who will break covenant, break their word, and when they meet in December to cast a vote for Gore instead of Bush. All they need to find are one or two actually to change the outcome of the election. This is evil. It’s evil because it seeks to cause men to break their covenant, not because it seeks the prominence of one man in civil politics or another that those who have given us, as I said before, 25, 30 million or more dead infants, preborn infants over the last 25 or 30 years continue to want to wreak havoc in the context of our land.

And we meet together and we’ll be moving toward Thanksgiving dinners this week. And for some people, they get together with extended family. And you know, I’ve just decided I’m not contacting several members of my extended family for probably several months because this will probably come up and it will not have a godly outcome.

So we meet in the context of difficulties but we need to remember the truth of Numbers 23. There’s no enchantment against us. There’s no divination. There’s no ability on the part of the conspiracy of any man that will succeed against the progression and movement of the gospel and the manifestation of the kingdom of Christ. Have we any doubt about this truth? If we do, then we need to gird up our loins with the scriptures and spirit and remind ourselves that we can give thanks in the context of this particular difficulty we face.

We can give thanks in the context of when we talked about Psalm 83 last week, the enemies of God rising up against us. What did Jehoshaphat begin by doing as they implemented the strategy that God had told them to defeat the enemies that had gathered together against them? Well, he began by having the people get together on the day of battle and praise and thank God. And that’s what we need to do.

I don’t want this week or this celebration on Thursday of Thanksgiving for what God has given to us. I don’t want it darkened at all. I don’t want any spots over it in your life or mine because of what might happen this week. We are not people that need to be moved by the circumstances of the time in terms of our joy, our prayer, and our thanksgiving as Thessalonians just laid it out for us.

So, I want to talk today about the requirement, the command of God to give thanks for Bob Beckel, this democratic man that I talked about, to give thanks in the context of national struggles over are we going to abide by the rule of law or are we not—like I don’t want us to have that difficulty that we might find ourselves in or any other difficulty in your life that I’m sure are far more pressing in many cases than these national consternations.

I don’t want any of these things that we face to prevent us from giving thanks. I’ve got my Jonah tie on today. We’ll talk a little bit toward the end of the sermon about what does Jonah do in the belly of the whale? He thanks God. And you know, we’re not in the belly of the whale. And we probably none of us will be called to be there literally, but we are all called to go through various difficulties, trials, and tribulations.

And it’s very important that we recognize no matter how hard they may seem to us or how difficult they might seem, that we are, in the midst of them like Jonah, to give God thanks and praise.

So let’s look at 1 Thessalonians 5:18 in its context and talk a little bit about thankfulness. And what we’ll say is that I think that one element that prevents us from being thankful, that causes us to have not a spirit of gratitude but a spirit of unthankfulness, is practical idolatry which we’ll talk about in the context of this sermon.

All right. First of all, let’s look at the command of thanksgiving in all circumstances. And I’ve got “command” in italics. This is a command to give thanks. And the command says that we’re to give thanks in all circumstances. Not some, not part, but in all circumstances. We read that in verse 18. “In everything give thanks. In everything give thanks.”

Now, the context here is “rejoice always, pray without ceasing. In everything, and give thanks. Rejoice, pray, give thanks.” These sound like ordinary admonitions to us. But when you add the adverbs, you have a real challenge and a dilemma for us in the context of our lives because it says to rejoice always. And it says to pray without ceasing and it says in everything give thanks. In everything give thanks.

This is comprehensive—comprehensive of time, always, without ceasing, and comprehensive of place or circumstance, in everything give thanks. So this is an exhaustive command to do these things as part of the center of who we are. And it’s a command that of course is given to us by an author who in the providence of God, Paul wrote this command or at least many of these—maybe not this particular command but like commands found in Philippians and Ephesians—in the context of him being imprisoned. He was in, so to speak, the belly of the fish as he gave, like Jonah did, thanks to God.

And in fact in Philippians 1 he talks about this. He says, “I want you to know brethren that the things which happened to me”—and he was the subject of conspiracies, plots, political machinations of an order that we have not seen yet in this country and he was imprisoned as a result. “The things that have happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel.” He looked on the bright side because the bright side is the side illuminated by the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not, you know, whistling past the graveyard. It’s singing the praises of God, knowing that God moves history in every aspect and every detail.

“It has become evident to me to the whole palace guard rather and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ and most of the brethren of the Lord having become confident by my chains are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”

Paul in the midst of difficult circumstances looked. He believed by faith that God was moving providentially and he looked for how that played itself out and he saw it and reported it.

Again in 2 Corinthians 12:10, “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Paul knew what he was talking about. This wasn’t the words from someone who hadn’t been put through in the providence of God difficult times. And throughout those difficult times he took pleasure in his infirmities and difficulties, trials and tribulations.

And so he who exhorts us by means of the word of God here is one who did it himself according to the spirit of God.

One commentator put it this way. “In the first place, he would have us hold God’s benefits in such esteem that the recognition of them and meditation upon them shall overcome all sorrow.” This is Calvin, I believe. “Hold God’s benefits in such esteem that the recognition of them and meditation upon them shall overcome all sorrow. And unquestionably, if we consider what Christ has conferred upon us, there will be no bitterness of grief so intense as may not be alleviated and give way to spiritual joy. For if this joy does not reign in us,” Calvin wrote, “if this joy does not reign in us, the kingdom of God is at the same time banished from us or we from it. And very ungrateful is that man to God who does not set so high a value on the righteousness of Christ and the hope of eternal life as to rejoice in the midst of sorrow.”

We sing songs like the one we just sang—this Christmas song, “Come Ye Thankful People Come.” And we sing about God gathering in the host. And I don’t know about you, but one of my first reactions is, “Oh, what’s that? You know, it’s that ‘by and by’ stuff being preached again or sung in this song. I wonder who this guy was who wrote this.”

And of course, you know, it probably represents an improper view of history, somewhat amillennial in its description of the tears and wheats. But we need to sing songs like this. We need to set our minds on the future, on eternity. And we need not to be so idolatrous with the present age as to cause the present age’s difficulties to cause us to sin against God by being not joyful, prayerful or thankful in those prayers. You understand?

We need to place a high estimation on our salvation, our redemption, our being delivered from the fires of eternal torment, which is what we deserve, every last one of us for our sin. God says, not only does he spare you that, he grants you eternal blessings of communion and union with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and with one another in eternity, folks. Whatever difficulties you have with each other, they’re all gone. This side of glory, they’re just this side of glory.

I know they’re real. And we’ve talked a lot about what we need to do in our lives here in this church, but I think that probably we’re overbalanced. We’re overbalanced in not considering eternal truths. This I’m speaking to myself personally now. We need to place these eternal truths of God in front of us to create this spirit, as Calvin said, of a great thankfulness for what God has done for us.

Now, we know these things and we need to be reminded of them. I think I do to put everything in perspective. You know, we get so tied to this world and difficulties in this world and they steal our thanksgiving and somehow we’ve kind of not understood things correctly. I think so. We need to think in terms of the eternal truths and understand this is a plain simple command that in everything you’re supposed to be thankful. It’s that simple. There’s no wiggle room here, I don’t think, particularly when this same command is given in various other parallel passages.

Ephesians 5:18-20. “Do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

You see there’s no wiggle room, is there? He puts it in terms of thanks itself—always, time reference; all things, you know, reference in terms of the events that happen in our lives. And we are to give thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Philippians 4:6. “Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Again, Colossians 3:15-17. “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which also you are called in one body. And be thankful. Be happy. Be thankful to God for what he’s given to us. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Whatever you do, that’s comprehensive. Whatever you do in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Thanksgiving is here put as the great and high calling of who we are before God.

One commentator said that while thanksgiving lasts, worries tend to disappear, complaints vanish, courage to face the future is increased, virtuous resolutions are formed, peace is experienced and God is glorified when we give thanks to him in the midst of difficulties—not ignoring them but approaching them correctly.

Lenski said we need to learn the secret of the happy Christian life: thankfulness. “If everything actually conspires to do us good”—talking about Romans 8:28 here—”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 it?”

The Christmas tree is already being decorated although the doors are still closed yet how the little hearts beat with expectant joy. In Germany the tradition was to not put up the tree early but to put it up Christmas Eve in a particular room, a living room barred off from the kids. The Christmas tree would be decorated in there and all the gifts would be placed around the tree. So the kids don’t see that yet, but their hearts are expectant and joyful in expectation of the good gifts that their parents will give them and the delight of seeing the tree.

Well, so it is with us. Lenski says, “If we want to understand the secret of the Christian life, be thankful and look forward with anticipatory thankfulness and joy to how God is going to resolve the situations that you have, difficulties that might present you to unthankfulness.”

Under Romans 8:28, speaking of this, Lenski says, “Under the divine control even painful experiences, calamities, etc. must bring us spiritual benefit such as driving us closer to God to seek his protection, making us search his word more earnestly for comfort, etc.”

So, you know, in the midst of difficulties, what is God doing? He’s causing you to rely more upon him. He’s causing you to draw close to his word, to study his word. He’s causing you to abound in faith through the means of his word and spirit.

So your outline: I say the difficult context here is: are we going to be practical Calvinists or are we going to be practically antinomian? It is practical, rubber meets the road Calvinism to give thanks in and for all things. Because as Romans 8:28 says, we know that all things work together for our good since we’ve been called by God to glorify him. And if he’s being glorified in the context of our difficulties, what more could we ask for?

We have difficulties with a political process with family members, friends. If we glorify God on our part in the midst of difficulties and sufferings, are we not walking in the steps of our Savior? And can we not be thankful that God is glorified through that very difficult thing—that even the sinfulness of men, God used sinlessly to affect your maturation, development, your thanksgiving of him and his glorification in all the world?

If you don’t, if you are not thankful, I tell you and I tell myself: if we are not thankful in the context of the difficulties of life, then we have denied our Calvinism. We don’t think somehow that God is sovereign or we don’t think he loves us. We don’t think he’s smart enough to see things our way. It’s a denial of Calvinism and it’s an acceptance of the process that leads to antinomianism. You know, Romans 1 tells us about homosexuals being bad guys, bad women, the burning lust for each other instead of the natural way that God has created things, the right way. But that entire process in Romans 1 begins with gratitude.

We read in verse 21, “Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God. How do we know that? Nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened.” It is unthankfulness that stands at the head of the series of verses that follow that describe how people end up as homosexuals.

So if you have a sense of revulsion over the sin of homosexuality, tie that revulsion to the ingratitude that so often plagues your heart and mine. It’s practical antinomianism to deny the requirement to give thanks to God in the context of all things.

So, it’s a very specific command by God to us. And as long as we just step back a moment from our difficulties and focus on eternal truths and focus on how God is using these things to perfect us, to mature us, to cause us to glorify him, even when others are opposing us, then I think we can see that this is a command that is not difficult for us. This is a command that is a loving one to us to remind us of the many blessings that God has given to us through Christ our Savior.

Let’s look at a little broader context of this command of thankfulness. And the broader context is God’s will. We have the immediate context are these three specific activities that I’ve talked about: rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks. “For this is the will of God in Christ for you.”

It’s a summation as it were of the will of God. We’re to rejoice always and we are to pray constantly. This word “continually”—praying, a lot of you can probably identify with this and this week you can remember this. The word used in the Greek, the word for to be in continual prayer, “pray without ceasing,” referred to a hacking cough, a cough that just continued to plague you. Well, that’s the same idea. Your prayers are to be continually with you. When you cough this week, pray. Give thanks to God every time you cough as a reminder of this particular word to be continually in prayers, and that prayers include thanksgiving.

These verses tell us as a corporate whole that we are to have a way of life oriented to God in joy, prayer, and thanksgiving. That is the essence these verses tell us of the will of God for us. It is what we’re called to do. It’s the mark of Christianity, these things.

Matthew Henry said that the way to rejoice evermore is to pray without ceasing. We should rejoice much if we prayed more. We should keep up stated times for prayers and continue instant in prayer. So these things are not really separate things. You know, we rejoice as we continue in prayer and our prayers. I think this is the sense of the verse as well. Our prayers always include thanksgiving for what we’re praying to God for. So there’s these connections between joy, prayer, and thankfulness in prayer that’s tied together in terms of the will of God. The more we pray, the more we’ll rejoice, more we get our minds straight.

And so, we’re to keep up stated times. It’s important to have regular times of prayer. And those prayers should be regularly punctuated with thanksgiving and praise to God. And so, those things are what the Christian life are described in this text.

Rushdoony talking about this phrase, we’re to rejoice evermore says this: “We’re to rejoice at all times because ours is the victory in Jesus Christ which overcomes the world.” 1 John 5:4. “The Lord makes all things work together for good to them that love him, for the called of God.” Romans 8:28. “We must therefore rejoice as the people of victory. This means that in everything we give thanks as God requires because in everything the Lord has a glorious purpose at work, however painful and ugly the moment. We rejoice and we give thanks as the people of victory, as the people against whom there is no enchantment nor divination, nor conspiracy formed that can be successful to destroy the people of God or to impede somehow the march and progress or the manifestation of God’s kingdom.”

Let’s look at a few of these other parallel texts and we’ll see some correlations to what we’ve said here in Ephesians 5. Going to read a little broader context now, verses 15 to 22.

“See then that you walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise redeeming the time because the days are evil. Do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. So here he’s going to tell us what the will of the Lord is. Do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, making melody in your heart to the Lord.”

The spirit is tied to the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Now, some commentators believe that those are three different divisions referred to in the Septuagint. Others think that psalms are Old Testament songs, hymns are New Testament hymns, spiritual songs are those written by human composition. I don’t know the answer, but to both of those positions or opinions on the text, the head of the list is psalms—the inspired word of God.

And so we have the will of God being an involvement in the life of the spirit who’s been given to us in the basis of Christ’s work. That spirit is tied to the word and specifically to the Psalter. And we’re to do these things, seeing the spirit and word tied together together in terms of making melody which means to be joyous in our hearts to the Lord.

Joy, spirit, word, discerning the will of God. And then verse 20, that’s the context for “giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So we have the will of the Lord, spirit and word related to our joy. And that produces the background for our thanks which is prayers we can say: “giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So it refers to prayer—prayers of thanksgiving. And then verse 21 says, “Submitting to one another in the fear of God.” And verse 22 begins to talk about the practical outworking of submission of relationships, the submission of wives to their husbands, the submission of functional inferiors to functional superiors.

So see it all wraps up together that the way we go about doing what we’re supposed to do in spite of difficult masters. The key to submission is the will of God reflecting the indwelling spirit—the spirit who is linked to the word. The spirit and the word bring joy, thanksgiving, and prayer to God’s people in Ephesians. And that provides us the means whereby we enter into proper biblical submission to the authorities that God has placed in our lives.

So it all works together in terms of the practical outworking of the will of God for us. This is also seen in Colossians 3.

Colossians 3:12-18. “Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, bearing with one another, forgiving one another. If any of you has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body and be thankful.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Wives, submit to your own husband, husbands as is fitting in the Lord.”

So we have the same basic progression in Colossians 3. And the context of thanksgiving is the peace of God dwelling in our hearts. The word, the psalms, singing of psalms with joy, making melody in our hearts. Grace is the word used here in our hearts. Thanksgiving is linked again to prayer giving thanks to God the Father through the Son. And that provides then the background necessary for the admonition then to enter into submission starting with wives and in all the relationships that we have, again in Philippians 4.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice.” Joy is spoken of here of course. “Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing. But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”

Don’t cause a lack of joy, a lack of thankfulness to enter into your hearts. Don’t be anxious. A command: do not worry. Put it off. Don’t try to just get by without worry though. Substitute the positive admonition in everything. Again, comprehensive term, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. So prayer always in everything linked to thanksgiving to remove the cause of the removal of joy, this anxiety. Let your requests be made known to God.

“And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus.”

So the context is the will of God being manifested through prayers in all things, joy and peace in God’s word.

As one commentator put it, I believe it was Calvin, we are to repose—these texts all tell us—we are to repose rather in the providence of God. We’re to understand that what we assert with our confessions of faith is accurate. God’s providential care extends to every detail of our lives and we are to repose ourselves, to rest, to lay down in the providence of God.

Going on, Calvin said, “As doubts frequently obtrude themselves as to whether God cares for us, he also prescribes the remedy that by prayer we disburden our anxieties as it were into his bosom.” Psalm 55:22, “Cast your burden on the Lord and he shall sustain you. He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.” 1 Peter 5:7 is a recitation of that same thing.

“And again, it’s put in the context of submission. Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another. Be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you. Be sober and be diligent. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”

How does he devour us? He devours us as we move away from the centrality of a life focused upon the providence and love of God in our lives that leads us to joy, prayer and thanksgiving.

And so here in the context of 1 Thessalonians 5, the context of the specific command begins with submission. Now here it’s in the context of first church authorities. “We urge you brethren to recognize those who labor among you or over you in the Lord and admonish you to esteem them very highly and love for their work’s sake. Be at peace amongst yourselves.”

Then there’s commands given to what to do to people that are unruly and faint-hearted and the weak. “And then see that no one renders evil for evil, but always pursue what is good, both for yourselves and for all. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ for you. Do not quench the spirit. Do not despise prophecies.”

And the same way that we saw the spirit and the singing of songs, hymns, and spiritual songs linked here, we see that thankfulness is based upon not quenching the spirit, but rather not despising prophecies. What that meant was the preaching of the word in church and the individual application of the word of God to particular matters in your lives. And so the way to achieve thanksgiving, prayer, and joy is to understand that the spirit and word are linked and they become your source of prayer, thanksgiving and joy to God.

And to move away from thanksgiving is to quench the spirit who is the very source of this thankfulness in our hearts to God the Father.

Okay. So those the basic context shows these relationships and I think that these relationships of submission, joy, prayer and thanksgiving, God’s will, spirit and the word being linked and then the peace of God being talked about in first Thessalonians as well provides the proper context for our understanding of this specific command.

Gratitude, in other words, has a relationship to the will of the Lord. It cannot be separated from it. You cannot be doing the will of the Lord if you’re not grateful and thankful in all things. Gratitude has a specific and direct relationship to the will of the Lord.

Gratitude has a specific relationship to prayer. Some commentators think that the command in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 is specifically talking about the prayers that have just been mentioned. So, you know, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in all of these prayers in everything—in other words, all of your prayers, be thankful. And that’s okay. That may well be there, but at least it’s certainly there by implication. And it’s certainly there in the other texts we talked about. For instance, in Philippians, where we’re supposed to make our requests be known to God with thanksgiving. So, there’s this relationship between gratitude and prayer.

And what this means is that our prayers always should have an aspect of gratitude to them even in the midst of difficulties. We saw last week in Psalm 83 that in the midst of difficulties, praise for God’s past action is part of that. And the psalm concludes with praising him for what he’s going to do. And so we have this relationship of our prayers must have with them an element of gratitude and thanksgiving.

And so our prayers then form the way we look at life.

Gratitude has a relationship to maturation. How is this perfection that’s talked about at the end of 1 Thessalonians going on? God is perfecting and maturing his people. Well, it happens in the context of his will, which is thanksgiving, joy, and prayer. You know, some of us are having prayer meetings this day, some of us aren’t. Our group is not meeting. But, you know, when we have these prayer meetings, we always pray about our difficulties. But I think it’s proper of course to put all those things in the context of thankfulness and we pray for our children but we should pray with thankfulness to God for our children first and for the fruit he has manifested in their lives that forms the basis for our intercessions and supplications on their behalf.

I thought about this in terms of our ministry teams as we begin to work on Christian education, worship, benevolences, outreach, missions and beautification. You know it, our tendency will be to want to fix everything that’s wrong and that’s good. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing is maturing and advancing. But that maturing and advancing here in First Thessalonians is tied explicitly to thanksgiving for God for everything.

We should be thankful for what he’s shown us already in each of these areas and for what we’ve done in these things. And thankfulness provides then the kind of the ground level for our maturation and continuing on to more maturity.

And as I said, gratefulness has of course a direct response to submission. Each of these texts are placed in the context of gratitude, thanksgiving, and joy to God. These calls to submission are placed in the context of gratitude, thanksgiving, and joy to God.

Now, we need this command. You know, God gives us commands because we need to hear them because we’re prone to sin in the particular area that the command comes to us. And since we have so many repeated commands to thankfulness throughout the scriptures from one end to the other, then we have to recognize that’s because our hearts will tend not to be grateful. We are prone to ingratitude.

And I want to talk about two ways, two elements of what can cause us difficulties in being thankful and grateful to God. I mean, it’s obvious that we should be grateful. Why aren’t we more?

Well, one source of ingratitude, Roman numeral 4 in your outline: one source of ingratitude is idolatry.

In Ezekiel 14:1-3 we read, “Now some of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and put before them that which causes them to stumble into iniquity.”

Ezekiel says that there is idolatry in the hearts of the representatives and probably all the people of Israel at this time, at least in terms of the elders that are before him. God tells them that these men have set up idols in the context of their hearts. And by doing that, they have set themselves on a path that causes them to stumble. And so what they have, I think, could be improper desires, but they may simply be inordinate desires.

Inordinate desires are a potential cause of practical idolatry for the Christian. And what I mean by inordinate desires are things we should desire. We desire all kinds of good things. But when we place those things as more important than the providence of God and either granting us or not granting us those things at a particular point in time, when we sin to try to obtain the things that may be proper in and of themselves or when we sin because we are denied those things, then that thing is a practical idol for us. We have an inordinate desire in our hearts for that particular thing.

Example: money. We want money so bad. And you know, there are a lot of reasons why one might want money. Money is a good thing to desire. But what is greed? It’s placing more value on the thing that represents the glory of God, the money, than we do on God himself. And how do we know if we’ve done that? We know if we’ve done that if we sin to try to get the money or if when we don’t have the money that we desire, when we’re not thankful, when we’re not content for the checkbook balance today—you see, when we’re anxious over it or ungrateful to God or not grateful for what he’s provided—that represents, I think we can say, an inordinate desire in our hearts the way these elders had before Ezekiel. And God refers to that as setting up an idol in the context of their hearts. That idol causes us to stumble.

So the first source of ingratitude that I think can be referred to here is an inordinate love for what is otherwise proper.

I think maybe this is what 1 John 2 is talking about in verses 15 to 17. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. The world is passing away and the lust of it but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

See, when we have inordinate love for the things that are in the world, then we’re setting up those things as practical idols in the context of our lives. God says that we’re not to have inordinate desires for the things that are round about us.

In the book The Excellent Wife I’m going to read a quote from that. She’s quoting from someone else and I talked about this a couple of weeks ago: “An idol can be anything, it may even be a good thing but if we want it so badly that we sin if we don’t get it, if we want it so badly that we sin to attain it then we are worshiping an idol rather than Christ. We worship what we serve, speak about, sacrifice for, seek after, spend time and money on, and trust in. What’s on your mind?”

I’ve—there’s no doubt in my mind that one of the temptations for me in terms of idolatry is money because I think about it too much. Never seems like I have enough. But that—see, if you’re thinking about things inordinately and if you’re not grateful for where God has placed you, that represents idolatry in the context of your life.

If you can’t be thankful to God today because of some circumstance, some person, some relationship, some political conspiracy before God that God is graciously showing you that you have become idolatrous in that area. You have an inordinate desire for something that God has in his sovereign, good, loving will for your life not provided you yet.

If you want to blame somebody for the difficulties in life, blame God. God is well able to have had the vote in Florida go yesterday. He is frustrating the nation deliberately and he is testing us whether we’re going to be grateful and thankful in the context of a difficult situation. I’m not saying be passive. We work. We do things that are correct. But I am saying that we do it with a grateful and rejoicing heart before God.

God is well able to give me lots of money. He owns it all. He hasn’t seen fit to do it. Praise God. He’s well able to give you health, but he may not at this point in time have given it to you. Are you grateful for what he has provided you in terms of your particular health? Are you grateful and thankful for the house that God has provided you at this point in time? That’s good to maybe seek a nicer house for yourself, but not if you’re in great ingratitude and you have ingratitude for your present situation.

Are you grateful for the children that God has provided you up to now or are you thankless? Are you complaining and bitter against God because he hasn’t given you the kind of kids that you read about in the Teaching Home or—I don’t mean to make fun of—or the Word of God. I mean the Word of God says we should desire our kids to be godly. But if he has not yet produced that fruit in the context of your family, it does not mean you should be ungrateful.

Are you grateful for the wife that God has given to you? I mean, are you thankful or are you bitter and complaining against the kind of person that God has caused you to win? Are you grateful for your husband? Are you grateful for your friends or your lack of friends for that matter?

If any of these areas, these proper desires that God places before us become inordinate, if they become now what will make us happy and without it, we won’t be happy and joyous and grateful, then we have made those things idolatrous to us and we are in violation of this command today that God’s word brings to us.

Inordinate desires, these inordinate desires typically then become the means whereby we seek false saviors. In the words of David Polisky again quoting from or referring rather to the book The Excellent Wife, these inordinate desires then produce desires for things that God has not in his providence given us yet. Then we turn to other ways to relieve the anxiety, the depression, the anger, the grief that we have been given in terms of these that results rather from the frustration of these idols.

Psalm 115:8 says, “Those who make them are like them. So is everybody who trusts in them.”

Psalm 37 says, “Trust in the Lord.” Over and over and over. And what happens is we begin to trust in the means by which we’re trying to achieve these idols to us and then we’re off sinning again and we’re not grateful.

Men turn to drugs, alcohol, other relationships that are sinful. They turn to sinful ways to try to relieve the difficulties in their heart when the problem is not really the wife, the husband, the political situation, the children, the health problems, the lack of whatever you might want to see going on in the church. None of those things ultimately are your problem necessarily when you’re ungrateful. But rather, you don’t want to bow the knee there and turn those things over to God and be grateful for those things. And so instead one turns to sinful ways to relieve the pressure and difficulties that one finds.

So inordinate desires and false saviors come into our lives and as a result we demonstrate that we’re really not walking in the context of trusting God. What’s in our heart? What do we want most today? What we should want most today is to see God glorified and a desire for him and his word. But instead, what we want are these things that become practical idols and lead us to ingratitude.

What are we trusting? Do we trust in these idols or do we trust rather in God?

Psalm 37: “Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and feed on his faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord and he shall give you the desires of your heart.”

God entreats us over and over again to trust in him.

So the problem frequently is ingratitude. And what’s the solution? The solution is not to seek false saviors, but the solution is repentance.

Psalm 139 says, “Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties. See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting.”

You know, we think of that typically as well, you know, find out what in me is really sinful. Am I seeking adultery? Am I going to go rob a bank? Am I going to kill somebody? But the text says, “Search, God, know my hearts. Try me and know my anxieties.”

Do you understand? Do you want God today to reveal to you the anxieties in your heart that may be perfectly proper desires in terms of relationships, possessions, whatever it might be, but yet have become inordinate affections to you and sapped away the very heart of God’s will for you, which is joy, prayer, and thanksgiving to him?

We should ask that God would indeed search our hearts, show to us our anxieties. And in that way, he shows us indeed what is wickedness—what is the wickedness of these idols that we have displaced him with at the center of our being.

Psalm 19:14 says, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength.”