1 Thessalonians 5:18

“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”

One of the great conundrums of our culture is that we are the most privileged and prosperous people on the face of the planet yet we are not content. We may have more of everything except for happiness. In the book “The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse.” Gregg Easterbrook draws upon three decades of wide-ranging research to make the persuasive assertion that almost all aspects of Western life have vastly improved in the past century and yet today, most men and women feel less happy than in previous generations. As a nation we have bought into the belief that more means merrier, but if that is true then why are so many miserable? Consuming doesn’t bring contentment, having doesn’t equate to happiness. Somewhere in the mad dash for more we have missed the simple message of 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” God’s Will for His people involves taking time to be thankful. When it comes to God’s Will many of us want to know where we are to live but God tells us how we are to live. His Will encompasses not just our actions but also our attitudes. Thessalonians teaches us the truth that thankfulness is not tied to our circumstances, we can rejoice regardless of the challenges. So how do we keep from becoming part of the progress paradox and living out a thankless life? What we need is a change of focus from what we don’t have to what we do. We live in a culture built on consuming; commercialization is everywhere and no matter where we go we are constantly confronted with what we don’t have. This call to consume causes us to focus on what we want instead of what we have. In the constant craving for more we miss the joy of where we are and what we already have. We are being constantly reminded of what we don’t have in the hope that we will rush out to get it. The call to consume capitalizes on our lack of content, and works very hard to make sure we are never content, because content people don’t make good consumers. But many of us have lost touch with the Scripture that says: “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you’ Hebrews 13:5. You are either going to focus on God or greed. People who focus on God recognize that when they have Him they have it all, but those who focus on greed will always want more.  Greed is the constant groining for more, no matter how much stuff it is never satisfied. In 1 Timothy 6:9-10 Paul warned Timothy, “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” Greed kills gratitude, destroying our desire for the things of God. Greed is the opposite of contentment, it refuses to be satisfied because it always focuses on what we don’t have rather than the blessings that we do. Second we need to change our focus from getting a blessing, to being a blessing. Are you focused on getting or giving? One of the things crippling the church today is that we have brought our consumer culture into the Christian community. Most Christians have a Me mindset instead of a ministry one, as a result we are making church about me and not the Master. We judge worship based on what we like instead of whether the One we were supposed to be worshipping liked it. Look salvation is all about you but service is not. Belonging to Christ is not about the benefits it’s about being a blessing.  We need to move from getting to giving, what are you giving to God? Re you a consumer Christian or a contributing one? Where are you giving of your time talents and treasures? Who are you being a blessing to? Only when you invest your life into the lives of other people do you find fulfillment. We need to move from getting all the blessings we can to being a blessing. There is no fulfillment in self-centered living, a meaningful life is not found in more but in ministry. Jesus said we find life when we learn to give it away,  “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” Matthew 10:39). Are you giving your life to God and living for others, or selfishly serving self? When we live to love others we find life but when we live for self, our lives shrivel away. Jesus also said “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” Mark 10:43-45. Jesus as the Son of God could have demanded to be served, but instead chose to serve others. One of the blessings of serving others is that it gets our minds off of us. It’s hard to feeling sorry for yourself when you are focused on serving. Look when you go and visit people in a nursing home or hospital it puts your problems into perspective. It’s not long before you find yourself being  grateful for God grace instead of grumbling and groaning. In Mark 5 when Jesus dealt with the demon possessed man by healing him, the man wanted to follow Jesus and be with Him. But Jesus told the man to go back to his village and tell them about what God had done. Jesus reminds us that true healing puts us on a heading to service. Sometimes our healing will only find its completion as we ministered to others. Jesus always tried to get people to change their focus from themselves to the needs around them. Until your life is being used by God in some form of service you will not find lasting satisfaction. Lastly we need to learn to change our focus from earth to eternity. This life can be beautiful but it can also be bitter, there are pitfalls and problems. If this world was all there was then we would have reason to despair, but Paul reminds us: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” 1 Corinthians 15:19. We serve a God who has overcome the world and a Savior who is preparing a place for us in paradise. We not only have a home we have the hope of heaven. Paul who experienced countless beatings and imprisonments reminds us in 2 Corinthians: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed. . . Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” 2 Corinthians 4:8, 16-18. Are you focused on the temporary or the truth, on what is or what will be? Are you living with the hope of eternity in your heart?

Colossians 1:1-8

“1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. 3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— 5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.”

The vertical dimension of faith then leads to the horizontal element of:

LOVE

Because of what Jesus had done in their lives, these believers got busy loving “all” of God’s people. This love that they lavished on others was agape love which has sacrifice as its key character and is displayed in actions. Love is a transforming act because it is faith in motion as Galatians 5:6 says, “…the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Live in love, and love to live. 1 Corinthians 13 concerning the love we should portray says “Love is patient; …. love is kind; ….love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; …. it is not irritable or resentful; ….. it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, ….but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, ….believes all things, …..hopes all things, …..endures all things. …… Love never ends.” Are you living to love, are you practicing love and letting it permeate your life? Today do we really consider love a thriving aspect of living? God does and the time we stop loving is the time we stop living. Notice that they didn’t just love those they liked, they loved from the least to the beast. Our tendency is to love some not all, we want to pick and choose based on how we feel instead of being moved by faith. Sure there are those who are hard to love but remember Jesus loved Judas so what’s our excuse? Don’t just stop at liking others, let go and lavish God’s love on them.

HOPE

Our shared faith and mutual love result in our common “hope that is stored up for you in heaven.” Faith and love spring from hope because hope is the root, faith is the plant and love is the fruit. Because God has “laid up” hope for us in heaven, we can have full confidence in our faith and express our love without holding back. We don’t have to vaguely wish for something better to come when we have complete confidence in the reality of heaven. Why have faith in Christ if there is no hope for a glorious future? Why love others if it doesn’t matter in the end? Hope makes all the difference because we have a confident expectation that everything God says in His Word is true. Hope is stored up for us like a treasure, John MacArthur said one of the blessings of hope is it allows us to sacrifice the present on the altar of the future. How contrary this is to human nature, we live in a world that wants what it wants and it wants it now. We are a people who whine if we have to wait, we would rather sacrifice the future on the altar of the immediate. But if we really believe God our focus would be on the future. We would have a proper perspective and be willing to sacrifice the present comfort for that which is to come. In contrast to the buy now pay later attitude that has permeated our culture Christian’s should be paying now and picking up later. Why would we be willing to make such a sacrifice? Hope, based on faith, because we believe that the future holds something far better than the present. Colossians introduces us to God’s trilogy of virtue, faith, love, and hope. Faith is the soul looking upward to God; love looks outward to others; hope looks forward to the future. Faith rests on the past work of Christ; love works in the present; and hope anticipates the future. Not only was Paul thankful for the body but also the:

3. BIBLE

The Gospel is the truth of God the good news available to all and Paul rejoiced because the gospel was going out “all over the world.” The gospel that came to the city of Colossae is the same gospel going around the globe. God has one message of good news, one word of truth for everyone. The gospel is to be shared with others because it is the word of truth and there is no other truth worth proclaiming. Christians should be committed to proclaiming the good news of the gospel not just in their community but in every continent. It is the Gospel that produces life and growth and Paul says it’s the Word that changes lives. It amazes me how many made resolutions for change without ever including the reading of God’s word. We want to change our bodies but what about our beliefs, we want to change our health but what about our hearts? Are you thankful for the truth, is the Gospel of God’s good news penetrating and permeating your life? Paul was also thankful for:

4. BROTER EPAPHRAS

He was a fellow servant and a “faithful minister of Christ.” He faithfully took the message of grace to them and Epaphras both evangelized Colossae and edified the believers. The verb “learned” is the basis of the word “disciple.” He was a native of Colossae (4:12) who was probably converted to Christ while visiting Ephesus during Paul’s stay there. He then returned to his city and began the church. He was vigilant in prayer and loyal to the point of being will to suffer whatever hardships necessary to serve the church as Christ’s ambassador. If you were mentioned in the Bible, what would be said of you? God’s plan has always been to use us to bring the good news of the gospel to a dying world. Epaphras was faithful in spreading the seed are you? Today more than ever we need bold believers willing to share their faith. Are you thankful for brothers and sisters who share God’s Word? What if instead of seeing people as a pain you took the time to praise God for the blessing of other believers? This week when you pray instead of praying prayers that start with, “Lord, please give me…” begin your prayers with thanks for all that God has done. Several years ago I encouraged families to start a Blessings box or jar. I asked them to take the time to write out their “blessings” on small slips of paper and add them to their box as they happen. Then at the end of each month sit together as a family and take turns reading all of the blessings in your box. This week would you be willing to identify one person that you have a hard time loving and ask God to help you lavish His love on them. Instead of seeing this as a pain and a problem start look at it as a privilege, because of this person you have the opportunity to put your faith into action and practice love.