Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Finding the will of God is a concern for many believers.
But here is one thing we can be sure is His will. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. These words from 1 Thessalonians 5 are the core of today's study on pleasing the Lord always.
Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, what is the one thing you are most thankful for during this season? Dave, before I answer that question, I want to comment on what you said about this is the will of God that you be thankful. And of course you reference scripture.
So often people say, what is God's will? Well, here we have it spelled out for us, being thankful. What am I most thankful for?
Of course, Jesus Christ, the fact that He saved me when I was about 14 years old and has given me the privilege of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Perhaps people have heard me say this before, but I told my wife, Rebecca, that if for the first 1,000 years I bow before Jesus in worship, adoration and thanksgiving, I will be satisfied. But you know, even as we think about the future, the immediate future, we can't help but think about Christmas. And we have a special resource available for you. And today is the last day you can receive the booklet entitled A Case for Christmas by Lee Strobel. Now we make this resource available for you because we think it will not only encourage you in your faith, but it's a great booklet to give to others. Here's what you do for a gift of any amount.
You go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. The title of the booklet, The Case for Christmas. Day by day, we begin the day by giving ourselves to God, by committing ourselves to Him. And then we open our lives to Him all day long. We stay connected with God.
What this really means is, first of all, we have a sense of dependence. We recognize that we can't get through this day without Him. So we begin the day with God. We begin the day yielding ourselves to Him and inviting His blessed Holy Spirit of God to help us because we know we can't do without Him. And then something else, and that is that we live in complete agreement with God about everything.
Now let me speak to you very candidly. Why is it so difficult oftentimes for us to pray without ceasing? Because we know that if we were completely dead honest before God, there are things that are out of agreement. Our lives are not in agreement with God, which is what the word confess means. Confession means that I agree with God. If our souls were open to Him, immediately God begins to say, all right, it's fine for you to be open to me and to pray.
But look at this. Is there a person here you've not forgiven? What about that bitterness in your life? And what about that deceit in your life? And what about that dishonesty in your life? And what about the secret sins that you are committing? And all of these things you see are matters with which we must agree with God. We must say to God, I agree that it is sin.
I agree that you have the right to take it out of my life forever. And I agree that I'm going to do all that I possibly can to make sure that you give me a sense of deliverance and freedom because I agree with God. Now, if you live that way, you'll be able to pray without ceasing. There are times when you are going to be in a difficulty and even without the difficulty all day long, you're simply saying, Father, this is your situation.
Lord, I don't have the wisdom to know what I'm supposed to do here. Lord, this is beyond me, but I keep committing it to you because I pray without ceasing. And parents have had the experience of having a child or a grandchild on their hearts, continually lifting that child to God, praying without ceasing. It should become a part of our attitude.
It is part of the renovation of the soul. Now, there is also a third command, and that is in verse 18, always give thanks. Give thanks, it says, in all circumstances. That doesn't mean that we give thanks for all circumstances necessarily. It does mean that we give thanks in the midst of those circumstances. We can always find something for which to praise God.
I've used this illustration before, but it's wonderful. Matthew Henry, who was a Bible commentator who lived in a previous age, was robbed one evening as he was going home. That night he wrote in his diary, his gratitude to God for four things. First, I was never robbed before.
He was thankful for that. Secondly, although they took my wallet, they did not take my life. Third, because although they took my all, they took my all, it was not very much. And fourth, I'm so grateful that I was robbed, and I was not the one doing the robbing. This morning, God gave me an illustration of how I could apply what Matthew Henry had to say.
My wife is still with the grandchildren in Missouri, and she has my car, so I drove hers today. And getting up, I didn't have any breakfast. I thought I'd stop by McDonald's and pick up a cup of coffee. And I did that, and I took one of those cardboard trays that they gave me, and I put it next to me in the seat. And I didn't realize when I arrived here at the church that the coffee had spilled over, and the cardboard tray was soggy, and there was coffee all over the seat. I thought, oh, okay, so I'm supposed to thank God for this.
And I remembered Matthew Henry because I knew I was going to use this illustration. I said, Lord, what can I thank you for? And I began to thank him. And I said, Lord, thank you that even though the coffee spilled, not all of it did.
I did have a half cup. And I said, Lord, even though it spilled on the car seat, thank you that it did not spill on me. Then I said, Lord, and I thank you it was only coffee, I thank you that it wasn't syrup. And then I said, sorry to laugh at the fourth, but, and thank you, Lord, that it happened in my wife's vehicle and not mine.
Well, wait till Rebecca hears about that. Now the question is this, how can we give thanks in every circumstance? How can we give thanks? As I mentioned, we don't give thanks for evil. The woman who lost her husband in that helicopter crash, she doesn't say, Lord, thank you that my husband was killed.
No. But what she says is, thank you, Father, for your grace in the midst of this. Thank you, Father, for your grace that is going to sustain me.
Thank you, Father, that even though I do not experience any comfort at this moment, I thank you that that comfort will come. One day I was counseling a widow whose husband died suddenly. They were very greatly in love and she was contemplating suicide, a Christian woman because she simply could not imagine going on without her husband. And so she wanted some assurance that if she committed suicide, she'd go to heaven.
I mean, how can you go on living? That was her thing. And I remember promising her something. I said, if you live through one year, simply a day at a time, you have only one responsibility each day as you wake up in the morning, and that is to get to the end of that day. And after you get to the end of that day, you get to the end of the next day on and on for one year.
And then oftentimes the second year is also very difficult. If you do that for two years, I said, I have a promise for you. The sun will shine again. Hope will come back to you. The joy of the Lord will be your strength. Many years later, I saw her and asked her, I said, has the sun come back?
And she said, oh, yes, the sun is shining again. What does the Bible say? It says, rejoice all the time.
It says, pray all the time. Give thanks all the time. You say, should we give thanks for sin? No, no, it does not say give thanks. As I mentioned, for every circumstance, in every circumstance, we don't give thanks for sin.
But we do give thanks for God's grace in the midst of sin. We thank him for his love and for his mercy toward us so that in everything we give thanks. Many of you know that the man with whom I played tennis for 20 years died just about a year and a half ago.
I visited Mark a number of different times before he died, as often as I was actually able to. And one day I said to him, I said, have you ever given thanks to God for your cancer? I didn't know how he would answer that, but he said, many times, many times, he says, I thank him every day for cancer because he says, the glory of heaven that I have already experienced here on earth, he said to me, heaven was just a concept. And he said, now I look at it so differently. It's a real place, a real reality. And the nearness that I have to God, I never experienced that before because he said, we are so earth bound. Wow. Give thanks in everything. I remember reading an article that my wife gave me.
I wish I had kept it. I'm not sure if it can be found about a couple that had a special needs child. And they said that when this child was born, their entire lives were just thrown topsy turvy and everything was up for grabs because they love to travel. They both had careers. And now in the midst of this, this child needed 24 seven care.
And now this article was being written 13 years later when they had their first vacation in 13 years. And they said that this burden that we thought God was giving us was this incredible blessing. We thank God over and over and over again for this special needs child in everything. Give thanks for this is God's will. The text says in Christ concerning you, sometimes the will of God is thought of as something so elusive we can't ever find it. Well, here it is.
Here it is. And everything gives thanks. Now what I'd like to do is to give you some assumptions that the Apostle Paul is making.
What are the assumptions that lie behind these commands? Let me give them to you because what God wants to do is I've emphasized is to renovate our hearts. First of all, Paul assumes that God supplies what he demands. He demands and requests and commands us to rejoice in all things. If that is to happen, he has to supply the joy because it doesn't come naturally. That's why the Bible says that the fruit of the Spirit is love and the second fruit is joy. Joy is one of the indisputable marks of the Spirit. But God has to put it within us because it is the fruit of the Spirit. Us because it isn't within us.
He has to put it there. And if he wants us to pray, he has to give us the grace and the strength to be able to do that. And if God desires that we give thanks, what he needs to do is to give us the ability to see him from a larger perspective so that we can do that. Paul is assuming here a supernatural relationship with God, with power and help from the outside. So that's the first assumption that the apostle Paul is making. The second assumption is that Paul assumes that our attitude, our attitude will follow obedience.
Our attitude will follow obedience. You see, because we live in America, we are so feeling oriented. We think to ourselves, well, you know, why should I give thanks? Because I don't feel thankful.
Well, the answer is, it is a command. So you do it whether you feel like it or not. Those of you who do housework and dislike housework, whether male or female, you know what it is like, don't you? How you dislike it. And you say to yourself, well, I'm going to do it whenever I feel like it.
Well, your house certainly looks like it, doesn't it? And so what you do is sit on the couch and munch chocolates watching TV, hoping that the day will come when you'll feel like it. Well, you'll never feel like it. The way in which you get better feelings about it is to simply just do it.
You just do it. And these commands are in scripture for us to do, to give thanks, yes, to rejoice, to choose to rejoice in God, though we do not understand and even in sorrow, as I mentioned, but we choose to do it and we don't wait around until we feel like doing it. You know, there are times when we might not feel like very much at all. You think of the life of Jesus who was in great sorrow in Gethsemane. Was Jesus always filled with the Spirit? Yes.
Was he always bubbly and effervescent? No, there were times of great sorrow because he recognized that we do not live by feelings. We live by faith and we live by the power of the Spirit. So these are commands. And the Apostle Paul is assuming that our attitude, the renovation of heart that we're talking about follows the choice of obedience to give thanks in all things. Third, Paul assumes that God is sovereign. Paul assumes that God is sovereign.
This is critical to these commands. There was a famous theologian who would listen to young men preach in a seminary and they would, of course, preach sermons and that is part of the responsibility of professors to listen to young men who are going to be preaching someday. And this professor said this, that when he listens to a message, what he wants to know is how big is this man's God? And as he would listen to the sermon, he would think to himself, is he a big God or a small God?
And that's critical. You see, if you say to yourself, I have no way of believing that God can be glorified in this situation, what you're really saying is that I believe that I have no way of knowing how God can be glorified, but I also believe that God himself doesn't know how he's going to be glorified in this and therefore I cannot give thanks. How can you expect me to give thanks for something that on the surface at least can never possibly glorify God? How can I thank him in the midst of those circumstances? But if you have a big view of God, you can say, God, I don't understand.
This makes no sense. I don't see how you're going to be glorified through this. I don't see how my pain is going to contribute to some hidden purpose, but I believe that that is possible. So even though I don't give thanks for sin or for sorrow per se, I thank you for the way in which you will use it and therefore Lord, I do give you thanks in every situation because I'm going to be a thankful person in everything. Give thanks.
I've discovered this personally. Giving thanks just changes everything. When you're in the midst of a situation that is very trying, the minute you begin to give thanks, what you are really saying to God is, God, I believe that you're bigger than this situation. I believe that you are bigger than what is happening. I believe that this is something that you can use. I believe therefore that in and through this, your purposes are going to be accomplished.
Thank you so very, very much. And it immediately begins to lift your spirit and your attitude then begins to change as I mentioned earlier. So Paul is assuming here that his believers in Thessalonica believe in a big God. Finally, Paul obviously is assuming here continual openness to God. As I stressed earlier, if our lives are not open to God, if we find ourselves close to him, we will never be a thankful people and we will be the kind of people I described earlier, the unpleasant ones, critical, angry, unable to see God in the midst of circumstances, unable to see God in the midst of human failure, whether our own or that of someone else.
And all the time just looking at this earth and never taking the time of looking up. Is it not true in Pilgrim's Progress that there was a man like that who was sweeping floors and all that he could do is look at earth. He never looked up to God to see that God was greater than all the things that sometimes drag us down in everything give thanks. But Paul is assuming a heart change. A new heart God says I will give you.
In World War One there was a chaplain who is walking through a hospital and this was a military hospital and all of the men were wounded and in various stages of recovery and there was nothing but pessimism, gloom and despair. But as he walked through he noticed that on the table there was a bowl that was upside down. And so he thought of something he said to the men he said what's in that bowl and they all agreed nothing but darkness and uselessness. Then he took the bowl and he turned it right side up and he said what is in the bowl now but light and hope because now this bowl can be used for porridge or soup or something helpful. Now the bowl can bless others.
Well you know there are people just like that bowl living in darkness in pessimism in hopelessness and and they infect the attitude of everyone around them. Paul says in the first chapter of first Thessalonians he says you folks at Thessalonica you turned from darkness to light from idols to God and Paul is assuming that transformation when he gives these commands. So I have to ask you today have you turned from darkness to light? It says in Colossians that God transferred us from the kingdom of darkness the kingdom of darkness then he translates us in the kingdom of light the bowl is turned over and it becomes a receptacle of hope and help and healing. God wants to change us there's no doubt about it and part of that change happens when we are willing to obey these commands because God says this is what I expect you to do and you'll please me more and more. Let's close in prayer. Our father forgive our thanklessness because we know it is sin.
Your word says in Romans chapter 1 that part of the fall of humanity was that they were not thankful and that played a great part in the fall of man into deeper sin. We ask that you will help us to see beyond the circumstances that we will see you at work even in times of distress and need and even those who sorrow we ask father that you will give them hope and the knowledge that the day will come when their sorrow is turned into joy and joy is their everlasting possession. Help us father because we are so needy and now before I close this prayer what is it that you have to say to God today? You talk to God because he's listening. Father hear the prayer of your people today.
We ask that we will take these three commands and put them before us. May we write them out put them on our desk on the refrigerator so that we might know this is our obligation every single day and we shall do your will and we shall bring you pleasure and for those who have never trusted Christ as savior help them father may that bull be turned the other way to give light and to give help we pray in Jesus name amen amen. Well my friend this is Pastor Lutzer all of us during this season we begin to think about Christmas and we're making available for you a booklet that we think will be of tremendous help in solidifying your own faith in Jesus but also a great booklet to pass on to others particularly those who may be skeptical. This is the last day we're making this resource available for you. It's entitled The Case for Christmas by Lee Strobel. Now I have to tell you that this particular booklet doesn't just deal with the Christmas story it talks about the claims of Christ it talks about the New Testament documents it gives us a basis for what we believe but once again I want to emphasize that it is a resource that will help you but also help others for a gift of any amount we're making it available for you and perhaps I've already mentioned that today is the last day we're making this available. Here's what you do go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337.
Now perhaps I said that too quickly I hope that you have a pen or pencil in hand here's what you do go to rtwoffer.com of course rtwoffer is all one word rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. Ask for The Case for Christmas and thanks for helping us as we minister to millions. You can write to us at Running to Win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614. Running to Win comes to you from the Moody Church in Chicago. Next time how our entertainment choices impact our personal holiness or the lack thereof and why it matters so much. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer this is Dave McAlister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
