"How Great Our Joy"
1 Thessalonians 5:14-22
Is there any more annoying, exasperating experience in civilized life than being at the wrong end of an interminable, serpentine line of humanity? And doesn’t it seem that the slowest and most frustrating lines occur at all our very most “favorite” places? Think about it with me: If on a cold December morning you slip on the top step going out the backdoor and hear a sickening crunch as you land, it’s possible that a trip to the hospital emergency room is in order! And when you get there, you find the place filled with squalling babies, bleeding do-it-yourselfers, frightened wheezing great-grandfathers—all of them in desperate need and every single one of them ahead of you and your throbbing injury in the waiting room. Everyone there feels awful, and everyone there resents having to wait in line for medical attention. No wonder the mood of the place is snappish and snarling! Now think back to the last time you heard the phrase “as slow as Christmas”? That phrase was created because Christmas is something most people look forward to but, especially when you’re young, always seems so far away—and so slow in coming.
It was in the same way that the apostle Paul had been talking to the church at Thessalonica about the second advent of Jesus Christ. He knew that waiting for Jesus’ second coming might be long and arduous, and so he counseled his readers by giving them a different perspective on waiting rooms. He insisted that every moment of a life lived with the Holy Spirit is filled with promise and possibility. Thus, he told us, be joyful! Be prayerful! Be thankful! And carry those attitudes no matter what the circumstances. Paul reminded us that this attitude was one Jesus Himself embodied and intended for all His disciples. When you look back over His life, you’ll see that Jesus took advantage of every situation to demonstrate God’s love and presence. For Jesus, every moment was open to the transcendence of God—Sabbath wanderings in grainfields, fruitless fishing expeditions, time spent waiting by a Samaritan well, the hours before His arrest and execution. All these times were equally ripe for God to use Him as a messenger proclaiming the Good News.
Paul zoomed in to the condition of each individual’s heart in this passage. And with those three terse commands—to be joyful, prayerful, and thankful—he defined the proper interior attitude of a Christian. Frankly, it’s what’s inside that counts! Joy was something the apostle mentioned time and again in his writing. This joy has little to do with carefree happiness though. For Paul, joy isn’t something that spontaneously erupts under certain conditions. Authentic Christian joy is a continuous, ongoing condition established at the moment one receives the gift of salvation. Christian joy, therefore, should be as constant as Christ’s own love for us.
If Paul did intend a literal “always” in verse 16, that isn’t the case in verse 17. The faithful aren’t being told that they should continually be engaged in literal prayer. But they are being directed beyond a reliance on or contentment with fixed prayer at established times. For just as the gift of the Holy Spirit makes joy ours at all times, we also have God’s ear at all times. A believer may turn to God at any moment of the day—under any circumstances—and be in communication with God.
In fact, I think we could say that Jesus didn’t know any waiting rooms; He knew only living rooms. While we might complain that we spend all our time living in waiting rooms, Jesus spent His ministry waiting in living rooms. He stood in the midst of the common everyday mundanities that kept first-century men and women as busy and pressed for time as their 21st century counterparts. Jesus hung around with Martha and Mary while they cooked and cleaned; He arrived early for dinner parties and stayed late; He walked in the midst of crowds when He might have ridden or sailed to His destinations. So by pointing to Jesus, the apostle showed us how we should thank God no matter what happens; he showed us that there can be joy, love, life, and laughter in every situation—at all times.
Now Paul didn’t teach in these verses that we should thank God for everything that happens to us—but in everything. Evil doesn’t come from God, so we shouldn’t thank Him for it. But when evil strikes—or even a time of waiting that calls for patience—we can still be thankful for God’s presence and for the good that He will accomplish through any and all of our distresses.
Then the apostle further instructed us about how we’re to, as Jesus did, wait in living rooms. He said don’t suppress the Spirit, and don’t stifle those who have a word from the Master. On the other hand, he stressed that neither should we be gullible. Check out everything, and then keep only what’s good; throw out anything that’s tainted with evil. And if we’ll abide by these precepts as we wait for Jesus’ return, Paul promised that God Himself will make us holy and whole, that God Himself will put us together—body, mind, heart, and soul—and keep us fit for the next coming of our Master. Indeed, he wrote, the God who called us is completely dependable. If He said it, He will do it!
Ironically, it could be our impatience with waiting rooms that might finally teach us how to make the most of every moment. The age of fiber optics and microchips have converted all kinds of waiting rooms into workrooms. Laptop computers make airplanes and hotel rooms offices-on-the-road for the workaholic businessman. Technology makes it possible to be completely accessible to almost any person at almost any time. But the waiting room that has been utilized the best has to be that American home-on-wheels: the automobile! With cell phones becoming smarter and smarter, we practically need traffic jams now in order to get the chance to put all our apps to good use! Closing a big deal, emailing the contracts, and celebrating with a hot mocha made from your portable barista made right in your car—all while waiting at a stoplight—epitomize the modern possibility of living in waiting rooms.
But the question is: Can we do the same with our faith? Paul urged the unity and the blamelessness of our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls while we wait for the return of Christ. But when we spend every waking moment attending only to the business of business, we ignore spiritual needs. By putting off prayer until Sunday morning, by confining thankfulness to grace before meals, by squeezing joy into these few weeks of the Christmas season, we confine our faith to a waiting room.
Some years back I heard about a family who brought in two cocoons that were just about to hatch. They watched as the first one began to open and the butterfly inside squeezed very slowly and painfully through a tiny hole that it chewed in one end of the cocoon. After lying exhausted for about ten minutes following its agonizing emergence, the butterfly finally flew out the open window on its beautiful wings. The family decided to help the second butterfly so that it wouldn’t have to go through such an excruciating ordeal. So as it began to emerge, they carefully sliced open the cocoon with a razor blade—doing the equivalent of a Caesarean section. The second butterfly never did sprout wings, and in about ten minutes, instead of flying away, it quietly died.
The family asked a biologist friend to explain what had happened. The scientist said that the difficult struggle to emerge from the small hole actually pushes liquids from deep inside the butterfly’s body cavity into the tiny capillaries in the wings, where they harden to complete the healthy and beautiful adult butterfly. The biologist summed up his explanation with these words: “Without the struggle, there are no wings.” C.S. Lewis wrote that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain.” And David the psalmist wrote, “For His anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
So consider all the waiting room lines you might find yourself in during the next couple of weeks. At cash registers, cruising for that last parking space at the Pig, in line at the automatic teller machine--all these are opportunities to feel frustration or to feel joy, to snarl out curses or to offer up prayers, to feel envy for what’s beyond your reach or to be thankful for all you have. Jesus calls us not to live in waiting rooms but to wait in living rooms. Every moment is open to God. Every moment is changed with His transcendence. In all the waiting rooms you find yourself in during these next weeks, try feeling and realizing and thinking about the life-altering power of possibilities available through the Holy Spirit. Oh, and continue to do the same as you wait for your Savior’s return.
Remember that our joy, our prayers, and our thankfulness shouldn’t fluctuate with our circumstances or feelings. Obeying these three commands—be joyful, keep on praying, and be thankful—often goes against our natural inclinations. When we make a conscious decision to do what God says, however, we’ll begin to see people in a new perspective. When we do God’s will, we’ll find it easier to be joyful and prayerful and thankful—and that as we wait in all the living rooms of our lives.
Let us pray: Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare ourselves to receive Your Son. When He comes—when He knocks—may He find us not sleeping in sin, but awake to His righteousness, ceaselessly rejoicing in His love. May our hearts and our minds be so purified that we may wait for, yes, but also be ready to receive His promise of eternal life. For it is in His name that we pray.
1 Thessalonians 5:14-22
Is there any more annoying, exasperating experience in civilized life than being at the wrong end of an interminable, serpentine line of humanity? And doesn’t it seem that the slowest and most frustrating lines occur at all our very most “favorite” places? Think about it with me: If on a cold December morning you slip on the top step going out the backdoor and hear a sickening crunch as you land, it’s possible that a trip to the hospital emergency room is in order! And when you get there, you find the place filled with squalling babies, bleeding do-it-yourselfers, frightened wheezing great-grandfathers—all of them in desperate need and every single one of them ahead of you and your throbbing injury in the waiting room. Everyone there feels awful, and everyone there resents having to wait in line for medical attention. No wonder the mood of the place is snappish and snarling! Now think back to the last time you heard the phrase “as slow as Christmas”? That phrase was created because Christmas is something most people look forward to but, especially when you’re young, always seems so far away—and so slow in coming.
It was in the same way that the apostle Paul had been talking to the church at Thessalonica about the second advent of Jesus Christ. He knew that waiting for Jesus’ second coming might be long and arduous, and so he counseled his readers by giving them a different perspective on waiting rooms. He insisted that every moment of a life lived with the Holy Spirit is filled with promise and possibility. Thus, he told us, be joyful! Be prayerful! Be thankful! And carry those attitudes no matter what the circumstances. Paul reminded us that this attitude was one Jesus Himself embodied and intended for all His disciples. When you look back over His life, you’ll see that Jesus took advantage of every situation to demonstrate God’s love and presence. For Jesus, every moment was open to the transcendence of God—Sabbath wanderings in grainfields, fruitless fishing expeditions, time spent waiting by a Samaritan well, the hours before His arrest and execution. All these times were equally ripe for God to use Him as a messenger proclaiming the Good News.
Paul zoomed in to the condition of each individual’s heart in this passage. And with those three terse commands—to be joyful, prayerful, and thankful—he defined the proper interior attitude of a Christian. Frankly, it’s what’s inside that counts! Joy was something the apostle mentioned time and again in his writing. This joy has little to do with carefree happiness though. For Paul, joy isn’t something that spontaneously erupts under certain conditions. Authentic Christian joy is a continuous, ongoing condition established at the moment one receives the gift of salvation. Christian joy, therefore, should be as constant as Christ’s own love for us.
If Paul did intend a literal “always” in verse 16, that isn’t the case in verse 17. The faithful aren’t being told that they should continually be engaged in literal prayer. But they are being directed beyond a reliance on or contentment with fixed prayer at established times. For just as the gift of the Holy Spirit makes joy ours at all times, we also have God’s ear at all times. A believer may turn to God at any moment of the day—under any circumstances—and be in communication with God.
In fact, I think we could say that Jesus didn’t know any waiting rooms; He knew only living rooms. While we might complain that we spend all our time living in waiting rooms, Jesus spent His ministry waiting in living rooms. He stood in the midst of the common everyday mundanities that kept first-century men and women as busy and pressed for time as their 21st century counterparts. Jesus hung around with Martha and Mary while they cooked and cleaned; He arrived early for dinner parties and stayed late; He walked in the midst of crowds when He might have ridden or sailed to His destinations. So by pointing to Jesus, the apostle showed us how we should thank God no matter what happens; he showed us that there can be joy, love, life, and laughter in every situation—at all times.
Now Paul didn’t teach in these verses that we should thank God for everything that happens to us—but in everything. Evil doesn’t come from God, so we shouldn’t thank Him for it. But when evil strikes—or even a time of waiting that calls for patience—we can still be thankful for God’s presence and for the good that He will accomplish through any and all of our distresses.
Then the apostle further instructed us about how we’re to, as Jesus did, wait in living rooms. He said don’t suppress the Spirit, and don’t stifle those who have a word from the Master. On the other hand, he stressed that neither should we be gullible. Check out everything, and then keep only what’s good; throw out anything that’s tainted with evil. And if we’ll abide by these precepts as we wait for Jesus’ return, Paul promised that God Himself will make us holy and whole, that God Himself will put us together—body, mind, heart, and soul—and keep us fit for the next coming of our Master. Indeed, he wrote, the God who called us is completely dependable. If He said it, He will do it!
Ironically, it could be our impatience with waiting rooms that might finally teach us how to make the most of every moment. The age of fiber optics and microchips have converted all kinds of waiting rooms into workrooms. Laptop computers make airplanes and hotel rooms offices-on-the-road for the workaholic businessman. Technology makes it possible to be completely accessible to almost any person at almost any time. But the waiting room that has been utilized the best has to be that American home-on-wheels: the automobile! With cell phones becoming smarter and smarter, we practically need traffic jams now in order to get the chance to put all our apps to good use! Closing a big deal, emailing the contracts, and celebrating with a hot mocha made from your portable barista made right in your car—all while waiting at a stoplight—epitomize the modern possibility of living in waiting rooms.
But the question is: Can we do the same with our faith? Paul urged the unity and the blamelessness of our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls while we wait for the return of Christ. But when we spend every waking moment attending only to the business of business, we ignore spiritual needs. By putting off prayer until Sunday morning, by confining thankfulness to grace before meals, by squeezing joy into these few weeks of the Christmas season, we confine our faith to a waiting room.
Some years back I heard about a family who brought in two cocoons that were just about to hatch. They watched as the first one began to open and the butterfly inside squeezed very slowly and painfully through a tiny hole that it chewed in one end of the cocoon. After lying exhausted for about ten minutes following its agonizing emergence, the butterfly finally flew out the open window on its beautiful wings. The family decided to help the second butterfly so that it wouldn’t have to go through such an excruciating ordeal. So as it began to emerge, they carefully sliced open the cocoon with a razor blade—doing the equivalent of a Caesarean section. The second butterfly never did sprout wings, and in about ten minutes, instead of flying away, it quietly died.
The family asked a biologist friend to explain what had happened. The scientist said that the difficult struggle to emerge from the small hole actually pushes liquids from deep inside the butterfly’s body cavity into the tiny capillaries in the wings, where they harden to complete the healthy and beautiful adult butterfly. The biologist summed up his explanation with these words: “Without the struggle, there are no wings.” C.S. Lewis wrote that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain.” And David the psalmist wrote, “For His anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
So consider all the waiting room lines you might find yourself in during the next couple of weeks. At cash registers, cruising for that last parking space at the Pig, in line at the automatic teller machine--all these are opportunities to feel frustration or to feel joy, to snarl out curses or to offer up prayers, to feel envy for what’s beyond your reach or to be thankful for all you have. Jesus calls us not to live in waiting rooms but to wait in living rooms. Every moment is open to God. Every moment is changed with His transcendence. In all the waiting rooms you find yourself in during these next weeks, try feeling and realizing and thinking about the life-altering power of possibilities available through the Holy Spirit. Oh, and continue to do the same as you wait for your Savior’s return.
Remember that our joy, our prayers, and our thankfulness shouldn’t fluctuate with our circumstances or feelings. Obeying these three commands—be joyful, keep on praying, and be thankful—often goes against our natural inclinations. When we make a conscious decision to do what God says, however, we’ll begin to see people in a new perspective. When we do God’s will, we’ll find it easier to be joyful and prayerful and thankful—and that as we wait in all the living rooms of our lives.
Let us pray: Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare ourselves to receive Your Son. When He comes—when He knocks—may He find us not sleeping in sin, but awake to His righteousness, ceaselessly rejoicing in His love. May our hearts and our minds be so purified that we may wait for, yes, but also be ready to receive His promise of eternal life. For it is in His name that we pray.
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