“Rejoice always, pray without
ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in
Christ Jesus.” That’s your answer. That’s the answer to the question you have no
doubt asked yourself, and asked God, multiple times. What is God’s will for me? What is God’s will for my life? “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give
thanks in all circumstances. That’s
God’s will for you.
But
why should we rejoice, pray and give thanks?
Always, without ceasing and in all circumstances? God made promise spoken through Isaiah. One day God’s chosen Messiah would come, “The
Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the
year of the Lord’s favor.” Before Jesus,
God’s people were waiting for these things to happen, in Jesus’ life, they
happened. When God’s people were waiting
for Jesus to be born, they were waiting for something to happen. We are celebrating what HAS happened. We aren’t supposed to be waiting for these
things to happen anymore. The promise
has been fulfilled.
This
has got me to thinking again this week about how Advent and Christmas is
usually talked about in the church. Usually,
we prepare for Christ’s birth and we prepare for these things to happen. But the truth is that they already have
happened. Jesus was born and brought
these things: good news, healing, freedom and deliverance. If He hadn’t, we couldn’t rejoice. If they weren’t true, we certainly shouldn’t
give thanks. But Jesus said that these
things did happen: good news was proclaimed to the poor, the brokenhearted were
healed, freedom was proclaimed to the captives and the prisoners to darkness
were released, the year of the Lord’s favor was begun.” So, we should confess one of two things:
either we didn’t know or we don’t believe it.
But
most of you, I think, have heard this promise before. You know.
You’ve sung the Christmas hymns that say that Jesus was born the Prince
of Peace. And we sing loudly and
joyously, “He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.” We know this was why Jesus came, but do you
believe it happened? Because if you
don’t believe Jesus really brought a new world with him, that he really died
for the forgiveness of sins or that he really gave his church the ministry of
healing and deliverance, then you probably won’t be able to rejoice, pray or
give thanks. You just don’t believe it.
My family has been
listening to lots of Christmas songs on the radio. One of the songs that comes on a lot is the
one that talks about, “My grown up Christmas wish.” No
more lives torn apart. And wars would
never start and time would heal all hearts Everyone would have a friend and
right would always win and love would never end.” And our heartstrings just pull and yearn for
that song to come true.” Today, I’m here
to remind you that that’s not a new song.
It was sung by God’s people for centuries and Jesus said that when he
was born he was God’s answer to our Christmas wish. The problem is, by the world’s wisdom, it
doesn’t appear to have happened. We
don’t believe it.
What are the effects of not believing? Not believing that Jesus’ birth fulfilled
these promises? Well, first off, we keep
preparing for Jesus’ birth even though he WAS born 2000 years ago. Celebrating what he brought, not what he will
bring. Second, we wait for his gifts to
come, rather than celebrating that the gifts are already here. Finally, we don’t follow God’s will for our
lives. We don’t rejoice always, we don’t
pray continually and we don’t give thanks in all circumstances. We don’t believe we have any reason to do it.
In the story of the Exodus, God’s people
prayed that they might be set free from the chains of slavery to the Egyptian
Pharoah. God set His people free. When the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea,
they celebrated God’s victory. They knew
they could trust him because God alone had brought them freedom. “On the fifteenth day of the second month
after they had come out of Egypt,” the book of Exodus says, “the whole
community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.
The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in
Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat
and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to
starve this entire assembly to death.”
It took a month and a half for the Israelites to forget that God would
provide for them. It took a month and a
half to forget the joy and comfort they had in freedom.
As a pastor, and as a Christian, as a husband
and as a father, it is easy for me to forget the amazing things God has done
for me. Some days, in ministry, it can
feel like the world is crashing all around.
Even though the day before, I saw God working in awesome ways. One day, I feel like God is with me and the
next I feel abandoned. So should I despair or be thankful? What is God’s will? I will continue to rejoice for how he’s kept
his promises. I will pray continually
expecting him to answer just like he has so very recently. I will continue to give thanks even when the
circumstances don’t look as rosy.
Because sometimes my eyes and ears and heart deceives me, but God is the
same yesterday, today and forever.
I know that when you look around this world,
it may seem like God hasn’t kept his promises.
What would happen if you believed, instead, that He had kept them? How would that change your perspective on
life? Instead, of wondering why God
could allow your next door neighbor to be practically impoverished even though
God “said” good news would be given to the poor, consider this: God has no
doubt blessed you with more than you need.
Perhaps you are the good news that your next door neighbor will hear?
Instead of wondering why people are still sick
with incurable diseases, what if Jesus really did bless his church with a
ministry of healing? Instead of feeling
hopeless when faced with evil in the lives of your loved ones and strongholds
of sin that can’t seem to be broken, what if God really did bless his church with
a ministry of delieverance? “To proclaim
freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners”. What if we took God at his word and believed
that Jesus WAS already born to give us these things. That the gifts have been laying under the
tree unopened for years, decades and centuries.
Then we might rejoice. We would finally have the joy of opening
those gifts. I know that some of you
don’t get involved in church or leadership because you don’t think you can handle
it. You don’t think you’d be good enough
or you don’t think you ARE good enough.
What if you trusted God instead of your own wisdom? Jesus said that to repent of you sins and
BELIEVE in the good news-forgiven sinners are good enough. Saint Paul pointed out that we are the body
of Christ and each one of you is a part of this body. You are necessary for this church to function
properly. You will be given the strength
by God to complete the tasks you are called to do. What if you believed that?
One of my favorite Casting Crowns songs asked,
“What if the armies of the Lord, stood up and dusted off their swords. Vowed to set the captives free and not let
Satan have one more. What if the church,
for heaven’s sake, finally stepped up to the plate, took a stand upon God’s
promise and stormed hell’s rusty gates.
What if His people prayed?” Then,
maybe we’d experience the promises God gave us about prayer, “You may ask me
for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
“If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” What if you believed that?
Finally, what if, we believed that Jesus
really changed the world when he came?
Maybe then, despite wars and rumors of wars and even if we had anxious
hearts and fearful minds, we might begin giving thanks in all
circumstances. Because we’d know God was
working in all circumstances. Then
maybe, even if your spouse didn’t meet all of your expectations, you would
still be thankful for the blessing that they are to you—a true gift from
God. Then maybe, we’d realize the
blessings that fill our church rather than just the dramas. Then maybe, complaining about the bad
economy, we’d notice that we all have more than we’ve ever had before and more
than most.
Don’t prepare for Jesus’ birth this
Advent. He was already born. Prepare to open the gifts he has already
given. Celebrate His birth every single
day. Rejoice always, pray without
ceasing and give thanks in all circumstances.
Don’t wait for Jesus to come, he is already here. And He is calling you to live in a world where
you believe his promises and act as if they were true because they ARE
true. In Jesus Christ, all of God’s
promises are, “Yes!”.
You were called into this church to hear God’s
promises and sent out to live out his call on your lives. Where is Jesus working already in your
life? He is calling you to join
Him. The time is now to use the gifts he
has given for the sake of the world. The
Devil would have you believe that you should just keep waiting for something
that has already happened. He makes the
young folks believe that they should leave God’s work to the old folks who know
what they are doing. The Devil convinces
the old folks to stop working to give the young folks a chance. The Devil tells the women they ought to wait
for their husbands to get on board while telling the men that the women have
got in all under control and that they aren’t needed. But what is God’s will? God’s will is to rejoice always, pray without
ceasing and give thanks in all circumstances because the gifts are already
yours. You aren’t doing it alone, you
are simply serving the one who calls you.
Thankfully, the one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. Amen.
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