-Transcript-
00:35 Amen, Glory to God. Welcome to the cafe today. Hope you’re having a wonderful day, a wonderful week.
00:40 It’s good to be here today. Today we are going to touch on another subject as we always seem to do here that’s in the Bible that relates to our lives. I believe the Lord’s called me to preach His Word straight, directly, not to add to or take away from.
00:57 Amen, that’s biblical. And so we’re just here to dive into the Word, to look at what God calls us to do here on earth and how the God of all comfort, all joy, and all peace can be with you so much here today. I’m gonna challenge you here today in tough times to give thanks.
01:15 In 1 Thessalonians 5:18, the scripture reads, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 1 Thessalonians 5:18, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Did you give thanks today? In everything? You know, people always say, especially they start getting convicted at church, they always say, I want to do the will of God.
01:43 I just don’t know what it is. But I want to do it. Have you heard that? I’ve heard that so many times.
01:47 Myself many times, especially as a younger believer, I want to do the will of God, I just can’t figure out what that is. Well, here is the will of God. In everything give thanks for this is the will of God, that’s pretty clear, in Christ Jesus, the one that saved you, concerning you.
02:07 So, the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you is to give thanks in everything. And I know, it’s easy sometimes to give thanks when things go well, and much harder to do it in tough times. And that’s what we’re talking about here today, tough times.
02:21 But to help explain tough times, why don’t we look at a good time. So let’s say everything is going great. Let’s say you are doing so fantastically well.
02:30 And everything is just amazing. Your dreams are coming true, you just got married, or you just got promoted. Or your kids are just, you know, doing great and flourishing or all the above.
02:43 Or, you know, you have a new home or, you know, you’re going on vacation more, you know, whatever it is that that gets you excited. Amen. It’s going great.
02:57 Well, then you can go to God and say, Oh, Lord, you have blessed me. Oh, God, I see these blessings, these material things, these things in my life that are going great. Thank you.
03:05 Now, oftentimes, we don’t amen. In fact, oftentimes, the Lord will remind us through His scriptures, that in the times past, people did not give Him glory, did not give Him thanks, and actually try to take credit for themselves or went off and worshiped false gods and false idols. So there’s danger there too.
03:26 But either way, I think you would agree that you would give thanks to God much easier when things are going well. And if you watch, like Christian films, you know, you watch pure flicks or something like this, you’ll often see the scene in these dramatic Christian movies where everything goes wrong. And they look at the character, one character looks at another and says, Where is God in this situation? And they’re so mad and throw everything down.
03:51 And I don’t know why, but that always seems to work its way into the Christian movies. And would that actor give thanks? It doesn’t look like they’re giving thanks looks like they’re questioning God. And we see this in our lives, when things go hard, are we likely to give thanks.
04:07 But as I read the scripture, I know that number one, God’s not a liar. And so He cannot lie. Okay.
04:13 I know number two, that there’s no variableness or turning with God, there’s no, there’s no changing of God. So God won’t change. So His word is true.
04:24 He’s not a liar. And his word is alive. It’s meant for us here today, for doctrine for reproof and all of these things.
04:32 And so I see here in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, it says in everything, give thanks. That means in the good situation, give thanks and in the bad. That means all when you’re complimented, give thanks.
04:40 And when you’re put down, give thanks. That means when you feel healthy, give thanks. And when you’re sick, give thanks.
04:45 That means when you have a lot, give thanks. And when you have nothing, give thanks. That’s what it means to me here in First Thessalonians 518, which by the way, if you haven’t read 1 Thessalonians 5, please get in there and read it.
04:55 There’s so much wonderful scripture in there. And there’s a lot of these little nuggets, these little short scriptures that I could preach on probably for years and not run out of just Holy Spirit inspired messages on these scriptures. And so we see, again, there’s a scripture in there about rejoicing evermore and all this, and it’s so good and it all kind of connects together, of course.
05:15 But for time’s sake, we’re looking at in everything, give thanks. And today we’re focusing on these challenging times. The first one I want to talk about here today is giving thanks in the failures of life.
05:28 Have you ever failed at anything? How does that feel? It doesn’t feel too good. Amen. Those that live a risk-averse life, maybe they have not failed as much, but I think we’ve all failed.
05:39 If we’ve lived long enough, we’ve lived long enough to be adults, considered adults, we’ve all experienced failure. And it’s hard to thank God in failure. Why? Because we get our hearts set on success, and then we get let down when we fail.
05:54 I’ve been since pretty much birth, I think I’ve been an entrepreneur of an entrepreneurial spirit. I always seem to have a new idea that I think everybody will love. And I appreciate my wife bringing me back down to earth and being the queen of no, or that’s a bad idea.
06:13 Anyone that knows my wife, Sue, knows that she has no filter when it comes to setting me straight. And God gave me Sue so that that could be. And that’s a whole other message, but I’m very thankful for her.
06:25 But I’ve experienced great failure, massive failure. And in those times, I’ve been distraught because my expectation was not met, or my dream didn’t occur. Or worse yet, people would point out that it was failing, which doesn’t feel good.
06:41 When something’s going bad, and someone’s telling you it’s going bad, you want to say, Hey, I know it’s going bad. Okay, you don’t have to sit here and give me a lesson. Oh, you know, because a lot of people will wait until it doesn’t go good.
06:56 And they’ll tell you it’s bad. And if it did go good, they’ll say you’re a genius. But a lot of times it doesn’t go good.
06:58 And it hurts, right? And God is saying, when you fail, whether it’s in a business or whether it’s in sports, you know, our high school team made it to the state championship and lost, you know, we got so close in football to winning it all and we lost and that was a bitter, bitter cup to swallow, whether it’s in sports, whether it’s in business, I’m sure you could think of many examples in your life. God’s saying thank Him. And He’s saying that through 1 Thessalonians, through Paul here, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
07:28 Are you willing to give thanks in the failures of life? Now, how can you give thanks when you lose that big race, or when you fail at that business, or when you fail at a friendship, or when you don’t do the proposal right at work, or when you get a really bad grade on an assignment, you really thought you should have got a good grade? How do you give thanks? Well, number one, you give God thanks for giving you life, giving you the opportunity. Number two, you give God thanks for giving you Christ for saving you, and setting you free from the bondage of sin, and giving you the opportunity to live life. And if you’re in America or North America, thanking Him for that, amen, and all the rich blessings that you’ve been given here compared to other places where you can worship freely, and you can praise Him.
08:14 Thank Him for giving you the Holy Spirit. Thank Him for giving you perspective. Thank Him for giving you a time in the valley where you can turn to Him.
08:23 So then you would thank Him for being available for you to turn to Him. We know that we can approach the throne boldly because of what Christ did on the cross. There was a veil covering the Holy of Holies in the Old Testament, and that thing was torn in two.
08:36 The Bible says it was rent in two, or torn in two, to symbolize now that man could access God directly through the person of Jesus Christ. So thanking God that you can go to Him. Thanking Him that the Holy Spirit is called the Comforter, and He, the Holy Spirit to He, He comforts you, Amen.
08:45 Thanking God for that sweet comfort. Thanking God for the lessons that you could learn in there. Thanking God that that failure could draw you closer to Him.
09:00 I could go on and on. I don’t think you can make this big of a list of thank yous in success. In success, you say, thank you, God, I succeeded.
09:09 That’s great. Thank you, God, keep me humble, or something like that, which, of course, we’ve got to be careful. We pray to God to keep us humble because He will, and that can hurt.
09:17 But in failure, it’s so, goodness, there’s so many lessons, as you’ve seen. Give thanks in loneliness of life. When you’re really lonely, do you thank God? Often people become bitter when they’re alone.
09:28 They become depressed. I went through a season of loneliness in my late 20s, and I became very depressed for the first time in my life. I didn’t even know what depression was until I had that season.
09:37 But I thank God for that because it brought me closer to Him, so close to Him that that’s when I really was, I believe, put my heart on the ministry in the very simplest parts of the way, as in like, you know, handing out the Bibles at church or helping set up chairs at church or whatever it was. That was the start. That lonely season was the start.
09:57 And I thank God for that loneliness. Maybe you’re going through loneliness. Thank Him for what He may be doing with you and through you and how He may be drawing you closer to Him through that loneliness.
10:07 And everything, give thanks. Give thanks in that loneliness. Give thanks when you are living in a place where He is your only hope because that is a true hope, and that is a hope that will never return void, and that is a hope one day that will be fulfilled.
10:24 Amen. So give thanks in loneliness. And finally, give thanks in the battles of life.
10:29 Do we give thanks when the battle is raging? Oftentimes, we don’t. But in everything, we’re called to give thanks. So as we battle in life, give thanks that God is a protector and a provider.
10:40 Give thanks that God is a God that will never forsake His own, that no man can pluck us out of His hand. Give thanks that God will be ever-present in times of trouble. He’s an ever-present help, especially in times of trouble.
10:53 Give thanks that that’s a characteristic of God. Give thanks for God’s great love. Give thanks for what could happen, that there could be a victory there.
11:02 And when that victory occurs, that God could get the glory. You see how you get set up in that battle, and you’re worried, will you get through it? And oh, when you do, you give God the glory. Oh, when the Israelites came through that Red Sea on dry ground and Pharaoh and his armies were wiped out, they came over, what did they do? They danced and they sang the song of Moses.
11:19 They praised God for the victory they had in God. They gave Him glory. And they could have been thinking about that in the battle, that thank you God for the opportunity to potentially give you glory in victory.
11:31 Amen. You could thank God in the battle for the strength that He provides and the strength that only He can provide. You can thank God in the battle for the wisdom and discernment that He’s given you through His Word and how much wisdom and discernment is in the Word about being quick to hear and slow to speak, about having incredible empathy, about that sacrificial love, about all these traits that God calls us to exhibit, especially when we’re in the battles of life.
12:01 Are you thanking Him for that today? In everything, give thanks. In these times of failure, in these times of trouble, in these times of battle, in these times of loneliness, give thanks to God. Is He not worthy of our praise? He is more than worthy.
12:17 Is He not exceptional? He’s more than exceptional. Is He not strong enough to deliver you out of these times? He’s more than strong enough. If you’re in these times, maybe He’s just waiting for you to start.
12:27 Go ahead and throw everything down and give a holy hallelujah to Him. Amen. And not in spite and not in anger and not in grief and not in sadness, but in joy and in rejoicing.
12:38 What did Paul and Silas do in the jail? They sang. They sang. Would you sing in the jail? They sang.
12:45 Amen. They sang. They sang praises to God.
12:50 When we’re in the battle, we need to praise God and watch what He does, because He is God. And when we believe He is who He says He is, and He’s a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, as Hebrews 11:6 tells us, He’ll show up in a mighty way. He’ll show up in a mighty way.
13:06 Not always as we understand it, not always according to our plan, but according to His plan, He’ll show up, and nothing is too hard for Him. And if we get in the mindset of thanking Him in everything, including or especially in the tough times, we’ll have a closeness with God and a peace with God that surpasses all understanding, because He’s promised that in His Word. And let’s draw nigh to Him today.
13:31 Let’s get right with Him today. Let’s serve Him today, and let’s thank Him in everything, in all times, and let Him get the glory. Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me. Take care. God bless and amen.