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00:35 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the broadcast.
00:39 Welcome to the cafe. Hope you’re having a wonderful day. Hopefully you’ve got your Bible out and you’re ready to study God’s Word.
00:47 Amen. Even if you don’t have your Bible out you can listen to the scripture as I read it. But what a joy it is to get in God’s Word.
00:56 What a privilege it is to have access to God’s Word. Some parts of the country, in the world even, that’s not the case. Amen.
01:04 That’s not the case. And we are very blessed and very fortunate to have access to God’s Word here today. Amen.
01:11 We love the Lord. Today we are jumping in. There’s going to be a four-part series that Paul mentions.
01:21 Kind of rattles off some very, very important things for the believers in Thessalonica to do in 1 Thessalonians 5. And it’s kind of funny. It’s just at the end of the 1 Thessalonians chapter and the subheading is, you know, Paul gives advice or something like that. And there’s all these just very profound pieces of scripture there.
01:40 Verses that are quoted, that are put on plaques and on the wall and artwork and all kinds of things. And Paul is just kind of rattling them off.
01:48 And you imagine that in that epistle to the Thessalonians and maybe someone reading it to them and they’re just probably thinking, wow, you know, their jaws slacked on the floor thinking, where is all this wisdom coming from?
01:58 And truly it’s coming from the Holy Spirit.
02:03 So we’re gonna slow down a little bit and take them one by one for the next four episodes here at KJV Cafe. The first one that Paul mentions is 1Thessalonians chapter 5:16, rejoice evermore. You know, that hit me like a ton of bricks.
02:16 I’ve been dealing with illness and sickness and situations and all kinds of stresses in life, as I’m sure you have and many others have. And I see this verse, rejoice evermore, and I say, well, that’s God’s Word.
02:32 And God, through the working of the Holy Spirit, had Paul write this for me to read this today because the Word is alive.
02:39 Amen. And I’m being commanded to rejoice evermore. And that convicted me because I wasn’t in a rejoicing mood when I was reading that scripture.
02:46 And so, look, if it convicts the preacher, I’m sure it would convict you too, if we really thought about the idea, are we rejoicing evermore? Are we perpetually rejoicing?
02:56 Are we constantly rejoicing in the Lord? It’s difficult. That’s a difficult proposition, but Paul commands those in Thessalonica to do it, and I believe he would command us today on behalf of Christ to do it.
03:10 Rejoice means to feel or show great joy or delight.
03:19 To feel or show great joy or delight. And again, if you’re short-tempered, sometimes I can be. And if you have a rough spot here and there, you know, you’re not showing great joy or delight, are you?
03:28 You are showing a little patience and anger.
03:32 And so we have to look at this and say, how can we rejoice evermore? And I love the secondary definition of rejoice. Cause joy to. Cause joy to.
03:44 So the idea is that firstly, we are to rejoice, feel great joy or delight in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. And secondly, we should cause joy in the Lord. Have you ever thought about that?
03:54 That we should actually bring joy to Jesus Christ? That we should put a smile on his beautiful face? That we should bring warmth and glory and joy and honor to God? I mean, he expects that.
04:07 That’s why he made us, amen? We are here to get to know our maker and to bring glory and honor to him.
04:15 We should bring joy to God. A lot of people, I believe, don’t actually understand that concept, that don’t believe that God can receive joy from someone like them.
04:24 But he really can. I mean, oh, it can be so simple to bring joy to the Lord. So we should be joyful.
04:29 And in virtue of being joyful in him, we should cause him to be joyful. And I’ve got three areas that we should rejoice. And I feel like these three areas are kind of where everybody seems to fit in on one of these three areas.
04:43 The first is affliction. We should rejoice in affliction. Romans 8:18-23.
04:47 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to becompared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.
05:07 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
05:19 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit.
05:25 Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of our body. Well, how true is that? That we are dealing with sufferings, as Paul writes.
05:36 And he says he reckons or calculates that the present time, the sufferings we deal with now, they’re not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
05:45 You know, there’s going to be a great glory revealed in us. Our body will be redeemed, as Paul writes. We’ll have a resurrected body like Christ, amen.
05:53 We will know him as he knows us, amen. All of these pains and sorrows and brokenness and trials will all be gone. In fact, they’ll fade away to the point where they’re not worthy to even compare to what we will have and receive in heaven with Christ our Lord and Savior.
06:11 And what Paul is telling here is that there’s a very natural effect of sin, of the sin curse, that we didn’t get. We didn’t ask for, but we have. Verse 20 says, for the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly.
06:28 And vanity there doesn’t just mean someone that likes to look themselves in the mirror. Vanity actually means improper use, as I understand it, improper use. The idea that God made us a certain way and sin entered the picture in the Garden of Eden.
06:42 And ever since then, from the time of Adam and Eve, we all have been made subject to vanity. Also, too, you know, I love how Paul writes about the creature, the whole creation groaneth. You know, look at animals.
06:54 I mean, animals, I’ve heard great preaching on this before and I can’t really do it justice, but you know, animals are constantly on the run. You ever see a deer?
07:02 The deer is constantly looking terrified, like it’s about to be killed, amen? Any kind of rabbits. We used to have a bunch of rabbits in our neighborhood.
07:09 They kept building houses and now the rabbits are gone. I guess that’s for another day. But the rabbits were running, running fast.
07:17 Squirrels, all kinds of animals, they all are not in peace. They’re not happy. Yes, you have a domesticated pet that might be happy because he or she feels safe, but for the most part, these animals are feeling threatened or are constantly on the run or constantly under threat.
07:35 Or they’re just ignorant. They don’t realize it, like the chickens out there in our area. If you have chickens outside, watch out because the predator will come and pick it up, scoop it up and take it.
07:48 And so we live in this era, in this world where we’re all groaning, we’re all tired. And yet the scripture tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:16, to rejoice ever more.
07:51 We need to understand and have a mind frame like Paul has here to rejoice in what’s coming, to rejoice in the redemption of our body, to rejoice in that good and perfect will of God that he is taking us through.
08:08 And not to look at life as sad or depressing, but as full of hope and full of newness and the renewal of what will happen through Christ Jesus.
08:21 You know, you actually can make yourself sick. The idea is called psychosomatic illness, and a very high percentage of all people that go to the doctor, as I understand it, have some level of psychosomatic illness.
08:33 They think one thing in their mind, it starts baking up in their mind, and then it starts transferring to their body, whether it be some kind of anxiety, some kind of worry, fear, paranoia, whatever it is.
08:45 And what we can also do is if we put our mind on Christ and we rejoice and we realize that our affliction is not worthy to be compared to the glory that’s going to be revealed in us, and we bank on God’s promises, then we can rejoice. And we can rejoice right now.
09:02 We can rejoice today. We can say, thank you, Jesus. All will be well one day, and even though all is not well today, you’re here with me, and you’re never gonna leave me nor forsake me.
09:14 You’re gonna stick closer than a brother. You died for my sins. You were risen from the dead.
09:22 You walked the earth 40 days and 40 nights. You’re at the right hand of the Father. There is no emergency meeting in heaven.
09:26 Your plans are perfect. You are sovereign. You are wonderful.
09:28 You are holy. You know every need before I could even speak it. You’ve given me the Holy Spirit, which is the Comforter.
09:36 You see how you can rejoice in God’s promises? And it all comes from God’s Word. We also should rejoice in temptation. You know, it’s not a sin to be tempted.
09:39 Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. 1 Corinthians 10:13, Paul writes, there hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man.
09:55 But God is faithful, oh God is so faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
10:08 So we need to rejoice in temptation. You know what, if there is a spiritual battle going on in your life, why don’t you just rejoice and say, thank God I’m saved, amen, because if I wasn’t saved, the devil would have left me alone.
10:22 And all this spiritual battle and all this temptation that comes my way is because the devil knows that I’m a threat to his system.
10:27 The devil knows that I’m a child of God. The devil knows that I’m going to be risen with Christ, amen, in the rapture or in death. But either way, I will be with the Lord Jesus Christ.
10:37 The devil knows that I can’t ever really die, amen, because I don’t fear the first death, because it’s the second death. And I’ll be there in heaven and I will not die, and my soul will live forever with Jesus, and I’m a co-heir with Christ. In temptation, we need to rejoice.
10:50 You know, go ahead and pull the curtain off and say what it is. Call a spade a spade. Say, you know what, I’m being tempted, and I will rejoice in this because God is, number one, giving me a way out, and number two, this shows me I am in the spiritual battle that the Lord told me I would be in.
11:06 Thirdly, in victory, we should rejoice in victory. Romans 8, 35 through 39, who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
11:15 Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword. As it is written, for thy sake we were killed all the day long.
11:21 We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
11:43 Amen. So we understand that we are victorious through Jesus Christ, that we are more than conquerors. Amen.
11:49 That we don’t just barely win. It’s not a last-second victory. Amen.
11:55 This is a victory that is sealed from the beginning of creation and absolutely will be a blowout. Amen. Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior will defeat Satan.
12:06 He already has at the cross, and he will then speak the word and all the armies of evil will be gone and banished. Amen. He will reign supreme on earth here through in Israel.
12:14 Amen. Jesus Christ our Lord will have that Millennial Kingdom. Amen.
12:18 And then for an eternity we will be with him, ruling and reigning with him, worshiping him. We are more than conquerors in Christ. We should rejoice in the victory.
12:24 Amen. In victories, small or big, we need to rejoice and thank God and have great joy in what he’s done. He is so good.
12:32 Amen. Yeah, we go through hard times, but oh how sweet that victory is. When we see it here on earth, it’s sweet, and how much sweeter it’ll be in heaven.
12:41 Amen. So remember to rejoice no matter what your circumstance is, because we’re called to do that in 1 Thessalonians 5:16, specifically rejoice in affliction, rejoice in temptation, and rejoice in victory.
12:53 If you’re able to rejoice in those three states of being, you will be rejoicing nearly all the time.
13:00 Because typically, if you’re not in victory, you’re in affliction. If you’re not in affliction, you could be in a moment of temptation or season of temptation. And other than that, yes, I’m sure there’s some lulls in life where there’s not much going on.
13:14 But in my experience, it’s typically, you’re either on the mountaintop or you’re in the valley, right? You’re dealing with something great or you’re dealing with something not great.
13:22 Or at the same time, there’s two parallel things happening where something great is happening and something terrible is happening, and you’re having to deal with both. So no matter what’s going on in life, rejoice.
13:31 Thank God for being so good to you. Thank God for how wonderful He is that He gave you another day, and most importantly, He gave you Christ. Amen.
13:38 Father God sent His only begotten, Jesus Christ, His precious beloved Son, to die for your sin, to die for my sin.
13:46 And He gave us the good news, the gospel, that when we believe on Him, we’re gloriously saved, not saved for a week or a month or a year, but for an eternity, and we’ll be with Him forever.
13:56 And the things of this world will grow strangely dim as we focus on these wonderful truths in the Bible.
14:03 Thank you so much for joining me. Take care. God bless.
14:07 Continue to rejoice. Amen.