Word of Encouragement (11/24/2020)

As we celebrate Thanksgiving this Thursday, I hope we can take some time to reflect on God’s goodness and give thanks to Him. In this year’s Thanksgiving message, I talked about how we should give thanks to God not only when times are good but also in advance, while we go through hardships. But I’d like you to know that we can also give thanks to God for His commands, not just for His promises. So, let’s consider the passage we read last Sunday for the Call to Worship: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:16-18). We will take a look at one command each day.

The first is, “Rejoice always....” We can give thanks to God for this command because it shows us what kind of kingdom we belong to. We can rejoice always because you belong to Christ’s kingdom of eternal joy! But how can we rejoice always in this fallen world? Because rejoicing is not the same as having fun. Fun is just “light-hearted pleasure.” We have fun when we do pleasant things. But joy is a deeper, more complex emotion—an awe-stricken, humble, grateful gladness. Unlike fun, joy is not incompatible with tragedy and trial. It is not an emotion that flies safely above the storm clouds of troubles and adversities. Christian joy is rather an unsinkable ship that crosses the vast ocean of life, both in favorable and precarious conditions, able to ride the stormy winds of trial and sail through the raging waves of shifting fortune.

We can rejoice in happy times, exalting Christ as the Giver of every good gift! But we can also rejoice when times are tough, even when we are sick. God is not calling us to rejoice in our sickness but because we have Jesus Christ who is our Healer, not only for our temporary relief but for our eternal healing! We can rejoice in time of need because Christ is our surpassing Riches and true Inheritance! We can rejoice in times of loss because Christ is our greatest Gain. We can rejoice in times of trial because Christ is our ever-present Help! We can rejoice even at the moment of death because Christ is our Life and Resurrection! When people do us wrong, we can rejoice because we have an opportunity to show the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And should we be tempted to sin, we can rejoice that He, who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sin, is in us, enabling us to resist sin to the point of shedding blood. And should we sin and find ourselves in the misery of guilt and shame and regrets, we can rejoice in God’s forgiving grace, which gives us the strength to repent of our sin and return to our gracious Lord.

Why should we rejoice always? So we can be happy all the time? True—but that is not all. It is for the glory of God. When we rejoice always, we testify that God is greater than all our troubles and sufferings, that He alone can give us eternal joy because He is joy! By commanding us to rejoice always, God reminds us of the wonderful kingdom, to which we belong—a kingdom of eternal joy! Let us give thanks for this wonderful command and what it reminds us of!