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A few weeks ago I was leading a Bible study with some of our small group leaders. Because it was our last study of the year, we went round the group at the end and shared some prayer points for things we'd appreciate prayer for over the summer. On Monday I did the same with the associates, our trainees. On Wednesday, the same again with the 6 p.m. staff team.
Each time, the same prayer point came up again and again:
"Pray that I would keep loving the Lord over the summer and listening to him. Pray that I wouldn't fall out of good habits with God's word. Pray that I wouldn't get distracted from walking with Jesus."
I guess it reflects the fact that for many of us the summer is a difficult time to keep going in the Christian life. Small groups aren't running. There's no RML, no Bible study groups. Many of us are spending time with family — maybe family who aren't Christians themselves, or even who are hostile to our faith.
We get out of routine while we're on holiday, having lie-ins and slipping out of our normal habits. Or we don't, because we have full-time jobs and life doesn't just stop because the sun is out — yet everyone at church is acting like it has. There are fewer people around to encourage us. Friends are moving on to new places and churches, and others simply drift away. Someone said to me the other week, "This is when we lose people."
So what will help us to keep going and keep growing over the summer? Or, to up the stakes a little — what will help us keep going after we've left the 6 p.m.? This is also the time of year when many of us are moving on, perhaps to a different place, a new church, or a new church plant.
Or to up the stakes even further: what is going to help us keep going until Jesus returns?
Two weeks ago we saw that Paul lifted our horizons — not just to the end of the summer or the end of our time at the 6 p.m., but to the very end of time itself. The day when Jesus will come back. The day when he'll take those who've been waiting for him to be with him forever, and bring sudden destruction on those who are not ready. It's a day that every single Christian is waiting for. We've turned from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven.
But as we wait, what will help us to be ready?
This last section of 1 Thessalonians should help us. It's a section that's tempting to skip over. Whoever edited our Bibles certainly did — they've simply titled it "final instructions and benediction." In other words, we're not quite sure what to do with these verses, but they're in the Bible, so we've included them anyway.
But for Paul, they play a crucial, critical role, as he lays out practically, step by step, what will help the Thessalonians — and help us — keep going and keep growing till Jesus comes. These are the very last words he says in this letter to a church he cared so much about, that he had poured so much into, that he prayed for night and day.
Last week he began on the horizontal level — our relationships with other people. As we prize Christian labour and pursue Christian love among each other, we become the kind of church that helps each other keep going to the end. But now he fixes our eyes on the vertical — our relationship with God himself, and the one relationship that will ultimately help us make it to the end: our relationship with the Lord Jesus.
He gives us three commands:
Look at verse 16:
"Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
All three commands are present tense — things we should do and keep on doing, again and again. And each comes with an adverb of repetition: rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.
I remember the first talk I ever gave as an associate here at St Helen's. I thought it was a pretty good talk — I sat down thinking, "Yeah, that didn't go too badly." Then in the feedback, the person running the training group described it as actively unhelpful. So much for letting me down gently. But he was right, because I spent most of the talk telling people off for not being more joyful — wagging my finger at them, as though you can browbeat people into feeling happy.
That's not Paul's purpose here at all. He's not trying to make us feel bad or guilty if we haven't been joyful lately. Nor is he talking about a joy that depends on our circumstances. So often my mood goes up and down depending on things I can't control — the weather, how well I've slept, what's going on at the World Cup. But Paul isn't talking about a joy that depends on fickle mood swings.
He's talking about a deep-seated joy — a joy that goes beyond our circumstances because it's rooted in God and his work in our lives.
Remember the Thessalonians. Their circumstances didn't look good at all — they were suffering, being persecuted, separated from Paul. And yet Paul could say of them in chapter 1:6:
"You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit."
As they received the gospel, the Holy Spirit impressed upon their hearts truths that brought them great joy: that God loves them, that he sent his Son to die for them, that he's coming back to take them to be with him. And as the Spirit imprinted those truths into their hearts, they overflowed in a deep joy that went beyond all their circumstances — more powerful than the suffering they faced.
One commentator puts it like this:
"They thought more of their Lord than of their difficulties, more of their spiritual riches in Christ than of their poverty on earth, more of the glorious future when their Lord should come again than of their unhappy past."
There isn't much joy out there in the world right now, I imagine, because we're all so focused on ourselves. But when we lift our eyes to the Lord Jesus and his work, joy from the Holy Spirit is something distinctively Christian. I heard recently about a friend whose guest had come to the 6 p.m. As soon as the meeting finished, they turned and asked, "Why is everyone here so happy?" People notice. They can't help noticing that Christians are happy people — because we know the God of joy, the God who loves us, who sent his Son to die for us, who's coming back to take us to be with him forever. And that keeps us going even in suffering.
If we struggle to rejoice, the next command should help. Verse 17: "Pray without ceasing." That doesn't mean literally all the time without ever stopping. It means regularly throughout the day — at fixed times set aside for prayer, and spontaneously, as often as we remember.
So often the reason I lack joy is that I'm burdened by anxieties and concerns, and they block out the sun like clouds on a rainy day. But when we lay those things on God in prayer, the clouds begin to break, and we can see again the light of God's goodness and grace.
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged. Take it to the Lord in prayer.
And when we do, let's not just come with a big shopping list of things we need God to sort out for us, as I often do, but think about all the things God has given us already.
Verse 18: "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
Perhaps you have some big decisions to make this summer, and you're tempted to spend the holidays agonising over them. What's God's will? Does he want me to say yes to that job or that relationship? Does he want me to move there, live with those people?
But Paul tells us straight up what the will of God is — and it's something we can do whatever our job, relationship status, or location: give thanks in all circumstances.
The last time Paul used that phrase, "this is the will of God," was in chapter 4:3, where he was talking about sexual morality. I wonder — do we take thanklessness as seriously as sexual sin? Paul seems to, because we need thankfulness, joy, and prayer if we're to keep going in the Christian life.
However hard life feels today, no matter what's going on, there's always something to give thanks for. Probably a thousand things. But at the very least, there's always this one thing: God's never-ending, never-changing, always-remaining, promise-keeping, steadfast love for us in the Lord Jesus.
Remember Psalm 100:
"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him; bless his name. For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, his faithfulness to all generations."
So as we head into the summer, can I be so rude as to ask a personal question? How is your prayer life? Does yours, like mine, need a little attention? Why not come to Summerlink, or learn to pray with Paul? Get hold of the book A Call to Spiritual Reformation at the bookstore, or join the book group reading it over the summer. It's key to our spiritual survival. We need to keep rejoicing in the will of God.
Like any good relationship, we also need to listen to God. Look at verse 19:
"Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil."
Growing up, I went to a church where the work of the Spirit was all about getting emotional during the music — having great experiences, falling over backwards, and that sort of thing. I remember walking in one day and seeing a huge mountain of tissue boxes at the entrance, ready for us all to weep uncontrollably during the songs. People used to insist on a particular brand of piano — the Nord — so much so that they'd say, "Where the Nord is, there the Lord is."
But that has nothing to do with the work of the Spirit in the Bible. For one thing, you don't need the Spirit to get emotional during a song. Just put on Fix You next time you're driving down the M6 — job done.
My brother used to go to a church obsessed with music in that way. One day he was watching Coldplay at Glastonbury on television, and my niece walked in and said, "Daddy, they're singing to Jesus." She couldn't tell the difference between Coldplay and church — because in many ways there was no difference.
But in the Bible, the work of the Spirit is not something Chris Martin can imitate. In the Bible, the work of the Spirit is always connected to the word of God. Literally, "spirit" means breath — the breath by which God breathes out his word, his revelation to us. It's the Spirit who inspired the Bible authors like Paul to write what they wrote, and the Spirit who takes what they've written and impresses it onto our hearts today to help us believe it, trust it, and obey it.
So when Paul says, "Do not quench the Spirit," he isn't saying, "Don't hold in your emotions when the music's on — let it all out." He's saying, don't ignore the word of God.
That's why he says next, "Do not despise prophecies." It's not so much where the Nord is, there the Lord is, as where the word is, there the Lord is.
In the New Testament, prophecy isn't about having visions or getting a sense that someone in the congregation has a bad back. Honestly, in my home church, if there weren't 20 people with a bad back on any given Sunday — especially after 45 minutes of singing and standing — it would have been a miracle.
Prophecy in the Bible is about speaking the word of God. It's what the prophets did in the Old Testament: "Thus says the Lord." And in the New Testament, that job is given to every single one of us. Remember Peter in Acts 2, quoting Joel:
"In the last days it shall be, declares God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh… and they shall prophesy."
We're all prophets in the New Testament — not because we're having new revelations all the time (everything we need is revealed in the Bible), but because we can all speak God's word as we share the Bible with each other. As I speak God's truth from 1 Thessalonians now, I'm prophesying. When the others come up later for the implications panel and speak about what they've been learning, they'll be prophesying — it's a prophecy panel. And when we head over the road to After Eights and speak the truth around our tables, we'll be prophesying too, as we reflect on God's word and encourage one another.
Paul says: don't despise prophecies, don't quench them — but test them. Weigh what's been said. Like with a banknote, you used to hold it up and look for the hologram to check it was real. So hold up what people say — when they encourage you, or claim to speak God's truth, hold it up to the Scriptures and see: is it genuine?
"Test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil." (v21–22)
It's why we have Bibles on all the seats here at the 6 p.m. — so you can weigh whether what the preacher is saying is right. It's why we have Bibles out on the tables at After Eights — so you can get the word open and ask, "Is that what the passage really means?"
So weigh — but don't quench, don't despise. That word "quench" is used elsewhere of snuffing out a smouldering candle. Maybe you've had the experience with a barbecue: you work hard, put in the firelighter, get the coals nice and hot — then you go to make the lemonade or answer the door, and by the time you're back, it's fizzled out. It's been quenched.
Paul says: don't let that happen with your love for God's word. It's so easy to do, especially over the summer — through neglect, distraction, or even on purpose. We pour cold water on our love for God's word. We stop reading our Bibles. We stop coming to church to be encouraged. We roll our eyes when someone mentions the sermon at After Eights, and try to change the subject back to the 1 a.m. kickoff.
But that's such a mistake. To keep going and keep growing for the day of Christ, we need to keep responding to the word of God — weighing it, yes, but not despising it.
So make a plan to read the Bible every day this summer, even if it's just a verse. If you're moving on from the 6 p.m., get to a church where the word of God is right at the centre, where they encourage each other with God's truth. Pick a book of the Bible and arrange to read it with friends. Get yourself to Summerlink or the 6 p.m. Whatever it is, keep responding to what God has revealed, and keep encouraging others as one who's been called to be a prophet and to speak God's truth.
If that all sounds like a big to-do list, way too hard at the end of a tiring year when you just need a holiday — remember our last point. Who is ultimately going to get us to the end?
Paul began this whole section back in chapter 3 with a prayer:
"Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you… so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints." (3:11–13)
And now he finishes in exactly the same way, in verse 23:
"Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Much ink has been spilt over the exact distinction between spirit, soul, and body in this verse. But the big point is clear: Paul prays that our entire selves — what we think, what we feel, what we decide, what we do — would all be sanctified, set apart for God's service completely, and kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus.
So that when we stand before Jesus, it won't be, "Well, Jesus, I lived 20% for you, or 30%, or 40%." No — "Jesus, I was 100% for you. Completely set apart. Completely sanctified for your service." I turned from idols to serve the living and true God completely, and to wait for you from heaven. And as we're set apart for God, we'll live the kind of lives Jesus will commend when he comes: "Well done, good and faithful servant."
It's a fantastic prayer to pray, whatever we're doing this summer — whether it's just a holiday before September, or going off on a church plant, or moving to another congregation, another city, another country.
It's also a prayer we can trust God to answer. Don't you love that promise in verse 24?
"He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it."
You may have seen on your way into church that the skyscraper behind this building is covered in scaffolding. Apparently it won't be finished for about ten years — a long time. It's hard to imagine the end of such a long project. But we trust it will be finished, because so much money's been pumped into getting it this far. They're not just going to leave it in the scaffolding.
So too with God's work in us. Maybe getting to the end feels like a long way off. Maybe you're only at the very outset of your Christian journey. But God will finish the work he started in us, because he's already begun a real work in each of our lives. He's brought us to faith in the Lord Jesus through real gospel ministry. He's making us abound in love for others. He's giving us real hope for the future as we wait for Jesus. And he is faithful to finish what he started.
So yes — keep rejoicing in the will of God, keep responding to the word of God, but ultimately, keep relying on the reliability of God. For he is the one who will keep us going and keep us growing, till the day Jesus appears.
God of peace, as we head into the summer months, when so many of us at the 6 p.m. are moving on to new places, and when those of us who are staying find it harder to keep going and keep growing — help us to rejoice in your will, to respond to your word, and to rely on your reliability, that we may be completely sanctified, and our entire selves — what we think, what we feel, what we do — be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you that you are always faithful, and that you will finish the good work you've started in us. In his name we pray. Amen.
