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December 15, 2002
3rd Sunday in Advent
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Pastor Joel Zank

Keep Focused on Christ!

(1 Thessalonians 5:16-24) Be joyful always;17 pray continually;18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 19Do not put out the Spirit's fire; 20 do not treat prophecies with contempt. 21Test everything. Hold on to the good.22 Avoid every kind of evil.23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

In the name of Jesus who makes life worth living, dear fellow redeemed,

Have you ever seen one of those collages that have hidden within it the portrait of Christ. Without blinking you're suppose to stare at its focal point until the face of Jesus takes shape before your very eyes. Today the Apostle Paul invites us to do something very similar. He would have us keep our eyes on Jesus, until the Savior's image takes shape in all our thoughts, all our words, and all our actions. So we choose as our theme today this simple encouragement: Keep Focused on Christ! As we will see, this is God's will for you; and this is God's work in you.
Paul begins not by telling us how to stay focused but rather by showing us what a Christ-focused life is like. To Christians like you and me, people who through baptism have been reborn in the image of Christ, Paul says, "Be joyful always." Now there are plenty of self-help books out there that preach a message of joy through success. They teach people that happiness comes from knowing how to make money or friends, or know to influence people. Paul's message is quite different. "Be joyful always," says Paul. Yes, be joyful in success, but also be joyful in failure, joyful in pain, even joyful in sorrow. How? Keep focused on Christ. Your Jesus rules heaven and earth, and so the sorrow that enters your life is never a matter of blind fate. Nothing can go wrong for us without Christ permitting it to go wrong. So if and when our loving Lord gives such permission it can only mean that he has some blessing he intends to work for our good. Perhaps he plans to draw us closer to himself, or purify our faith. We don't need to know his exact reason, do we, in order to find happiness in his great love for us? So be joyful always!

And "pray continually!" (v.17). That's what Paul says. Like many of you, I get quite a bit of e-mail each day, much of it junk, but some of it requires my immediate attention. I noticed a message in my inbox this last week that had as its subject line: A.S.A.P. I opened it with some hesitation only to discover that instead of wanting me to do something "as soon as possible," a friend of mine was reminding me to A.S.A.P. - "always say a prayer." Instead of wanting something from me, my friend wants something for me-the blessings that flow from a healthy prayer-life. Our dear friend, the Apostle Paul wants that for all of us. Christians who are truly focused on Christ have something better than heavenly e-mail. We have a direct phone line to the C.E.O. of universe. The calls are toll-free and we can make as many of them as we want each day, always asking that God's will be done, and that his kingdom come; always asking for his help in our war against sin and Satan. Christians, fold your hands. Bow your heads A.S.A.P. - always say a prayer; and in your prayers always be sure to "give thanks in all circumstances" (v.18).

Does Paul really mean that we are to be thankful in all circumstances? Why not? We who can find joy even in sorrow have reason to thank our God for making all things serve our good-right? While the people of this world may be discontent even when living like kings, we who are focused on Christ know our spiritual blessings always surpass any material treasure earth has to offer. We have no reason not to give thanks in all circumstances. More to the point, we're sinning if we fail to do so. Paul says, "Be joyful always;17 pray continually;18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

It's not merely God's wish that we be joyful, prayerful and thankful, it is his unchanging will for us. He demands it. Remember that collage I mentioned before? When God stares at us, and remember, he never blinks, he expects to see Christ-like people, people who are so focused on Christ that they think and sound and look exactly like Christ, not just once-in-awhile, but all the time. This is important, because only those who are always Christ-like are considered by God to be part of his family. All others are enemies of God and will be his eternal prisoners of war in hell.

So do you think God's finding enough joy, prayer and thankfulness in your life to keep you on his good side? Or like me, are you frightened to think about what he sees every day when he looks at you? I have to admit that even on my best days, when I'm really trying to stay focused on Christ, I still let the cares of this world rob me of too much joy and gratitude; and though that's exactly when I should be on my knees in prayer, asking for all the help God can give me, I get to feeling so sorry for myself that I either lose the desire to pray or the confidence that God will hear me, let alone love me. Rather than keeping my focus on Christ, I become self-focused and miserable because I know I'm not like Jesus, and so I fear I won't be with Jesus in heaven. Does that fear every grip your heart? I suppose it does. We sinners have so much in common. So what can we do about this? Nothing really, except stay out of the way and let God keep his promises to us.

It is God's will that you and I keep focused on Christ, but understand that what God wills for us is the very thing that God promises to work in us. God promises to give us a Christ-centered focus. God made this promise to you on the day of your baptism when he sent the Holy Spirit to kindle in your heart the flame of faith, faith to believe the very promise that brought the Spirit to you.

You and I did nothing at the time of our baptism to invite the Spirit into our lives. He came in love and of his own choosing. But now that he's with us, there's much we can do to chase him away. That's why Paul warns, "Do not put out the Spirit's fire;" (v.19). Thanks to the Holy Spirit, our hearts and lives glow with faith in God's promise that Jesus has saved us from our sins. The Spirit of God came to us through this good news about Jesus. The Spirit of God will stay with us only as long as we continue to feed our faith on this same good news. So Paul says, "do not treat prophecies with contempt" (v.20). In other words don't despise the Word of God either by failing to study it or by regarding it as having no more value than human thoughts and opinions. Instead "Test everything. Hold on to the good.22 Avoid every kind of evil" (vv.21,22). We Christians are to scrutinize our every feeling, our every ideal and goal, our every activity under the bright beam of God's truth. And should the Bible expose anything in our life that contradicts what God says, we have to regard that feeling, thought, or action as evil and we have to get rid of it. Because if we don't, we're treating God's Word with contempt and cutting ourselves off from the only means through which God comes to our hearts. That would be like pulling the plug on our spiritual life support. Our faith would flat line in no time at all. We would die spiritually and eternally.

No, we want to hold on to what is good-good for us-the gospel of our Lord Jesus. To this end Paul prays for us: "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through" (v. 23). Paul prays that God would do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Try as we might, we cannot keep ourselves Christ-focused. We cannot make our spirits joyful or even the least bit thankful because our sin spoils everything about us. But God, the God who has made peace between heaven and earth by sacrificing his own Son for our sins, he can sanctify us, that is, he can set us apart from the rest of the world as his holy people. How? By the power of his Word. Jesus once prayed on our behalf, "Father, sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth" (John 17:17).

Through his Word God declares us all to be holy in his sight through the efforts of his perfect Son. Think of what that means! Jesus found joy in every moment of his life on earth. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane when his soul was filled with sorrow to the point of death, Jesus found joy in serving his Father. God sees that joy as yours even when you're not feeling it. Because God gives you credit for the joy Jesus experienced on your behalf. That's what it means to have Jesus as our substitute. Through the faith God's Spirit has worked in us, we get the credit for all the prayers Jesus prayed for all the thanks he offered, for all his holiness throughout all his days on earth. Faith like a pipeline taps us into Jesus and floods our lives with the all he did while living and with all he accomplished in dying to take away our sins. Through faith in Jesus we are blameless in God's sight right now-absolutely Christ-like; and it's Paul's fervent prayer that we remain that way until our Risen Lord returns to judge us: "May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 23). Can you think of a better prayer? Paul's asking God to keep our faith focused on Christ so that every fiber of our being, every impulse of our soul, every action of the spirit that animates us is constantly robed in the Savior's righteousness and in this way alone fit for heaven.

Even now God is answering Paul's prayer and will continue to, using his Word and sacrament to build us up in the faith, to work his will in our lives and to give us every day more and more reason and more and more strength to be joyful always, to pray continually and to give thanks in all circumstances. You can count on it dear friends all the way to heaven. "The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it" (v. 24) for Jesus' sake. Amen.