1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.”

Do you remember the two disciples who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus the first Easter evening? They were convinced that all was lost when Jesus died. They were faithless and hopeless in their grief. Then Jesus came and explained to them why it all had to happen this way. He went back to the Old Testament Scriptures and showed them it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and die to save them. When they finally recognized Jesus as dinner began, and he disappeared, they asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

Do you remember the debate Jesus had with some of his skeptics after he fed the five thousand? They questioned his claim to be the Bread of Life from heaven and resisted his demand that they put their faith in him. “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Jesus didn’t back off. He made even bigger claims for his word. “The Spirit gives life. The flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are life.”

When Jesus talks, the Spirit is giving life. When Jesus talks, hearts begin to burn with faith. The way to put out the Spirit’s fire is to throw cold water on the words and message of Jesus. Criticize it. Contradict it. Reject it. The fire of faith cannot long survive without the fuel of Jesus’ words to feed it.

So Paul also warns, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt.” We tend to think of prophecies as predictions of the future. Sometimes they are. But the more general way Scripture speaks of prophecy is simply a message given to man by God. Jesus’ words were prophecy. Paul’s words were prophecy. For those who know the voice of the Good Shepherd when they hear it, the whole Bible is prophecy in this sense.

And I don’t have to tell you about the contempt our world heaps on the Bible. Much of it is moral contempt. If some word of Scripture gets in the way of their happiness, by all means, they conclude, cut it out and throw it away. We can’t have a word from God stand in the way of people finding their bliss. Of course, much less is said about the happiness that is lost by not following the divine wisdom from the deep past.

Some of the contempt is so-called historical or scientific contempt. Far be it from our world to accept a revelation from God over the speculations of some human with a high IQ. But you know, Paul isn’t writing to our world, is he. He is writing to you and me. Something in the Bible gets under your skin, just like it gets under mine. It challenges our intellect. It denies our wishes. It confronts our pride.

When we come to that place, what will we do? Will we treat the prophecy with contempt? Or will we follow Doctor Luther, and when we come to things we don’t like or can’t understand, will we grant that the Holy Spirit is more learned than you or I are? Faith depends on God’s word. Cultivating a positive view of that word is necessary if we are going to avoid evil and hold on to the good things God wants to give us.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

A dear friend of our family graduates from college with a degree in nursing…at the age of sixty! My wife receives a big promotion at work. My daughter and her husband close on the purchase of their first house. These are all examples of happy times. It’s not hard to be joyful, prayerful, and thankful when things are going right.

But look again at Paul’s commands. “Be joyful always.” “Pray continually.” “Give thanks in all circumstances.” Paul doesn’t suggest that joy, prayer, and thankfulness are responses to good things. For the believer in Jesus, they are a way of life, a more or less constant inner attitude, an unwavering positive spirit no matter what is happening to us or around us on any given day.

I don’t have to tell you that such an idea is counter-cultural. Some might say it is counter to reality. If Paul had said, “Be angry and resentful always. Worry continually. Complain in all circumstances,” at least that feels more like a reasonable response to life as we experience it.

Outrage seems to have become the fashionable way for people to react to things they don’t like. They follow with pinning the blame on the people who don’t share their values or immediately jump to address their unhappiness. Many let loose with a long line of obscenities and insults to express their displeasure. Temper tantrums have become an acceptable way to behave in public. What used to be called “acting like a grown-up” somehow has fallen out of style.

Not for the follower of Jesus Christ. Christians may engage in the same negativity, the same don’t-mess-with-me-I’ve-been-short-changed-and-I’m-furious attitude. But today the Apostle Paul is calling us to repent of the negativity. It is incompatible with faith.

Can we sincerely sing God’s praises while bitterness keeps fueling grudges against his other children? Can we trust God’s care and wisdom while essentially living in a constant state of criticism against the way he runs the world? If we are waiting to become joyful, prayerful, and thankful when the people around us change, or the situations and circumstances that make us unhappy change, we are going to die waiting. The change doesn’t have to start out there. The change has to start with me.

It’s not that the Lord asks us to pretend things are better than they are. It’s that we have been the beneficiaries of some incredible blessings. They accompany us every moment of our lives. They overshadow all the garbage if we honestly consider their value.

I exist, I am alive, only because God knit me together in my mother’s womb. He continues to support me, though he doesn’t owe me anything. In spite of my rather constant rebelling, questioning his decisions, defying his commands, he has never stopped loving me, not even for a minute.

No, he left heaven, adopted a human body and soul, endured the same painful life I suffer, only worse, to save me. He served the sentence for my crimes against him on the cross. Love drove him to seek me, pursue me, find me, and claim me with the sweet words of the gospel.

He poured salvation into my heart by faith. He didn’t expect or ask me to earn it. He promises, he promises, that joys and pleasures without end are going to be my eternal fate when he returns. And I think I have something to complain about?

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances.” That’s the only reasonable response to the goodness God shows me every day.

2 Peter 3:10-12 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.”

Most people associate Judgment Day with a day of epic destruction. Even the unbelieving world tells stories of worldwide cataclysm. Mankind destroys itself in a nuclear holocaust. Volcanoes or asteroids blow the planet up. Aliens invade and wipe the world bare.

The Bible tells us the Lord will destroy the world and the universe in which it exists with fire. Peter describes it briefly here. The Old Testament prophets announced God’s final plans the same way. Jesus and the Apostles Paul, James, John, and Jude give a consistent description. Life on this planet, and in this universe, will not go on forever.

But note the application Peter makes: “The earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” We often use the phrase “laid bare” to describe total destruction. A fire might do it to a forest. A hurricane might do it to an island. An army might do it to a city. But Peter’s Greek uses “laid bare” in the sense of “exposed.” There is nowhere left to hide. He is describing a flat and barren landscape where God and man stand face to face.

He wants us to understand that there is no plan B when the last day comes. Unlike the movies, you can’t get into a spaceship and fly away to another world where you can start civilization all over again. You can’t hide underground or move to another continent where the devastation isn’t so severe. We and all our works and all our companions here on earth will stand before God uncovered, exposed. There is no way to escape it.

But that won’t be us. In the meantime, then, we want to live for the day by being the kind of people who can look forward to it. “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.”

Ishmael Shelton had a rapsheet with 34 crimes on it. In 2009 he was paroled from a Colorado prison. He was essentially a free man. That being the case, what was the reasonable path for Mr. Shelton going forward? Should he have concluded, “I am a free man now. I don’t have to serve the rest of my sentence. I should find some more mischief to get into.”

Or should he have concluded, “I have been released from paying the full debt I owed for my crimes. I have been given a second chance. Now is the time for me to turn over a new leaf. I can make a contribution to society instead of being a burden to it.”

You know the right answer. And you can probably guess where this is going. Eight months after Mr. Shelton walked out of prison on parole, he murdered his girlfriend and found himself behind bars once again.

In God’s system of justice, Jesus has won us much more than parole. We don’t serve a day, a minute, for our crimes. The Judge has let us go with no time served, no fines to pay, because Jesus paid it all in our place.

In God’s system of justice, Jesus continues to get us acquitted when we offend again. We don’t have to be afraid to stand before the Judge. We can look forward to our day in court because of God’s grace in Christ.

Is there anything reasonable about using our freedom to pile up more crimes and add to our sins? You know the right answer. Peter concludes, “You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.” “Holy” suggests something more than “pure” and “sinless.” These are lives that stand apart from the godless crowd around us. Such lives distinguish themselves, not in a better-than-thou sort of way. They demonstrate unusual kindness and patience, while maintaining a firm commitment to biblical moral standards.

That’s what it means to be the people who look forward to the day of the Lord. May our life and witness speed its coming.

2 Peter 3:8-9 “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”       

First, let’s note that Peter is not saying the eternal and all-knowing God is incapable of telling time or communicating about it. Some people want to take this passage and apply it to early Bible history like the creation account. But they are missing what the words actually say. Peter does not say that with the Lord a thousand years is a day, and a day is a thousand years. From his position in eternity, Peter says, days and thousands of years have a similar feel. They are “like” each other. You yourselves know that the older you get, the faster time seems to pass. A year flies by like a couple of weeks. But you haven’t lost the ability to tell the difference between the two.

The point is, people often have to wait a long time for God to keep his promises…from our perspective. God promises Abraham and Sarah a son when they are 75 and 65 years old, respectively. Isaac isn’t born until a quarter of a century later. The Lord tells Noah to prepare for a flood. It’s 120 years before it begins to rain. The Lord sees Israel’s oppression in Egypt. He hears them crying out in their slavery. But it is a couple of hundred years before he sends Moses to deliver them. From here on earth all of these examples seemed like a long time. From up in heaven it didn’t seem very long at all. But the Lord was fully aware of every year, every hour, every second that passed along the way.

We need to stop judging God for the way he runs history–particularly, the way he runs our personal history. We pray about a personal problem, a chronic condition, a family member on the wrong path. Years pass, and nothing happens. We are concerned about what is going on in our country, or in our world. We take it to God’s throne in prayer. It seems our pleas are met with silence.

But what do we think we know about the bigger picture of our future, or our world? Let’s say you were Lara Clarke or Rob Herzog on September 11, 2001. They both took trains to work in New York City. Each of them was delayed on the way to the station and missed their trains. Now they are going to be late to work. No doubt they felt some irritation and anxiety about their situation. Why this, and why today? But this was September 11, 2001, and both of them worked in the World Trade Center. Their one hour delays saved their lives. By the time they got to work, the towers had already been hit by the airplanes.

Peter assures us that the Lord knows what he is doing with the timing of his return. “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.” He is not procrastinating because he doesn’t want to return, or he doesn’t care. He isn’t delayed because something is in his way, and he doesn’t have the power to get past it. He isn’t getting old and forgetful. He hasn’t changed his mind.

“He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” The Lord wants to maximize the number of people he can save. Every day he delays is another day we can preach the gospel, another day we can introduce others to Jesus, another day someone can discover forgiveness at the cross, and eternal life at Jesus’ empty tomb. Don’t you know someone who still hasn’t found Jesus?

It’s like the action movie where the boat is waiting at the dock, or the plane is waiting on the runway, or the car is waiting with the engine running. Our heroes are running for their lives, and a band of villains is in hot pursuit. The pilot or the driver is waiting, stretching the time, delaying until the last moment so that the last member of the team can jump on board and be whisked to safety.

The Lord is waiting for the last member of the team to jump on board before he comes on the Last Day to whisk us all away to safety. So don’t misunderstand God’s timing as we wait for the day of the Lord.

Romans 13:12-14 “Let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature”

Living in the light is a matter of taking something off and putting something on. Off goes a lifestyle that simply lets our urges and desires run wild. There are three word pairs here. Each word in the pair is loosely connected. With orgies and drunkenness Paul is saying, “You can’t join your neighbors in losing all self-control and decency, in hard partying and drinking. It is not wrong to feast and celebrate. It is not wrong to have an alcoholic beverage. But those who live in the light won’t let living it up turn them into a different kind of person than they are when they are stone-cold sober.”

The second pair generally covers our sexual behavior. Paul isn’t saying that sex is evil. He is reminding us to refrain when it is not between one man and one woman who have taken a vow of marriage. Christians understand that sex is not just for recreation and fun between consenting adults. God has a higher purpose for it, one that requires the stability of a life-long commitment.

The last pair, dissension and jealousy, deals with the angry passions. Do believers still recognize the sin involved in them? If the kind of language I hear coming from the mouths of professed Christians is any indication, or the kind of things I see them post on Facebook, it appears that even many Christians struggle to recognize the problem. We have become inclined to defend our expressions of anger instead of regretting of them. But off they have to come in repentance if we intend to live in the light.

In place of all this “darkness” Paul urges, “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” Off goes sin. On goes Jesus. Clothing ourselves with Jesus begins with simply trusting him. We stop with the rationalizations, the defenses, the excuses for our bad behavior. We trust him when he calls it sin and calls us to repent. Even more, we see his perfect payment for our sins, his resurrection to new life and ascension to power, and we trust him when he forgives us, offers us grace, invites us into God’s family, and gives us new life.

When we do, Jesus comes and lives inside of us. We know his power. We take on a new identity. It changes us. You know how dressing up can affect how you feel about yourself, your confidence, your behavior? If you put on wedding formals, and you know you look sharp, you start to act the part. You carry yourself with dignity. You are civil and well-mannered. You are gracious and charming. Admittedly, sometimes people become arrogant and insufferable, too. But dressing up can change things inside as well as out.

When we put our faith in Jesus we become new men and women. We are dressing ourselves up in Christ, putting him on, only it is not an act. Jesus begins the process of making us more like him. The more we look to him in faith, the more we focus on his love, the more like him we become. With the return of Jesus nearer every day, there is no time like the present to live in the light of his grace and love.

Genesis 32:10 “I had only my staff when I crossed the Jordan, but now I have become two groups.”

Sometimes, when life is painful or difficult, we are inclined to ask, “What did I do to deserve this?” The implication is that we deserve better, and we want God to treat us as we deserve. But that would be foolish request. God doesn’t treat us as we deserve. He treats us immeasurably better. He gives us salvation. Everything beyond that is extra.

That is true of the kinds of blessings that occupy our thoughts at Thanksgiving. As for Jacob, also for us, it is time to pause and acknowledge God’s bounty.

Jacob started with practically nothing when he left home. He had the clothes he was wearing. He had a staff in his hand, a simple piece of wood. That was it. Much less and he would have been naked.

I doubt whether most of us started with so little as Jacob did. When I left home to begin life on my own, I had a 1980 Chevy Citation hatchback. Everything I owned fit inside that car. Most of what I had consisted of clothes and a stereo system–more than Jacob, but not everything you need to set up housekeeping.

Our real start in this world, though, began with nothing more than our skin and what’s inside of it. As Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” This body itself is evidence of God’s bounty–by far the greatest physical gift he has ever given us.

Since he gave us our bodies and our lives, the Lord continues to give evidence of his kindness and faithfulness in the great bounty we enjoy. Jacob had become “two groups,” literally, “two camps.” You may remember that he was going to meet his brother Esau for the first time since he had deceived his father into giving him the blessing and birthright instead of Esau. In order to help protect his family, in case Esau was still mad, he split them and his possessions into the two groups or camps he mentions in his prayer. His wealth of people and herds was huge, even by modern standards. As a “gift” to pacify his brother, he sent him a little portion of his herds of animals: 50 cattle, 220 goats, 220 sheep, 30 camels and 30 donkeys. A ball park figure for the value of that gift in our time would be $150,000. That was the part Jacob gave away. It was certainly a good time for this man who left home with just the staff in his hand to stop and acknowledge God’s goodness to him.

Maybe we don’t feel like we have so much. It is true for some that their net value may be far below Jacob’s. But think of the things that you enjoy over the Thanksgiving holiday that Jacob never imagined experiencing in his wildest dreams. Some of you will travel in a vehicle that will cover as much ground in a single hour as Jacob could travel in 3 or 4 days. Most likely it is climate controlled: It will blow cold air on you when it is hot outside, and warm air on you when it is cold outside. For your entertainment it can play the sounds of a four-piece band, or even a 100-piece orchestra, while you travel. You can even switch back and forth between the band and the orchestra if you want.

Some of the foods you have eaten are probably not in season, but they taste as fresh as if they were. It may not even be possible to grow some of them within a thousand miles of where you live. You get to enjoy them anyway. Few if any of us is concerned about starving to death in the coming year as some of the Pilgrims did. The temperature in your home never varies more than a few degrees no matter what the time of year it is. The furniture on which you sit is cushioned and comfortable. You can watch twenty-two men on a field playing a game, but you sit in the comfort of your home, and those men are miles and miles away.

Do I need to go on? Cars and climate control and televisions and radios and refrigeration are just some of the things we take for granted, but they allow us a standard of living that Jacob could not buy with all his flocks and herds. Maybe America doesn’t have the highest standard of living in the world anymore (according to the United Nations, that honor has gone to one of the Scandinavian countries). But we still enjoy plenty, even if we are just scraping buy, even if we are paying the heating and cooling bills with a government check, and buying the turkey and stuffing with food stamps, and watching a TV that we found for free on Craig’s List because someone replaced it with a 4K ultra HD model and didn’t need it anymore.

God has still given us plenty. And in light of our bounty, let’s pause to acknowledge his kindness and faithfulness: “Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endures forever.”

Genesis 32:9 “I am not worthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant.”

You can’t argue with Jacob’s view of his life. You know how he had behaved. Here was a man who tried to turn everything to serve himself. If ever there was a man who had lived under the theme, “It’s all about me,” that man was Jacob.

He had dealt dishonestly with his own brother and father to cheat his brother out of the rights of the firstborn. He ruptured his own family just to get what he wanted. When he started a family of his own, he adopted the heathen practice of polygamy. He created a family more dysfunctional than the family from which he had come. As much as his father-in-law Laban labored to take advantage of Jacob, Jacob was constantly scheming to take advantage of Laban. No matter whom he hurt, Jacob looked out for number one.

Living a life that tries to turn the whole world into a device to serve ourselves, using other people for our own advantage is not a lifestyle that began or ended with Jacob. From the time we get up in the morning to the time we go to bed at night, we are involved in the game of trying to bend everything in life to serve me, of trying to line everyone and everything up in the way that makes me happy.

I have little experience in the world of business. I have gotten a little taste of it, perhaps, the three times that I have bought or sold a home. With a little advice from your realtor, you try to make the defects in the home you are selling appear as small as possible. You are ever wary of the possible pitfalls in a home you are considering to buy, things that seller tried to hide from you. The mortgage company hires an assessor to protect itself from losing money if you default. Everyone is trying to get something from someone else. At times it seems like no one is your friend. And in the process, you get sucked into the game of looking out for your own best interests, because no one else is going to. It’s how “business” works. Jacob would have felt right at home in the process.

This isn’t limited to real estate, or even business. We import it into our families and friendships. People who should work together end up acting like competitors. We aren’t so interested in serving and protecting the people closest to us. We want what’s “fair” for me. And what’s “fair” for me isn’t based on some objective formula. It is what involves the least work and the most gain. Even my love for family or friends can be based on “what’s in it for me.” We deserve no better than Jacob, neither in this life nor the one to come. Like him we can pray, “I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant.”

How has God responded in light of our unworthiness? As Jacob says, with “kindness and faithfulness.” We are still here, aren’t we? How does the author of Psalm 103 say it? “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

The God of our fathers, who gave us this country, and has made us prosper, showed the ultimate kindness by giving up his only-begotten Son and making him a sacrifice for our sins. He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, nor repay us according to our iniquities, because in Jesus Christ he has completely erased them from our records. Of all the kindnesses he has ever shown, none is greater than this: that he has removed our transgressions and declared us innocent of our sins.

In doing so he has made sure that there is a far better country waiting for us than any that Jacob ever knew, or we have ever known. In doing so he has been faithful to the promises he has been making to his people for thousands of years. His kindness and faithfulness have provided far more than we ever could have prepared for ourselves. They will continue to do so.