1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 - Celebrating the Work of God
Introduction to Celebration
I am so grateful to be with you this evening, church, as we talk about the last topic in our summer teaching series on the foundations of a healthy and vibrant life with Christ. Tonight, we are talking about what it means to celebrate. The question is: how, as Christians, are we to celebrate? What does that look like? How often should we do it, and in what context?
Tonight, we are going to be honing in on the heart of what causes us to celebrate. We want to look at the motivation beneath the activities, ceremonies, and forms of celebration. I did a quick search on the word “celebrate” just to see what the dictionary had to say. Some synonyms that came up were things like commemorate, observe, honor, mark a moment, acknowledge, remember, or memorialize. Then it got a bit more casual: drink to, toast, enjoy oneself, make merry, have fun, or have a “wild time.”
There was even the word “rave,” which we’re thankfully not getting into tonight! I have some bad memories there and some regrets from back in the day. But the list continued: have a party, eat, drink and be merry, revel, roister, carouse, “kill the fattened calf,” put the flags out, or paint the town red. Hopefully, I’ve added to your vocabulary, but the real question is: what type of celebration ought the Christian to be about?
What motivates us to get there? How do we discern what celebration looks like as followers of Christ? God’s Word calls us to celebrate Him in a way that reflects our grateful hearts for what He has done, what He has said, and who He has made us to be.
The Command to Rejoice
God is very clear about His will for the believer when it comes to the topic of celebration. Our primary text tonight is 1 Thessalonians chapter five. This section has been summarized as Paul’s high-level view of what it means to live a faithful Christian life.
[SCRIPTURE: 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18]
I think the problem many of us run into is that we tend to look at life through the lens of personal preference instead of through the lens of Scripture. This passage calls us to look at life through the lens of the Word so that we can see things clearly. When I read this through a naturalistic, human lens, it sounds like this: “Rejoice when you feel like it. Pray when it’s convenient. Give thanks for things if they make you happy.” We might even end that by saying, “This seems to be God’s will because, after all, He wants me to be happy, right?”
But to celebrate in a biblical sense means something far different. It means to obey God even when my heart doesn’t feel like doing it. Have you ever been there? Have you ever been called to obey what God says when there just isn’t that spark of passion? I was thinking about it before getting up here tonight; it’s like a tree that knows water is good and nourishing, but doesn’t ask for any. We can often be like a dry tree. We know intellectually what will satisfy and nurture us—what will give us the nutrient-rich soil we desperately need—yet without it, we shrivel up and become fruitless. To celebrate means to enjoy God and to rejoice in Him.
Rejoicing in the Midst of Opposition
To understand what it means to “rejoice always,” we need to understand the context of the church in Thessalonica. This was an infant church planted by the apostle Paul, and it was facing fierce opposition from the very beginning. In 1 Thessalonians 1:6, it says they received the word in “much affliction.”
If you read the book of Acts, you see that Paul went into the synagogue in Thessalonica for three Sabbaths, reasoning from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. This caused an almost instantaneous division. Some believed and followed Paul, but others rejected him flat out. Those who opposed the gospel gathered “worthless men” to start a riot.
Imagine hearing the Good News for the first time, feeling the Lord stir your heart and convict you of sin, only to face such intense hostility immediately. I would feel overwhelmed. Yet, the church thrived in the midst of that opposition. One commentator noted that while the church worldwide has often grown under duress, it has often weakened in regions of affluence, leading to decaying family structures and doctrinal confusion. He even posed the question: “Will persecution be necessary to clear people’s clouded religious vision?”
Paul is calling this church to rejoice in the midst of difficult circumstances. Our default is to look at our circumstances to justify whether or not we can have joy, but Paul’s command is to do the opposite. Choosing to rejoice always is an expectation regardless of the situation.
A Living Hope
To see how we can practically do this, let’s look at how Peter explains why Christians can celebrate even when life is hard.
[SCRIPTURE: 1 Peter 1:3–4]
That alone is enough to cause us to rejoice always. As we look at the turmoil of our day, the instability of the economy, or the uncertainty of global health crises, we can look at what God says about our true treasure. We have an inheritance that will not fade, spoil, or perish. Some of us may be recipients of an inheritance from parents or grandparents, and that is a gift, but it will ultimately fade. Our living hope must be anchored in the gospel—that Jesus died for our sins and rose again for our salvation.
[SCRIPTURE: 1 Peter 1:5–6]
Peter isn’t unaware of the extreme hardship that comes with following Jesus. He says that in this salvation, you “greatly rejoice,” even though you are distressed by various trials.
1 Peter 1:7 (NASB)
so that the proof of your faith, [being] more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
Church, do you believe your faith is more valuable than gold? I have to ask myself that. Am I looking at my financial security or the stock market to establish my sense of security? My heart can easily drift to perishable things. Yet God calls me back to that which can never be taken from me.
[SCRIPTURE: 1 Peter 1:8–9]
You can’t even start to express how much joy is flowing out of you when you obey God and rejoice in what He has accomplished. We have been saved, and we will be saved in fullness when we see Him as He is.
Pray Without Ceasing
Moving back to 1 Thessalonians, we hit verse 17: “Pray without ceasing.” This is an often-quoted but often-misunderstood verse. Does it mean I have to pray uninterrupted all day long? Should I walk around with my eyes closed and hands up so people know I’m praying? Of course not. If that were the case, my wife would be crushed because we have six kids; she would never be able to apply this verse!
In fact, as I was finalizing this message a couple of hours ago, I heard my three-year-old in the bathroom next to my office. I heard her splashing. I thought, “Oh, that’s cute.” Then I walked in. It wasn’t the bathtub she was splashing in. In that moment, I had to ask, “Lord, give me the wisdom to rejoice always!”
Praying without ceasing is about constant dependence. The Greek word used here for “continually” was often used to describe a hacking cough. You know how uncontrollable those are? You just have to do it because your body says you must. It doesn’t mean you are coughing every single second, but that the impulse is frequent and persistent.
That is a great picture of prayer. There are moments throughout the day where I just need to pray. “God, I need Your help. Give me wisdom on what to say to this person.” Sometimes I’m driving my car and I put my headphones in so I don’t look like a crazy person talking to myself, but I’m just thanking the Lord and asking Him to empower me before I head home into the “battlefield” of a house with six kids and a tired wife.
A perfect example of this is Nehemiah. He was a cupbearer to King Artaxerxes. He had spent days mourning and praying for Jerusalem, but when the King finally asked him what he wanted, Nehemiah did something amazing.
Nehemiah 2:4 (NASB)
Then the king said to me, ‘What would you request?’ So I prayed to the God of heaven.
Between the King asking the question and Nehemiah giving the answer, he prayed to the God of heaven. It was a quick, silent moment of dependence. That is a “prayer without ceasing” lifestyle. Are you cultivating that? Is your prayer life like that hacking cough—a constant expression of your need for Him?
If you feel like you’ve prayed enough, consider this: we should be praying for our church members, for the global church, for its holiness and mission. We should pray for our government, for a just society, for world missions, for the oppressed, and the sick. One commentator said, “I sometimes wonder if the comparatively slow progress towards world peace and world evangelization is not due, more than anything else, to the prayerlessness of the people of God.”
That was a punch in the gut for me. Repentance is like an antiseptic; at first it stings, then it heals. We need to repent of our prayerlessness. As it has been said, the absence of prayer is the presence of pride. It’s the attitude that we can do it on our own.
Give Thanks in Everything
Verse 18 says, “In everything give thanks.” This is the core of celebration: celebration is a choice that changes the heart. If you want to know God’s will for your life, it is right here: rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in everything.
The basis for this is found in Romans.
Romans 8:28 (NASB)
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to [His] purpose.
Notice it doesn’t say that all things are good, but that God causes them to work together for good. We don’t thank God for the evil or the sin itself. We say, “God, thank You that even though my life is a mess—whether because of my own mistakes or the sins of others—You are a God who can clean up the mess and work it for good.”
Sometimes we can’t fathom expressing thankfulness because we are in a heavy trial. I have a friend who just lost a family member unexpectedly. My own father passed away two years ago after a steep decline from dementia. It was so hard. How do we give thanks in suffering? Often, we only see God’s goodness in hindsight, but we trust He is sovereign.
[SCRIPTURE: James 1:2–5]
God is the giver of wisdom to those who ask in faith. Sometimes being thankful is hard because we are focused on the wrong things. We ask God for things we don’t need, and when He doesn’t give them, we fall into discontentment and self-pity.
[SCRIPTURE: James 4:3–4]
Celebration is the powerful antidote to despair. It is a choice. Your heart might not feel like celebrating, but if you choose gratitude, your heart will follow.
When my wife and I first got married in 2005, we moved into a tiny 600-square-foot apartment that smelled like thirty years of chain-smoking. I remember sitting at the kitchen table one morning, and I just started deciding to thank God for things I was looking at. “God, thank You for this table. Thank You for these four chairs, even though there are only two of us. Thank You for this apartment—even the smoke smell is a good reminder not to smoke!” As I gave thanks, my heart became full.
A Choice That Changes the Heart
I want to wrap things up with a quote from John MacArthur: “It is God’s will that all those who are in Christ Jesus should express constant joy, constant prayer, and constant thanksgiving. And God not only mandates those expressions of righteousness, but He makes it possible for believers to articulate them.”
We celebrate through testimony—sharing what God has done. We celebrate through the waters of baptism, seeing death turn to life. We celebrate through Communion, physically participating in the remembrance of His broken body and shed blood. And we celebrate through worship and music.
Maybe you came in tonight with a heavy or stagnant heart. I call you to what God’s Word says: rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks.
God Has Answered
I’ll end with a personal story. As I mentioned, we have six kids. Our youngest is Eliana, and we received her placement about three months ago. The circumstances were tragic. We received a call that the biological mother of our other adopted children had passed away unexpectedly. We had built a relationship with her and prayed for reunification, so this news was devastating.
Then, a few hours later, a CPS worker called. There was a two-day-old baby found with the mother when she passed. The father was in jail. They needed a place for this infant we didn’t even know existed.
Now, my wife is a prayer warrior. She told me later that for months, every time she heard a siren near our house, she would use it as a trigger to pray. She prayed specifically for the next child who would come into our home—that God would provide a safe place of healing for them, not knowing if those sirens were headed to a home to remove a child.
We took the baby in. About three weeks later, a friend texted me and asked, “Mark, do you know what the name Eliana means?” I had no idea. She told me: “Eliana means ‘God has answered.’”
Her biological parents named her that, not knowing any of this. But that is the faithfulness of our God. He affirms that He is with us and for us. Whether it is a child in foster care, a baptism, or a personal testimony, the Christian has every reason to celebrate.
Let’s pray.
Father, would You empower us to be known as the most celebratory people on the planet? Empower us to rejoice always, even when circumstances are difficult. Help us to pray continually and to give thanks in everything, knowing You are working all things together for good. We praise You for Your Son, and we want to continue celebrating You now. In Jesus’ name, Amen.