The "Who" of Thanksgiving

 The “Who” of Thanksgiving

Psalm 106:1

As I recall our first Thanksgiving here in Worthington two memories stand out.

First, a few days before the event I was listening to the radio and heard an announcer say, “Thanksgiving is America’s biggest non-religious holiday.”  I took exception to that.  After all, Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation establishing the holiday said:

They [the growth and blessings America enjoys] are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins [he’s talking about the war], hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.

All things considered, that sounds like a pretty religious holiday.

The second memory I have of that Thanksgiving is wondering what we were going to eat.  It was our first Thanksgiving away from Texas where Pat’s family either came to Dawn or we joined her family in Amarillo or Lubbock (or occasionally, Fort Worth).  We decided it was too far to drive either to Texas or to Missouri to spend the holiday with my mother.  So, we decided it was time we saw Cincinnati.  Thanksgiving morning we set out, planning on eating somewhere along the way.  Sometime after noon we wondered if we had made a mistake.  Restaurant after restaurant we stopped at was closed.  Then, just as we reached the outskirts of Cincinnati and had decided we would buy some bologna and bread at a convenience store—assuming we found one open—we discovered a Cracker Barrel.  It was open.  Not only that, their Thanksgiving meal included corn bread dressing—the only kind of dressing having Pat’s blessing.  It was our first experience with this restaurant that has been described as “a garage sale with food at the back.”  

Things have changed over the years.  Malls have gone from opening at dawn on so-called “Black Friday,” to opening at midnight Thanksgiving night, to opening at five Thanksgiving Day.  Now, one major retailer based in Columbus has announced its stores will be open on Thanksgiving Day.  I’ve begun to wonder if that radio announcer was right.

Like you, I’ve heard the claims that references to the pilgrims thanking God are excluded from the story of the first Thanksgiving as it’s told in our public schools.  I don’t know how reliable such reports are.  In any case, we don’t need to blame the schools for secularizing Thanksgiving.  The blame is ours.

No, not because we shop on Thanksgiving Day.  Certainly not because we watch parades on Thanksgiving Day (of course the most famous of these parades is intended to implant a certain store’s name on our minds as the shopping season begins).  It is not because we watch bowl games on Thanksgiving Day.  True, the pilgrims did not watch bowl games at their most famous thanksgiving but, of course, there wouldn’t be a college in America until fifteen years later and it would be nearly sixty years before there was a second college.  You have to have two for a bowl game.  Of course, even then not everyone would want to watch Harvard clash with William and Mary.  I’ve seen a post card commemorating college football on Turkey Day—it was printed in 1900.  

My point is, if our attitude toward Thanksgiving has changed, it’s not because of the culture, it’s because something changed within us.  To explain what, let me risk spoiling  part of the Thanksgiving story.  

You know the story; it goes something like this:

In 1621, when their labors were rewarded with a bountiful harvest after a year of sickness and scarcity, the Pilgrims gave thanks to God and celebrated His bounty in the Harvest Home tradition with feasting and sport (recreation). To these people of strong Christian faith, this was not merely a revel; it was also a joyous outpouring of gratitude. (http://www.plimoth.org/learn/MRL/read/thanksgiving-history) 

But remember this, the “First” Thanksgiving with the Indians and the pilgrims was, almost certainly, not the first thanksgiving.  

The pilgrims regularly took time to thank God.  Scholastic, the magazine for elementary teachers, recognizes this aspect of the pilgrims’ lifestyle:  “The English colonists we call Pilgrims celebrated days of thanksgiving as part of their religion. But these were days of prayer, not days of feasting.”  The huge feast was what was new, not the thanksgiving.  The pilgrim worldview was one of gratitude because even in the hard times they found reason to be thankful.

When we get together on Thanksgiving, we generally have to pause a moment and think of reasons to be thankful.  Not the pilgrims.  You see, they weren’t thankful because it was Thanksgiving, they had days of thanksgiving because they were thankful.  So, if Thanksgiving has lost some of its meaning for us, it’s because we have lost our “attitude of gratitude.”  

This is not a cultural or educational problem.  The poor are not necessarily more grateful than the rich.  The old aren’t inclined to be thankful while the young are naturally ingrates.  It’s not a Republican versus Democrat issue.  Gratitude doesn’t belong to one political ideology.  In fact, liberals may not be thankful because they think everything they have is an entitlement; conservatives, on the other hand, may lack gratitude because they’re convinced they have earned everything they have.  

The pilgrims knew pride is the enemy of thanksgiving.  The pilgrims, like their Puritan cousins, were keenly aware they deserved nothing.  Everything they had was a gift.  And every gift was a reflection of the good God they served.

Here again one of our good traditions needs a little tweaking.  At a lot of Thanksgiving Day gatherings someone asks the people sitting around the table to name something they’re thankful for.  It’s not a bad tradition but maybe the proper question is, not what are you thankful for, but “To Whom are you thankful?”  

The Wampanoag, the Indians who shared that meal with the pilgrims, has a tradition of regularly thanking the Creator for his gifts.  The Apostle Paul, who had never heard of Massachusetts, would have said that makes sense; in fact, anyone with sense could look at the world and see evidence of a benevolent God.

In the end, the holiday is about recognizing the Who of Thanksgiving.

The psalmists understood this.

In Psalm 138, we read of gratitude for God’s faithfulness.

I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart;

    before the “gods” I will sing your praise.

I will bow down toward your holy temple

    and will praise your name

    for your unfailing love and your faithfulness…

They were thankful for God’s salvation.

Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord

    and delight in his salvation.

My whole being will exclaim,

    “Who is like you, Lord?

You rescue the poor from those too strong for them,

    the poor and needy from those who rob them.”

Like the pilgrim farmers, the psalmists knew it was the goodness of God who sent the rain they needed for their crops.

Sing to the Lord with grateful praise;

    make music to our God on the harp.

He covers the sky with clouds;

    he supplies the earth with rain

    and makes grass grow on the hills.

Above all they were thankful for who God is.  That is at the heart of my text, Psalm 106:1.  The verse could be translated as 

“Praise the Lord!

Thank the Lord because he is good.

    His ·loyal-love  continues forever.”

I don’t intend to unpack all this verse has to say but I do want to underscore some key points.

We are first called on to “Praise the Lord!”  Literally, that is “Hallelujah.”  We all know that word.  It’s so familiar we can forget it is a call to celebrate.  In fact, the Contemporary English Version translates the command as “We will celebrate and praise you, Lord!”  While the Bible sometimes speaks of worship being a time of solemn quiet, worship can also be a time of jubilant excitement over God and God’s works.  This is why so many of the psalms call on us to “make a joyful noise.”  

This joyful noise was likely a shout of excited praise.  The idea is that when the worshippers thought of the Lord, they just couldn’t contain themselves.  They couldn’t keep quiet.  

A couple Sundays ago I mentioned our trip to Benton Harbor; the year before that we went to Delbarton, West Virginia.   On Wednesday we attended a small Baptist church a few miles out of that small mining town.  It wasn’t a Southern Baptist congregation on a typical Wednesday night.  The worship service included guitars and lively music led by an enthusiastic young man wearing a Stone Cold Steve Austin T-shirt.  (That’s the wrestler, not the Six-Million-Dollar Man,)   The good people of that church shouted “Amens” and “Praise the Lord” all during the service.   They clearly weren’t rich but their excitement about God was undeniable.

In a sense, the attitude inspiring thanksgiving at its best is an attitude that can’t not be thankful.

Before I move on, let me make one more point.  The psalmist called on the people to celebrate “Jehovah” or “Yahweh.”  Most of our English translations follow the old custom of substituting “Lord” for God’s personal Name, but the “jah” in Hallelujah comes from “Yahweh.”  The fact the people of Israel knew God’s own Name reminded them God could be known.  Their God was not a remote Power who was an Impersonal Force.  They could enter into a relationship with their God.  They could know God’s character.  And what did they know of that character?

What is clear about God’s character inspired the psalmist, as it inspires us, to say, “Thank the Lord because he is good.”

That mysterious English woman Julian of Norwich, who lived from the mid-fourteenth to the early fifteenth century, was both a mystic and a deep theologian.  She once wrote of God, “In his love he clothes us, enfolds and embraces us; that tender lover completely surrounds us, never to leave us.  As I see it he is everything that is good.”  The good we encounter in life is God’s good.

But there’s more than that.  Whatever comes our way God is able to either use it or defuse it to accomplish our good.  We’re not always able to see that at the moment but that’s because our perspective is so limited.

Max Lucado compares some of the puzzling things that happen to us to ingredients in a recipe.  We may wonder why we should add ingredients like vinegar to a cake or cookies, yet these “goodies” aren’t the same if you omit the sharp, bitter liquid.  In the same way, God can take the bitter experience we would have just as soon left out of our lives and produce something wonderful.  For those who trust him, nothing can keep him from his goal of our good.

The psalmist declares God’s goodness as a starting point for what follows.  And what follows is a confession of Israel’s sin.  He knows there are tough times ahead as God chastens them for their sins but he also knows God’s good will prevail.  God will “save” them and “gather them from all the nations” so they may once again know peace.

Why does he know this?  He knows this because God’s goodness is so often manifested in “steadfast love.”

In the midst of tough times, like the psalmist, we can be thankful because “His ·loyal-love  continues forever.”

The word translated as “loyal-love,” “steadfast love,” or “mercy” is the Hebrew word chesed.  It is an important word in the Psalms where it is used some 125 times.  It is roughly equivalent to the New Testament term “grace.”  Luther described it as “goodness in action.”  

In the context of the psalm, the idea is that God will be faithful to Israel—His people—even though they have been unfaithful to Him.  The troubles they are enduring were intended to bring them back to Him.  So, in a strange way, the psalmist is telling his fellow Jews they can be thankful for their particular trouble because it proves God has not abandoned them.

Of course, the Bible makes it very clear we are not to assume tough times are chastisements.  They certainly weren’t in Joseph’s case.  But they were the way God used to bring about good for Joseph, his immediate family, the Jews; and, ultimately, us.

I haven’t told this story in a long while.  I originally heard it from Dr. Millard Ferguson who taught philosophy at Southwestern.  It came out of his experiences as a pastor.  

Shortly after he had baptized a young boy in his church, the youngster became gravely ill.  The boy, who was about nine, was not expected to live very long.  His father spent as much time with him as he could, reading to him, and just sitting with him in the hospital.  

One day, as the end of the boy’s life neared, the father came to Ferguson.  He said he needed advice.  His son had asked, “Dad, why is God letting this happen to me?”  The father said he knew he couldn’t pass it off to the pastor so he answered it the best he could.   Now, he was afraid he hadn’t given a very good answer.

Naturally, Ferguson asked, “What did you say?”

“Well,” the father said, “I told him, ‘Son, I don’t know why this is happening, I just know it doesn’t mean God has stopped loving you.’”

The future philosophy professor said, “I can’t think of a better answer.” 

“His love lasts,” as The Message says, that’s reason to be thankful.

CONCLUSION

So, is Thanksgiving a “non-religious” holiday or a “religious” holiday?  Must it be one or the other?  We are both a religious people and a secular people.  We Christians are part of the “saecularis ,” the age in which we live, “the world.” The Bible is not so quick to separate life into the sacred and the secular as we are.  The Bible tells us God shows up in both places.  “The rain,” Jesus said, “falls on the just and the unjust.”  The atheist farmer benefits from the rain God sends, even if he’d never imagine saying, “Thank you, Lord” as his crops drink up the water.

The joy we feel as “our” team takes the field, even when they don’t leave the field as victors is a gift of God.  The love we feel as family and friends crowd around the table to eat more than they should is a gift of God.  The peace we feel as we contemplate the leftovers and file away new memories is a gift of God.  And, perhaps, the hope we feel as we set out to begin the quest for Christmas presents is also a gift of God.

And what if your Thanksgiving isn’t the Hallmark card holiday.  You can be thankful that God is who he is and “his steadfast love lasts forever.”

So, as you count your blessings, remember the Who of Thanksgiving.  Remember the God whose love endures, the God whose good purpose for you cannot be thwarted by circumstances, the God you may know.

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Generations

Acts 2:1-4;   12-21 (Esp. vs. 17)

We were visiting Dave and Kelly in Austin when we saw an ad for a new church, a disturbing ad.  It said something like this:  “We have a great nursery and children’s program so you won’t be bothered by children in the service.”  Puzzled by the intensity of that statement, I mentioned it to a pastor friend when I got back. He said there was a movement in some churches to create child-free services since many modern parents want breaks from their kids.

I’m not sure how that attitude resonates with the founder of the church, the One famous for saying, “Suffer the little children to come to me.” 

I actually like children in the services.  If they make an occasional bit of noise, we will survive.  I remind myself that I’m the adult.  I accept my preaching may enliven Charlotte or put Ezekiel to sleep but they’re just demonstrating they already have distinctive personalities.  (The matter of whether females pay more attention in church than males is a question beyond my pay scale.)

Speaking of younger generations, one of the memories I’ll take with me involves our youth mission trip to Benton Harbor in that state up north (Michigan).  A last minute change of plans sent us there instead of Toronto where SARS was a threat.  In Benton Harbor we were going to paint houses and conduct some children’s services—routine mission-trip stuff.  Instead, we found ourselves in a city gripped by rioting, homes being burned, and confrontations with the police—all during the week we were there.

Looking back, I can see some parallels to this text.

We were in an upper room—the third floor of the Salvation Army.

We were united in prayer—especially when we thought of the riots only a few blocks away.

There was the sound of a mighty rushing wind—of course, that was only the police helicopters patrolling all night.

When the rioting made national news, some churches demanded their groups return home.  Our youth wanted to stay so we did. For all of us, young and old, it was a memorable experience.  

 This leads me to this historically significant text.  This verse has been used by Pentecostals to explain their distinctive theology.  It has been cited repeatedly through the centuries to defend women in ministry.  New Testament scholars have pointed to it to define “last days.” Today I want to use it to underscore the multi-generational character of the church.

Of course, the church has always been made up of more than just one generation.  That’s to be expected.   Things are different now. 

In the past, most churches had only two well-represented generations in the congregation.  Today, there may be three or four.

Unlike the past, when one generation was pretty much like the next, today’s generations can be very different from each other.  The differences are real and can lead to conflict and misunderstandings.  Let me suggest a few.

• Generally speaking, the younger generations are less loyal to a denomination than the older generations.  For this reason, when your children move away they may look for a church that ministers to their needs, regardless of its denominational affiliation.

• Generally speaking, the younger generations are more interested in mission/service opportunities close to home rather than those half a world away.  They are not as likely to be interested in seeing the slides or videos of church planting in Belize as their grandparents might be.  

• Generally speaking, the younger generations tend be more interested in developing relationships than building organizations.  

1. Each generation is to be valued.

According to the late Lewis Drummond, the several generations living now vary in their church attendance patterns.  The older the American the more likely that person will go to church.  The younger the American, the less likely they will go to church.

When young people show up at church, we should rejoice.

Keep this in mind: The pull to be indifferent to the church is strong but those who resist it form the pool out of which a future generation of church leaders will come.  And  it may be they have the potential to do something great, because they’ve already demonstrated they possess the capacity to go against the stream.  

But they’ll need guidance and encouragement, along with an opportunity to discover and develop their own gifts.

A multi-generational fellowship is valuable to the church.

1.  Multi-generational fellowship reminds us that age does not limit usefulness in the Kingdom of God.

 This passage from Peter’s sermon, a quotation from the prophet Joel, reminds us that no one is a second-class Christian by reason of gender, social status, or age.

There’s lots we can say about this promise but I want underscore what it says to people of all ages.  It says that the old maxim “Christian youth are the church of tomorrow” isn’t quite right;   in the nature of things, they’ll probably have more tomorrows than some of us should expect, but they are also the church of today.

At the same time, any suggestion Christian seniors have outgrown their value is off-base as well.  It they maintain an openness to the Spirit and a willingness to use their gifts for the good of the whole church, they will continue to contribute.

A church that discounts the value of any generation will miss God’s blessing.

2.  Multi-generational fellowship keeps us in touch with the traditions and values of the past.

We’ve all heard of the churches with brass bands and “worship teams” but here’s something you may not know.  Some of the most exciting churches, churches reaching people who’ve never shown any interest in most churches, have returned to practices from earlier generations.  For example, the worship services in these churches make use of candles and silence.

Not every church will take such a “retro” step but churches where there are senior adults have a recourse for recalling what was valuable in the past.

3.  Multi-generational fellowship opens our imaginations to fresh ways of doing things.

One Sunday, as a young man and his father left a worship service, the young man complained that the music hadn’t been very inspiring.  His father said, “If you think you can do it better, do it.”  Isaac Watts did just that.

He revolutionized church music.  Though he composed his hymns in the early eighteenth century we still sing some of them.  He set a precedent for using the fresh ways to express the Christian message.

New ideas can come from any generation.  What’s important is keeping our hearts and minds open to see how God might be leading us to a new freshness.

4.  Multi-generational fellowship can provide perspective in the midst of challenge.

Have you ever encountered a group of young, inexperienced Christian “Chicken Littles” who have taken the newest anti-Christian book or movie as proof the ecclesiastical sky is falling? 

One of my earliest memories of Christian radio was my mother listening to it as she worked in the kitchen.  I remember those preachers thundering against the communist menace.  They darkly spoke of how communism would destroy the church.  It didn’t.

Years later, the threat was secular humanism.  Secular humanism, we were told, would be the death of the church.  It wasn’t.

These threats weren’t insignificant, but they weren’t enough to destroy the entity about which Jesus said, “the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.”  Time provides perspective in the face of such threats.  

Older, more-experienced Christians can help younger Christians see the newest threats for what they are, old, defeated enemies with new faces.

5.  Multi-generational fellowship can inspire hope for the future.

Is there anything more disheartening than listening to a squad of sour seniors?  As they wait to head off to heaven they complain about the younger generation and declare the world to be going….  Never mind where they think the world is going.  Suffice it to say the trip involves a hand-basket.

I went on three mission trips with the youth from our church.   They were weeks of heat, hard work, poor sleep, and bad food.  I would recommend the experience to each of you.

While on these trips I met young men and women from other places and other churches as well.  I was encouraged about the future of the church.

I believe the majority of those young people were there to honor God and discover how they could put their faith into action.  Watching them would give anyone hope for the future.

Observations and Conclusion:

Almost a quarter-century after Peter preached his message on Pentecost, Paul wrote a trio of letters to two pastors, Timothy and Titus.  The letters point to the ideal relationship of the generations and hint that it wasn’t easy to maintain it.

Paul instructed Timothy:  “Let no man despise thy youth.”  Here are a couple other translations.  The New Century Version says, “Do not let anyone treat you as if you were unimportant because you are young.”  The New American Bible says, “Let no one have contempt for your youth…”

We don’t know how old Timothy was;  he need not have been young by our standards.  But, still, there appear to have been some who felt free to show their contempt because of his youth.

The remainder of the verse makes clear the best antidote to this disrespect is a life of Christian integrity.  But, still, there will be those who disrespect and distrust the young.  That’s not the Christian ideal.

Of course, some might imagine Paul writing today and saying to a sixty-something pastor, “Let no one despise your grey hair.”  In fact, Paul did instruct Timothy to show respect for older Christians, even when he disagreed with them.  When I reviewed those scriptures, I noticed how Paul both called for younger Christians to respect older Christians and for older Christians to be respectable.

Christianity did not produce an ancestor-venerating culture where the presence of grey-hair guarantees wisdom.  You won’t sell that to today’s young people anyway, since they’ve seen too many “grey-hairs” caught in financial, political, and sexual scandals.

Nor did Christianity endorse today’s idolatry of youth.  It does not promote a culture where the promise a product will make you look twenty years younger can turn a quack who failed the chemistry final into a millionaire or that prompts a studio to relegate gifted actresses to playing the mother-in-law just because they’ve hit 45.  

Christianity produced something different from either.  When dealing with the matter of generations, Christianity tells us:

Of course, that’s a reflection of a principle basic to Christian morality, “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.”   

As a senior adult, you want to be valued; value the younger adults.  As a younger adult, you want to be valued; value the older adults.

This kind of mutual valuing means the younger Christian will fight the impulse to say, “I know it all.”  Then, too, so will the older Christian.

2.  Mutual respect, mutual valuing, will shape how one generation treats the other.

The older generation is not to take an antagonistic or competitive attitude toward the younger.  Instead, older Christians are to function as mentors for younger Christians.  Paul told Timothy the older women in his congregation weren’t to sit back and shake their heads at the mistakes the young moms were making.  They were to step up and say, “Let me see if I can help.”

Taking on the role of mentor means the time will come when you willingly and cheerfully hand the reins over to someone younger.  You don’t hold onto them just to prove you’re not past it, as the British would say.

Younger Christians are to be patient, ready to listen, ready to learn.  And this is tough: they are to show respect even when they disagree.  That doesn’t mean endorsing an idea that just won’t work but it means trying to work through to a compromise.

Youth doesn’t give you the privilege of ignoring the lessons of experience.

Age doesn’t give you the right to disregard the ideas of the young.

3.  In the Christian community, the way one generation treats another should mark the church as distinctively different from the larger culture.

Way back in the 1960s, before a computer could fit in your pocket or even on your desk corner, we began to hear a term to describe some of the tension so evident in society.  The term was “generation gap.”  It is defined as “a lack of communication between one generation and another.”  

When I hear the word “gap” I think of the signs you could still see on the London Underground when we visited.  They said, “Mind the Gap” and were a warning to be careful when stepping the short distance from the platform onto the train car.  It wasn’t a great distance; you could easily step over it.  You just had to remember it was there.

If there was a generation “gap” in the sixties, today we sometimes seem to have a generation chasm.  I recently heard a broadcast debate between members of my generation, “Baby Boomers,” and a couple “Millennials,” members of the last generation born in the 20th century.  As I listened I realized the Millennials could have easily complained, “You only think you know us.”  In the end, I doubt the participants had grown in understanding or respect.

That kind of generational alienation has no place in the church.  It is in some of our churches but it doesn’t belong there.  

Yes, we need to come to grips with our differences.  While some are just matters of taste others go beyond “You say to-mA-to, I say to-mah-to.”  There are genuine differences in understanding what it means to live Christianly.  For example, one generation sees missions as taking the light to the heathen living in darkness.  Another generation sees that vision as paternalistic and wants a less offensive way of sharing the gospel.

The differences won’t be bridged easily or quickly, but they can be bridged.  Joel’s promise, quoted by Peter, tells us the Spirit can bridge economic, social, gender, and generational chasms.  When that happens the church will once again become a place the culture looks at and says, “So, that’s how it’s done.”

Notwithstanding

NOTWITHSTANDING

Philippians 1:12-20

 After a customary but heartfelt introduction to his letter, Paul addresses a major concern the Philippians had about him.   They wondered how he was faring in prison.  In this passage Paul begins to tell them.

Philippians 1:12-20

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As I was preparing this message I began thinking about a song.  

It was one of Johnny Cash’s songs.  I don’t recall hearing it before his death but the refrain has stayed with me.  The song is about a love that went wrong.  I know that’s rare for a country song.  Anyway the refrain says, “I don’t like it but I guess things happen that way.”  It portrays a reluctant, even bitter, surrender to circumstances beyond the singer’s control.

Over the years you’ve learned I like to study words, particularly their root meanings.  

The word we’re looking at today comes from Latin roots.  "Circumstances"—literally means what encircles the place where we stand.  That's why some people feel hemmed in by their circumstances.

When troubled people say to you, “You just don’t know my circumstances,” they’re saying, “You’re not standing where I’m standing.”  That’s why it’s usually a bad idea to tell someone facing a crisis that you understand just what they’re going through.   Chances are you don’t.

Circumstances can refer to the place we're in, the people who surround us, the powerlessness we feel.

Take a look at Paul's circumstances as he wrote these words.

He was in prison.  No longer under simple house arrest.  He was in chains, possibly chained to a guard.

He was being watched by the Praetorian guard, the emperor’s elite bodyguard.  Imagine the swearing and course jokes in that environment.

Some Christian leaders were out to harm him. Sad but sometimes it happens that way.  Their identity isn't clear;  those who might have been expected to support him were opposing him.

He faces a possible death sentence.  With the unpredictable Nero on the throne he could have been executed on a whim.

We would understand if Paul had responded to his circumstances with gloominess and depression.

But, how did he respond?

1.  He responded with joy.  "I rejoice.  And, I will continue to rejoice."  [Paul uses "joy" or "rejoice" some 14 times in this brief letter.]

Here’s  Lawrence Richard talking about the Biblical idea of joy:

"The New Testament  sees joy as something that is independent of circumstances.  The believer's joy is found in the inner work of the Holy Spirit, who, despite trials or suffering, is bringing us salvation.  Thus joy, like peace, is rooted in trust in the Lord.  As for externals, the greatest source of joy for the Christian is found in serving other believers and in seeing God work in their lives."

 Paul demonstrated this quality so often he has sometimes been called, "the Joyful Christian."

2.  He responded with a God-given confidence.  Paul will return to the matter of his circumstances at the end of the letter.

I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed 

your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no 

opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I 

have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to 

be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret 

of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, 

whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who 

gives me strength.

Contentment is another interesting word.  We sometimes use it in an almost derogatory sense, as a synonym for complacency.  The Greeks used the word to suggest self-sufficiency.  That’s not how Paul is using the word.  Linking the word with what he says about his reliance on Christ for strength, Paul is actually saying, “With Christ, I’m up to my circumstances whatever they may be.”

Out of Paul’s testimony we learn some important lessons:  Circumstances notwithstanding we can have joy and confidence.

In the midst of tough circumstances…

I

We May Rely on Several Powerful Resources

1.  In adverse circumstances we should seek the prayers of the saints.  (19)

 Paul knew he needed prayer.

He especially sought their prayers that he might continue to proclaim the gospel with courage and integrity (20).  He knew the danger of compromise to make things just a little easier.  He knew that he could break under the pressure--without their prayers.

If you’re facing a difficult circumstance, have you done something as simple as ask someone to pray for you?  

2.  In adverse circumstances we should rely on the power of the Spirit.  (19)

The word translated “helps” means "abundant help."

For Paul, a man in prison for preaching the gospel, to mention the help given by the Spirit has a special significance. Remember, Jesus had promised that the Spirit would give help to Christians facing hostile judges.  (Mark 13:11  "Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.")

The Spirit gives help to those praying in times of difficulty and confusion.  (Romans 8:26  In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.)

  Sometimes, in the midst of adverse circumstances, we Christians seem to suffer from a kind of spiritual amnesia.  We forget Christ has given us the gift of his Spirit, the One who can provide "abundant power" to enable us to face what we must face.

As we rely on the prayers of caring fellow believers and on the power of the Spirit…

II

How Should We Respond to Tough Circumstances?

How did Paul respond to his circumstances?  His response forms a pattern for us.  If we follow his pattern what will we do in the midst of adverse circumstances?

1.  Respond to adverse circumstances  by keeping your eyes open for God's surprises.

Could we have blamed Paul had he written said something like this?

“They’ve put me in this cell and I’m surrounded by all kinds of obstacles.  You know,  many times I stood on the deck of a ship, with the wind in my hair and the sea-spray on my face.  I would stand there looking at the horizon, trying to see some new place to preach the good news about Jesus.

“Now all that’s gone.  I’m stuck here in this cell and I can’t do anything.  I might as well die.”

Did Paul say that?  No, he said something like this.

“They’ve put me in this cell and I’m surrounded by all kinds of opportunities.  I can pray, I can think, I can witness.  And there’s one more thing I can do—get me some paper and pens.”

  While he was in prison, Paul prayed.  In each of the prison epistles he reports spending time in prayer for the churches.

  While he was in prison Paul witnessed.  In this passage he speaks of his witness to the guards, elsewhere we learn that he led the runaway slave Onesimus to Christ while he was in prison.

  While he was in prison Paul had time to think.  Consider what he wrote from his prison—Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians—letters which contain some of his most profound thought.  Later, when he is once again in prison, he will ask Timothy to bring him his “books and parchments.”  

  While he was in prison Paul wrote.  Paul couldn’t go to the churches he loved, but he could write to them.  He could communicate his passion for Christ through the written word.  He could advise and challenge them.

Centuries later Baptist John Bunyan went to prison repeatedly for his faith.  In prison, he wrote fourteen books, including the classic Pilgrim’s Progress.

    While he was in prison Paul had a positive impact on the larger Christian community.  Somehow, in some way, Christians outside the prison had been encouraged to share the gospel. (14)  With Paul in prison we might have expected them to be afraid;  instead, they witnessed more vigorously.  

In your tough circumstances have you let God surprise you?  

Listen, the circumstances you’re facing may be beyond my capacity to understand, I won’t pretend to understand.  But I know God understands.  

Let the God who understands surprise you in th4e midst of your circumstances.  I will he surprise you?  I don’t know.  If I did, it wouldn’t be a surprise.

He may surprise you with a song.  Many of our most beloved hymns were written by ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with God.  He may surprise you with a new friend.  He may surprise you with a new sense of purpose.  Let him choose the surprise. 

2.  Respond to adverse circumstances by maintaining a positive perspective.

There are two words here which are very instructive.  "some-most".   

  Some opposed Paul, most supported him.

  Some rejoiced at his imprisonment, most prayed for him to be released.

  Some saw themselves as his rivals, most saw themselves as his coworkers.

  Some were negative about the church and were ready to give up;  most were positive about the church, believing its greatest days were ahead.

It’s been a long time since I worked in the “secular” world, but I suspect one discovery I made is still true:  In most workplaces the decent, hardworking people outnumber the jerks.

If your circumstance takes you to the hospital, that’s a tough thing to face.  You may meet doctors and nurses who are indifferent.  Yet, I’ve been around hospitals enough to realize that the staff members who care outnumber the ones only going through the motions.

Don’t let your circumstances blind you to the good people around you.  Don’t let your circumstances cause you to withdraw. 

3.  Respond to adverse circumstances by evaluating your circumstances in light of what is truly important.

What was important to Paul?  Comfort?  Freedom?

For Paul the most important thing was the proclamation of the gospel.  He was pleased that his supporters were inspired to share the gospel.  He was even pleased that those who opposed him were, nonetheless, sharing the gospel of Christ.  (15-18)

The identity of those who opposed Paul is not certain.  They would not have been any of the false teachers.  Frank Theilman comments,  "These rivals to Paul...seem to oppose the apostle for personal reasons and to have used Paul's imprisonment as an opportunity to advance their personal agendas."

Paul was not saying the motives of preachers was unimportant;  he is saying that their personal opinion of him was unimportant.   

This practice of evaluating what is happening around us in light of what is most important to us can give us a whole new perspective on our circumstances.

Almost inevitably, when storm survivors are interviewed, we hear two types of response.  One person will be  devastated and say, "We've lost everything!"  Another, whose home may have also been destroyed will say,  "Things can be replaced, our family got away safely."

What if what the circumstances do touch what is most important to you?  At that point you must...

4.  Respond to adverse circumstances by quietly submitting the God whose intent to accomplish our good cannot be twarted.

Paul could have raged against God but didn't.  He hoped for freedom but submitted all to God.  Whether his "deliverance" came in this life or the next, he would leave the matter to God.

By the way, there’s an important principle seen here.  If you are in bad circumstances, there is nothing wrong about yearning to be in a better place.

Why did Paul submit?  He saw the wisdom of going with God.  Homer Kent once wrote, "By ways that could never have been foreseen by man alone, God had accomplished within the space of thirty short years the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ from its humble beginnings in obscure Judea to its defense before Caesar at the center of the Empire."  In the midst of his tough circumstances, Paul remembered what we sometimes forget in the midst of our tough circumstances: No circumstance is tough for God.

This raises a critical question: In your difficult circumstances, is a rebel flag waving above your heart or have you surrendered to the sovereign God?

Conclusion

Let me tell you about a woman I met years ago.  

She was a Christian but never really had much use for the church.  I suspect she believed most preachers were frauds or, hopelessly, impractical in what they had to say.  She spent most of her life with the “some-most” formula reversed.

She had had her share of sorrows, but really no more than many others have faced.  While most people understood that some sorrow and loss is a tragic, but not unprecedented, part of life, she seemed to think that each tragedy was aimed especially at her.  

While most of us have both good and bad memories, she seemed only able to remember the bad.  She once told me that she had relived each day of her life by just thinking about it.  I never met anyone better able to see the negative side of anything.

Her husband died and she never stopped blaming him for leaving her.  During the twenty years following his death, her family encouraged her to make friends, travel, get involved with a church.  To each suggestion, she responded, in effect, “You just don’t know my circumstances.”

If someone pointed out that her husband had left her financially comfortable, with a nice house, in a quiet, safe community where she had close family members, she would respond by saying, “I never wanted to move here.”

If someone got tough and pointed out she was in relatively good health, compared to many her age, and might want to “count her blessings,” she would say, “What blessings?”

She let her circumstances throw a shadow over her whole life.  Because she refused to see beyond those circumstances, she lost her friends, failed to get to know her grandchildren, and never knew the joy of being part of a Christian fellowship.  The circumstance won.

Are you facing some tough circumstances?

Do you feel surrounded by those cheering for your failure and defeat?

Have you peeked at the next page of the calendar

and

seen only a large question mark?

Isn't wonderful to know we can face our circumstances with confidence and joy