What are you THANKFUL for?

What are you THANKFUL for?

Just take a moment to share with the person next to you one thing you’re thankful for today!

As we get towards the end of the year, it’s a good time to do some reflecting, some looking back, some remembering.

When we do that we might find some things that weren’t so good, that we didn’t enjoy > maybe a health battle through the year, a personal setback, a relational challenge, something that didn’t go as well as you’d hoped. Sure we do find those things, but this is also a practice of being thankful, being grateful.

Just taking a moment to think about what we have, what’s good in our lives, and of course even when that’s hard to see we can consider how God is working among us, what he’s teaching us, what we’re learning about him and his ways, what we’re learning about ourselves too.

My example is an obvious one > I know I continue on the same track a bit but these are truly things I’m thankful for! My son being born this year, a new addition to our family, this strange thing when you see yourself and even some of your family traits in the face of someone else. 

You might hear me go on about my family and it might sound all ‘warm and fuzzy’…

Now I don’t know if this is a thing at youth camps up here but on the youth camps I went to over in Western Australia and in SA, we had a thing called ‘warm fuzzies.’ 

When you got to the camp you would be given a paper bag – not for throwing up in! You’d write your name on the bag, decorate it if you wanted to, then hang it on the wall for the duration of camp. Throughout the days of camp people would write ‘warm fuzzies’ for each other, little notes to leave in each others’ bags. Often you’d get a bit of boy & girl crushes and things going on there, but you’d also get really kind and encouraging words, feedback, bible verses from your leaders or other campers and it would make you feel all ‘warm and fuzzy!

Now sharing about my family is warm and fuzzy for me, but there’s more to it than just that – there are challenges! Like dirty nappies, lack of sleep, feeling a bit tired or worn out, the hard work of looking after small children, plenty more developments to come in that department! 

Not only that though > small children teach you things don’t they. We might not think of it that way too often – we’re supposed to be teaching them right?!

But small children see the world in a way we don’t, maybe we used to but we don’t any more. They teach us things about life we might have forgotten, they teach us things about ourselves we might not have known before. Small children help us to learn about the world all over again, through their eyes – a very cool thing. Plenty to be thankful for there, in the joys and in the challenges.

So this thankfulness, we hear about thankfulness in our second reading today >

And just before we get into our passage today – this one’s a bit of a ‘compliment sandwich’ we could say – you know what I mean by that? There’s a nice thing at the start and a nice thing at the end, with maybe a bit of a hard thing to hear in the middle…

So firstly Paul says ‘we should always thank God for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord’ (2 Thess 2:13)

It is a good thing to be and to have brothers and sisters loved by the Lord. That’s God’s family, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. To belong together in community, to be part of a shared mission of receiving and living out the love Jesus has for us. To celebrate with each other, to comfort each other, to walk alongside each other. Very good things, maybe not always glamorous, maybe not always easy, but absolutely things to be thankful for. 

And Paul goes further, he asks ‘why this thankfulness?’ 

Because God chose you as ‘firstfruits,’ to be saved by the Spirit and through belief in the truth (2:13).

‘Firsfruits’ as in ones who have heard the good news, ones who know it and live it and from where more seeds of faith can be planted and grow. 

Encouraging words there, but Paul also highlights how this happens > how being a ‘firsfruit’ comes about.

Not by works but by faith, faith in the work of the Spirit. Not by being excellent, achieving heaps of things, doing everything right all the time, but putting that energy, that trust not in ourselves but in the work of the Spirit, through belief in the truth. 

And what’s the truth here? The truth is that we get to ‘share in the glory of our Lord Jesus’ (2:14). Believing this life-changing truth, knowing this to be true in our hearts and minds. Not excluded from God’s glory but part of it. Amazing.

So there’s some encouragement in our passage today – and a bit more that I’ll get to in a moment – but there’s also some other things here – this is the hard to hear bit, the middle of the ‘compliment sandwich!’ 

Here there’s also mention of a ‘rebellion occurring,’ of a ‘man of lawlessness’ turning up, a warning from Paul to watch out for false teaching on these things. What’s that all about we might ask…

The verses not included in our passage today talk about how Jesus will overthrow this ‘man of lawlessness,’ ‘with the breath of his mouth and the splendour of his coming’ (2:8). 

So we’re talking about the end times here aren’t we, Paul’s warning the Thessalonians not to get caught up in false teachings about such things, but instead focus on what God says about them. Same advice applies to us doesn’t it!

We might be tempted to look around and try to figure out who this ‘man of lawlessness’ is, if he’s already among us doing lawless things, calling himself more important than God. But to do that would actually be to go against what Paul is saying here > trust in what God says, not being led by what we see in the world around us but by God’s word, God’s truth which is our truth.

We won’t necessarily know who this ‘man of lawlessness’ will be, but we do hear about what he does > why?

So we can guard against doing the same things ourselves.

God is the final judge, and he will make his judgments as he sees fit – not as we see fit, this is his domain! These things belong in God’s hands, not ours but his.

After touching on this Paul goes back to some more words of encouragement for us, interesting how his encouragements come in the midst of a warning against false teaching…

This is a bit like what Jesus says to the crowd who try to test him in our gospel reading (Luke 20:27-38):

Jesus talks about how God sees things differently to the way we do > the sort of territory we’re in here is very much where we hand it over to God, some of this stuff is not so easy to hear or to work with. This is where we need his guidance, and where we can get some help from other parts of God’s word.

Jesus says how marriage is for us in this life, but people will no longer marry not be given in marriage in the ‘age to come and in the resurrection of the dead.’ So we might be a bit unsure about what that means, good to wrestle with what Jesus is saying, but we can also go to other words on this to help us know a bit more about what will be happening in these times, a helpful passage on this from Revelation 7:17 >

‘For the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd (that’s Jesus); ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’ 

Jesus will be there, living water, tears wiped away. 

In the midst of sadness God brings joy. He is a God for his people, not only above them but for them, whose love, whose greatness is more than we can fathom as we said in our psalm today.

It seems like Paul is conscious of some of the heavy stuff he’s talking about here, because he really emphasizes his encouragement for the people. 

He wants them to know, in the midst of difficult things, that God’s love and grace and encouragement and hope are all still at work.

Difficult words come up, but God’s love, grace, encouragement and hope remain.

When we’re struggling to find things to be thankful for, God’s love, grace, encouragement and hope remain.

And even when we doubt, or we don’t understand what God’s teaching us in any given moment, STILL God’s love, grace, encouragement and hope remain.

To finish off today I want to use the words of our passage (2 Thess 2:16) as a few words of blessing for us, good to speak and to hear words of blessing over each other, remembering God is a God who has blessings to give his people:

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. Amen //