Give Thanks in All Circumstances

“Give thanks in all circumstances.” I Thessalonians 5 18 Rev. Vers.
“In everything give thanks.” King James Version

On this Thanksgiving Sunday, there comes to me a challenge from across the years. The challenge goes like this: “Give thanks in all circumstances.” Now you expect that these were the words of a man who lived in a very easy life. Nobody who had really tasted the cup of life to its bitterest dregs, would ever mix such a statement.

“Give thanks in all circumstances.”

Give thanks in sickness and bereavement. Give thanks when unemployment crowds in upon you and the bills pile up. Give things when your best friend let you down, our when you have pulled a boner that has your best friend down. Really this word is certainly that of an unrealistic dreamer. “Give thanks in all circumstances.” Be a realistic man. Take off your gray flannel suit: come down out of your ivory tower and be a realist.

On the contrary, however, these are not the words of a man who dressed in a gray flannel suit and lived in a penthouse or an ivory tower. These were the words of a man who was not always prone to thanksgiving. At one time, he felt self-sufficient—he was going to turn the world upside down at all by himself. He had singled himself out as a great defender of the face, Heritage and nationhood of his fathers. Single-handed he was going to wipe out every threat to their heritage that was his. She would begin by wiping out the followers of the Nazarene. But, he did not conquer the woolly Nazarene. Instead he was conquered by this one to be came to him the Christ, the son of God, the Savior of the world and of his life.

But you say—be a realist. How can you give thanks in every circumstance. However, these are the words realist if there ever was one. He had tasted of life as few men have. These are the words of a man who are in the occasion of his first witness to his faith, became a hated person I his former friends, and suspected by those with whom he had identified himself. At the outset they had to spirit him away and let him down over the wall in a basket that he might escape. These were the words of a man who had to flee for his life from Iconic: then in Lystra he was stoned and dragged out of the city and left for dead. He was imprisoned at Philippi after a severe beating. He was the center of a riot at Ephesus. He was arrested in his native Jerusalem. He was sent to Rome as a prisoner. On the way he was shipwrecked in Malta. He was bitten by a poisonous viper and finally in Rome languished in prison for a long time, before he was ultimately beheaded.

Nor was this all. He was afflicted with an eye disease that made him obnoxious to look upon. He was the victim of jealous friends, who criticized him and tried to discredit his work. He was the center of much controversy, because of his burning zeal to take the gospel to the Gentiles. But in all this he could say: “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

Now the Greek word that Paul uses here in this phrase is a very interesting one. In the first place, it is somewhat familiar word Eucharisto, from which we get the word for the Lord’s supper: Eucharist. This word is made up of two words: Eu and Charis. Actually the word Eu means good or well done. The word Charis is the word for Grace, what is God’s free favor showing to us. . More than this, the Greek word is in the present tense. The present tense in the Greek conveys the idea of action continually going on in present time. In other words, hey good translation of this phrase would be: “Keep on giving thanks in all circumstances.”

Now, there is a great deal of theology behind this verse. You’ll have to go back to the eighth chapter of Romans and hear Paul say:

We know that and everything God works for good, with those who love him are called according to his purpose.”content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abundance and want. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4 verse 11 to 13.)

And again and the same book he said: “I want you to know, Brother and, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the Gospel.” (Philippians 1 verse 12.) “In all circumstances, give thanks.” Why? Because, God is at work in our lives for good. What is happening to us is really for the advance of the Gospel.

No really, this great Spirit of Paul is certainly deeply rooted in our heritage. This week we will all go back in history to the great day at the pilgrims. I don’t want you to think for a moment that these programs had an easy time just as soon as they landed in this land Of milk and honey. As Gov. Bradford later wrote:

The whole country, for love with some tickets, represented a wild and savage hue. If they look behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed and was now as a main goal and bar to separate them from all the civil parts of the world. What could sustain them but the Spirit of God and his grace? May not an are not the children of these fathers rightly say: “Our fathers came over the great ocean, and were ready to perish in the wilderness, but they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and heard their voices and looked on their adversity. Lets them therefore praise the Lord because he is good and his mercies into her forever.”

Stand with the group of thin, emaciated prisoners in the hellish Daschau prison camp, which was the worst horror that Hitler could invent. It is Christmas 1944. My Christmas is celebrated in a prison, by half starved, diseased and dying people it is a dismal affair. Martin Niemoller, sunken-eyed, hungry and sick stands up to speak to the prisoners who are just as tragically broken as he is. But, and she recalls the name of Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, his eye carries a new glint of courage, and his voice favorites with new strength as he says:

We are not alone amid the horrors of these years, cut off as we are from the outside world. We are in the hands of God—the god of Jesus Christ, who is with us in this dismal lonely place, to up hold and comfort us and keep hope alive in our hearts.

“In all circumstances, give thanks.”

Suzie M Best put this so beautifully in her poem:

Thanksgiving:

Lord, I give thanks!
Last year that I notice my ambitions failed,,
My back with scourging of defeat was flailed;
My eyes filled off the sharp, salt wash of tears,
No guerdon blast the tireless toilet of years,
Fast in the snares of my helpless feet were tied,
Yet in my woes without its with me abide.
Lord, I give thanks.

Lord I give thanks!
Last year my one ship came back to me,
They ruined wreck of what she used to be,
No cargo in her hold, storm-strained and scarred,
Oh, Lord, thou knowest that it was hard, was hard,
To watch her drifting hulk with hopeless eyes,
Yet, in the desolation thou wert nigh,
Lord, I give thanks.

Lord, I give thanks!
Last year the one I love the dearest died,
And like a desert waste became the wide,
And weary world. Love’s last star went out.
Lord, I give thanks.

During World War II, St. Phillip’s Church of London was shattered by bombs. There are many who thought the church could never be rebuilt, for there was little to salvage. The brave and dedicated people went to work. Once again they raised a spire with its cross bearing testimony to all the world. At the rededication of the rebuilt cathedral there was a drama given as part of the service. The prologue of the drama sounded these words:

There lives a beauty that men cannot kill and that shall kill all ugliness at last. Yes, God lives! Let people who work for good, for truth and for hope give thanks. Our struggles will not end in defeat. Sacrifices will not be lost. God lives! God is the victory!

But now let us look at our lives again. “Give thanks in all circumstances,” says the apostle Paul. Now the other day I heard someone say: “I just can’t think of a thing for which I can be thankful.” He was a man living in a fine house with a good family, a job, and was a member of a church. He just about everything an average American can be. Yet he could not find anything for which to be thankful. Someone described our generation as a people who are like hey herd of swine: “Gutted, gorged and full.” We have taken life for granted, and entirely. In our plenty and our ease, we have become a generation of grumblers.

Someone said to me the other day: “You know down at work I get so depressed. All people talk about his depression and low wages. They just gripe, gripe, gripe. And certainly, this attitude is telling on our generation. We are killing more with our automobiles than we ever killed in war. We have developed more new diseases in our generation than the world ever dreamed of. Mental illness has become the chronic disease of our times. Well I could go on and on. What is our trouble. I think a crying trouble of our times is just this thing that Paul was driving up. We have lost faith in God—a God who is working out all things for the good in our lives—even when we are imprisoned and beaten and deprived and suffer want.

I want you to know, brother that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

We are the children of pilgrim fathers. See them as they leave the Mayflower to stand on a new shore with all its perils and its hardships. Food is running low. Scurvy threatens. Indians lurk in the woods. They built an altar like Noah of old and the left the ark to find a new world. They gave thanks to God who brought them this far. They believed God would see them through.

We going to advent season this week. The central theme of the advent season is this: “His name shall be called Emanuel,” meaning God is with us. God is with us! He is walking down the road. In all things, his hand is leading. All things are working together for good. Therefore, “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

There is something about Thanksgiving that does something to us. It takes the frown off our face, the fear in our heart and the grumblings off our lips. It puts a confidence and boisterousness in our lives that makes all the difference. It is this kind of boisterousness and high spirit that makes for healthy people. He puts the heart back into the center of our lives.

“Give thanks in all circumstances!” I can hear Paul say: “Give thanks in all circumstances,” for the ultimate victory is assured. As he later saw at Patmos when he said: “And I John saw the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven is a bright adoring
for her husband … behold the tabernacle of God is with man—the kingdoms of this
world are become the kingdoms of our God.”

Paul can say: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me hey crown of righteousness.”

Victor Hugo cut division when he wrote:

For Half a century I have been writing my thoughts inprocess and verse. But I feel I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me. When I go down to the grave, I can say like many others, I finish my day’s work. But I cannot say, I’ve finished my life. My day’s work will begin again the next morning. The life is not a blind alley, it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight and opens on the dawn.

This is the faith by which we live. His faith in God and in Christ who is bringing in his eternal kingdom. We are together Sharing in that work. The kingdom may be slow in coming. Our task may be discouraging. Our burden may be heavy. But ever in our eyes their glimmers that eternal light. We pray with real faith, may that kingdom come, knowing that it will. For God is at work in our lives and in our world, and he will accomplish his task. This makes her burden is lighter in our task easier—for these are for the advance of the Gospel—we are the heralds of his kingdom.

“We give thanks in all circumstances.” For God is at work, in all our lives.