Craig Smith - Peace Isn't Passive
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Well, it’s great to be back with you this weekend. Last weekend, Claud and I were in Ohio. We were packing up my mom and my sister, getting ready for the movers to come and move them here to Colorado to be close to us. Yeah. My dad passed a little over three years ago, and my mom’s doing well, but she had back surgery last spring, and it was a lot more complicated of a recovery than we expected. So Claud and I were doing a lot of back-and-forth flying, and it was just hard to take care of her. Last fall, I had what I thought would be a hard conversation. I basically said, «Hey, what do you think about maybe moving out to Colorado to be closer to us?» We talked about it for a little while, and then, to my surprise, she said, «Yeah, I think I’m ready to move.»
Now, that was a year ago. Because it turns out that being ready to move and being ready to move are two very different things. She’s ready in her heart, but she was not ready in the house. Okay. She’s done really well. She had a lot of work to do after my dad passed. My dad was a high-ranking Air Force officer with a really high-stress job. When he retired, he decided, «I’m going to go the opposite direction of the high-stress job.» So his main job after retiring was going to auctions and garage sales and buying…let’s go with stuff.
I think the idea was that he was going to sell it, but a lot of times he didn’t. He had weird collections. For example, he had around 150 guns, and that’s not all that unusual, I get that. But 150? He wasn’t a prepper; that was the thing — he wasn’t really a gun nut. He just had 150 guns and around a thousand knives. I’m not even kidding; I think there were over a thousand knives. He also had over a hundred harmonicas. Okay. But then we discovered he had a big chest full of 11 accordions. I don’t know anybody who needs one accordion, let alone 11 of them, right? So my mom, for the last several years, has been cleaning and getting things out of the house. She’s done a great job with that, but we got there and spent about a week going, «Yeah, there’s still a lot of work to be done.»
And if I can, this is a little bit of a tortured metaphor. Can I give you a little bit of a tortured metaphor? What are you going to say? No? I was thinking about it and realized it’s a little bit like that with God. There’s a difference between being ready for God to move and being ready for God to move. I wonder how many of us are ready for God to move. We want God to move; we want there to be a healing we’re looking for, a relationship we want reconciled, a breakthrough we’re expecting, or a blessing that we’re longing for. How many of us are ready for God to move in our lives? Yeah. But I wonder how many of us are actually ready for God to move. Maybe the heart’s ready, but is the house ready?
That’s what I want to talk to you about today. If you follow along, we’re going to be in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, picking up in verse 12. We’re finishing up the book of First Thessalonians today. It’s always interesting to see how different writers in the New Testament, especially, ended their books because here’s one thing I know: last words are of first importance. When I was a speaker and was traveling, I would often gather my kids right before I walked out of the house and tell them some important things. Everything in the book of First Thessalonians has been important; it’s all important. I would say, «Take care of each other, don’t fight, and help your mom.» All those are important things. But the last thing I said was always the most important thing, and almost always that last thing was, «I love you.» Right? That was the most important thing because last words are of first importance.
So it’s always interesting to me to see how God inspired writers in the New Testament to end their books. Those last words are always really interesting to me. And Paul’s last words to the church at Thessalonica are fascinating. This was what was most important. He said, «Look, everything I’ve said matters, but this is what matters most. Do not miss this.» He says, «Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord, and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.»
And I want you to underline those last few words: Live in peace with each other. The reason I want you to do that is because I want you to understand that those are not additional commands. It’s not like he said, «I want you to do this and this and this, and then also this.» It’s not that «live in peace with each other» is an addition; it’s the foundation. It’s the foundation of everything he’s going to say to us in this last passage. Okay? This «live in peace» is the foundation of everything he’s going to say. He’s going to tell us how to have peace with each other.
And here’s why peace is so important. Here’s why we’re going to see it come up over and over again in this passage: because peace invites the presence. You might want to write that down: Peace invites the presence. Peace invites the presence of God. In fact, everybody say it with me: «Peace invites the presence.» If you want to experience the presence of God, if you want God to move in your life, if that’s true in your heart, here’s how you get the house ready: You pursue peace because peace invites the presence. And that’s not just something Paul’s saying right here; it’s a theme we see throughout scripture. It’s interesting.
I think about David. Anybody remember David, right? David and Goliath. David, right? He’s the great warrior, and that’s kind of what he was known for. He was an incredible warrior, right? Obviously, he took down Goliath. As a military commander, part of the conflict he had with Saul — who was the first king — Israel wasn’t supposed to have a king, but they were like, «We really want a king.» So God gave them a king, and they picked the guy who stood a head taller than everybody. They picked by, you know, outward appearance. And Saul very quickly showed himself not to be a very good king. Then God anointed David, and as David rose up as a military commander, there was a source of jealousy around David’s military success.
In fact, one of the things that people would sing was they would say, «Saul has destroyed his thousands, but David his tens of thousands.» Saul did not like that. That produced a lack of peace in their relationship because jealousy is a pretty quick path to the loss of peace, right? But that’s what he was known for: his military conquests, his incredible one-on-one victories like taking down Goliath, right? And here’s the thing to understand: it was good stuff. God led him to those battles and blessed him in the battles. God gave him what he needed to have those victories. It was all anointed by God.
That’s important to understand because what is very interesting about David’s life is that near the end of his life, David said, «I need to build a temple for God.» He said, «It’s not right that I live in a palace, but the ark of God, which, you know, is symbolic of the presence of God, is still living in a tent. I’m living in a palace; He’s still living in a tent. That’s not good. I need to build a temple.» And God said, «No, David, you’re not going to build the temple. It’s a fine idea, but you’re not the one to build it.»
It’s very interesting what God spoke to David through the prophet Nathan: «Here’s the problem, David. You’re a man of war, and you have shed much blood.» But remember, God led him into those battles. God blessed him in the battles. And yet God said, «Because you are a man of war and you have shed much blood, you’re not going to build the temple. Your son Solomon will build the temple.» God said he is a man of peace.
See, peace invites the presence. Jesus said, «Hey, you know that temple? When you’re going to the temple to give an offering to God, but on the way, you remember that there’s somebody who has something against you, that there’s a lack of peace in your relationship. Stop. Don’t go to the temple. Don’t enter into the presence. Go and make peace. Go and be reconciled to that person. And then, when you have peace, you can go into the presence.» See, peace invites the presence of God. And there’s this very interesting kind of tension-or I don’t know if «tension» is exactly the right word — but it’s sort of this interesting spiral that happens. Peace invites the presence of God, and then the presence of God produces peace. The Bible talks about a peace that passes understanding, which only comes because God is present. It’s not about our circumstances; it’s about the presence of God in our circumstances.
So, so, so which one is it, right? I mean, do we have to have peace to bring the presence into our lives, or does the presence in our lives produce the peace in our lives? And the answer is yes, it’s both. And there’s this kind of self-reinforcing cycle that goes on. Peace invites the presence, and then the presence of God produces even more peace. So, we’re going to see peace come up over and over again in this passage because this is how we get the house ready. We pursue peace, and specifically what he says here to kind of give us the beginning of the roadmap. It says you should have peace with those over you.
The first part of this passage really boils down to that: have peace with those over you. That may not look really obvious in English, but in the original Greek, when he says «who care for you in the Lord,» the literal translation of that is «who stand over you in the Lord.» Who stand over you-and that verb could be translated as «who lead you,» «who rule,» or the NIV has said «who care for you.» And you’re like, «Well, that doesn’t sound like ruling,» but that’s because there’s this very different understanding of what it means to have authority in the world versus in the church. See, the world says, «Yeah, when I stand over you because I have authority, when I stand over you, it’s so that I can keep you down.» Right?
Anybody ever had a boss like that? Known somebody that when they had a little bit of authority, it went immediately to their heads and then they just kind of used it to keep anybody else from rising up and challenging them? Anyone know anybody like that? Don’t look around. That’s how the world thinks: if I stand over you, it’s so that I can keep you down. Or maybe I stand over you so I can stand on you and get to even higher heights and gain even more money, power, and privilege, and those kinds of things. But Jesus says, «No, no, that’s not how leadership works. That’s not how authority works in the church.» Jesus said, «No, anyone who stands over you, it’s so that they can reach down and help you up.»
That’s the whole point. Leaders in the church stand over people so they can help them up. Jesus said, «If you want to be first, you have to become last. And you must become servant of all.» And so the NIV has very rightly captured the essence of this leadership position from a biblical perspective. But there’s no question in the original Greek that he’s saying, «Yes, these are people who have been given positions of authority.» And so Paul says, «I want you to pursue peace with those who are over you.»
And let’s start in the church. Now, this was an awkward passage for me to preach. And for anybody who’s wondering, yes, I did pick the book, the book of First Thessalonians just so that we could get to this passage, and I could finally let you have it. I could tell you got to give me more gratitude than grief. No, that’s not the point at all. And actually, this gives me an opportunity to do something I think is really important. See, in the first century, churches were very, very small. There weren’t many Christians in the world. And so when we talked about people who were leaders in churches, at most there would have been three, maybe four elders in a particular church. Maybe there was one elder that they kind of said, «Hey, you know, you’re going to work hard at leading the church and at preaching and teaching.»
So we’re going to give you a salary to do that. It would have been one elder who was given charge of leading and preaching. And that’s what we ended up calling a pastor. That’s kind of what the title pastor is. It was a subset of elder; it was that one elder who got a paycheck for doing the work because they worked really hard at it. In the ancient world, that would have just been a really small number of people. That’s not true anymore. And in a church like Mission Hills, there’s no way on earth that Paul’s talking about me and only me. In a church like Mission Hills, we have a hundred people who get paychecks. We have a hundred staff who work hard among you. We have staff like women’s ministry staff. We have kids' ministry staff. We have middle school staff, high school staff, and young adult staff. We’ve got men’s ministry, mentoring groups that are going on, IT people, global outreach people, worship people, and tech people that help you hear me right now.
I mean, can we turn this mic off for a second? Erin, can you just mute that? Or James back there, just mute that. I mean, without them, put that back on. You see what I’m saying? And I know a lot of you are like, «Well, I never even thought about that. " I mean, some of you have been in churches that didn’t have a hundred people. I’ve been in churches that didn’t have one hundred people. We have one hundred people getting paychecks. And by the way, they are actually leading serve teams. And without the serve teams, nothing that we do here would work. Nothing.
Right now, there are serve teams on cameras and mixing boards. There are serve teams that are greeting and parking. And there are serve teams that lead life groups and do women’s ministry, and a lot of them work almost as much as the staff. I mean, it’s just an incredible number of people involved in doing this. And I know a lot of you are like, «I had no idea.» I know because a lot of the work is invisible, which is why it’s so interesting. Paul says, «Acknowledge those who work hard among you.» And «acknowledge» is the right translation, but the original Greek is interesting because the original Greek word literally translates as «see them.» He says, «See the people who work hard among you. Pay attention.»
And the reality is, a lot of times we don’t see them, which is honestly what they’re looking for. They’re not looking for accolades; they’re not looking for applause. They’re exercising a calling that God has put on their lives. And the reality is that a lot of them, honestly, yeah, they get paychecks, but they are smaller paychecks than they could get by doing the same work outside the church. That’s not why they’re doing the work. Paul says, «But as those of us who benefit from their work, we need to see them.» He says, «And I want you to hold them in the highest regard.» Literally, what he says is, «Think about them.»
And I think that’s so fascinating. He says, «See them. Think about them.» Because here’s the thing. When the work is invisible, the gratitude has to be intentional. Do you hear me? When the work is invisible and we don’t see it, and it’s behind the scenes, and yet we experience it, we don’t necessarily understand who all is involved in it; then we have to be intentional about it. I’ll be honest, I get a lot of thanks, and when I wander the lobby between services, I get a lot of, «Hey, thank you for that message,» or «Thank you for this work,» and that’s great. I love that. But here’s the thing: we have a whole lot of staff whose work is invisible, and you don’t see them in the same way.
And so you need to be intentional about it. In fact, can we do this? This is going to be a little bit strange for some of them, but can we do this? Um, if you’re on staff at the church, would you just go ahead and stand up right now? Come on. Okay, there’s a handful of people. Actually, hang on a second. Don’t sit down. Don’t sit down, and hold your applause for a second, because remember, it’s not just staff. We have about 1,200 people who are regularly working in our serve teams. Our staff really work through the serve teams; they empower the serve team.
So, if you’re on a serve team, would you stand up? Any serve team at all, stand up? Yeah. Let’s thank them. Let’s be intentional. We love you guys. We’re so grateful for you. He says, «See them and think about them.» Let me give you four quick ways that you can do this. Number one, just pray for them. People pray for me all the time, and they tell me, «I prayed for you.» I’m like, «That’s great. But how about this? Why don’t you pray for the women’s ministry leaders? Maybe pray for the kids' ministry leaders, the middle school leaders. For the love of God, pray for those people. Maybe pray for staff that you’ve never really thought much about. See them, think about them, pray for them.»
The second thing you can do is you can just say, «Thank you.» I get a lot of thanks, but maybe on the way out today, see somebody who’s got one of those kids' ministry shirts or one of those little name badges that says, «I can help,» and just go say, «Thank you for serving. Thank you for what you do here.» You can give generously. That’s another way you can do it. Give generously. Like I said, there are a lot of people here; in fact, probably all of the people that are on staff here could be making more money doing similar kinds of things outside the church. But we’re here because we have a calling.
When you give generously, it allows us as a church to support them and their families. And we try to pay them better than just a working wage, but we can’t afford to pay them what they could make out there. And that’s okay. But when you give generously, you allow us to care for them, and that’s a way of seeing and thanking them. The fourth thing, and this is really practical: remember the point is to pursue peace with those over you. So here’s a really practical way to do that: assume complexity before incompetence. Some of you got it immediately. Some of you might need a little bit more help.
See, here’s the thing. Sometimes you get these people above you, whether it’s your life group leader, the women’s ministries, what’s going on in kids' ministries, or the church as a whole. You’re like, «Why are they doing that? Why would they? That’s not how I would have done that. I would have gone in a different direction. I would have made a different decision. I wouldn’t have done that. I don’t like that Bible study. We should have been doing this Bible study. I don’t know why we’re doing that sermon series, and I really do think the music is too loud over here. I don’t know what’s going on with the haze machines over there, and I don’t really like how long it took to get the kids in and out of things, and we should have done it differently.» It’s really easy to feel that way.
Here’s the deal. What I want you to do when you find yourself thinking, «I don’t get this,» and my temptation is to grumble, is to assume complexity over incompetence. Assume there’s probably more to it that you don’t know about. It doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions; it doesn’t mean you can’t occasionally make suggestions or even challenge sometimes. But in general, what I’ve discovered in my own life and leadership is that whenever I get frustrated with somebody, and I’m tempted to stop pursuing peace, if I ask a question, I find out it’s a lot more complicated than I thought.
Like, I like the way I’m wired. I have vision and drive, and I’m like, «Okay, we need to do this, and I think it should take two hours to get there.» People are like, «It’s going to take at least three months.» I’m like, «You’ve got to be kidding me. How could it possibly take three months?» They’re like, «Well, we would have to do this and this and this, and we’re going to have to make this happen and that happen, and then-» I’m like, «I’m sorry.» It’s so easy for me to assume something negative instead of embracing complexity.
Ask your questions. It’s fine. But if you want to pursue peace with those over you, let’s assume complexity before incompetence, and we pursue peace with those above us. Because again, peace invites the what? The presence. And if we’re going to see God move, we’ve got to get the house ready, right? But it’s not just with those above us. He says, «And we urge you, brothers and sisters, to warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone, make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.»
So, let’s sum it up, and then we’ll break it down. If we sum it up, what he’s saying is to pursue peace with those around you. Yes, pursue peace with those above you, but also pursue peace with those around you. And he gives us a roadmap for it. He says, «Warn those who are idle and disruptive.» And it’s interesting; this is not the first time this has come up in the book of Thessalonians, is it? A couple of different times, he said, «Hey, when people aren’t busy, that could potentially create a problem.»
So, we need to deal with that, right? Why is he doing that? Why does he bring it up again as part of his last words that are of first importance? Because we know, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, if we don’t keep our bodies busy, we might become busybodies. And it’s interesting — I’m working on year 33 of vocational ministry. And I can tell you that, as I look back on where there has been a lack of peace in the church, it’s remarkable how often the lack of peace starts with someone who has too much spare time. And I get it. Spare time is rarely a good thing. I even remember years ago, I was going to an all-inclusive in Mexico. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law were taking Clut and me. They were just really generous, and I was super excited. I’ve never been to an all-inclusive where they bring you food all the time.
That’s amazing. And I was super excited. We got on a bus-like this is a really nice bus, and it’s air-conditioned, and it’s hot in Mexico-and we got this air conditioning, and everything was great until we hit a traffic jam and stopped moving. I just had a lot of time to sit there, and I started noticing things I had not noticed before. I noticed that the woman in front of me was loud. When she talked, she was so loud that I was very annoyed. There was a guy across from me, and I thought, «He kind of smells bad.» Actually, I do think that’s coming from him. And I think it’s probably happening because this air conditioning is not as good as I thought it was at first. In fact, not only is it not really cold enough, but it’s also starting to make a kind of rattling noise. I don’t like that.
And there are some stains on the seat in front of me. This chair is not that comfortable. And pretty soon, I was grumbling. And what changed? I just sat there with nothing to do. So, it’s interesting how often, when I look back on the last 33 years of ministry, I see how spare time ushers in a spirit of division. And of course, the people who have the spare time say, «I don’t have a spirit of division. I’m discerning.» No, you’re divisive. And again, it doesn’t mean that there can’t be a challenge. It doesn’t mean that there can’t be some questions. It doesn’t mean that everybody’s perfect and that the way it’s been done is exactly right, but there’s a difference between a spirit of helpfulness and a spirit of division, which is so often tied to just too much spare time. We need to stay busy.
And it’s interesting how, when we’re busy, things that otherwise might have grabbed our attention just slip by. They’re just off the radar. And there’s a peace. He says, «Encourage the disheartened.» I wonder how many of us in this room, how many of us at some point in the last week could have used some encouragement? Come on, put your hands up. Oh, yeah. So, that’s pretty much every hand. Here’s the thing: if you’re like, «Well, maybe I’m not busy enough. Maybe God’s speaking that my body is not busy, and I might be in danger of becoming a busybody,» there’s something you can do. Find somebody to encourage. Almost every hand in the room said, «There was a moment that I needed that.»
You start looking for moments and opportunities to encourage somebody, and you’re going to find yourself noticing opportunities to encourage others and not noticing things you might have otherwise complained about, and there will be a little bit more peace. And peace invites the presence. He says, «Help the weak. Be patient with everyone.»
And I really wish he hadn’t said it that way. I mean, there are people I can be patient with; it’s not that hard. And then there are people for whom patience is a problem. We probably have some people like that in our lives, right? But he says to be patient with everyone, which produces what? Peace. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other. I like that one. That «each other» is part of the whole «one another» in the Bible because there are a bunch of things the Bible says as Christians we do for one another. He says, «Do what is good for one another.»
I like that. But then he goes on and he ruins it, and he says, «And for everyone else, I’m not going to keep it inside the church. It’s got to spill out of the church. It starts in the church, but it doesn’t stay in the church. Because remember, the whole purpose of the church is for the people who aren’t part of the church. That’s why we’re here. We’re here because God loves the world and wants them to know it. And they’re not going to know it. We’re not going to be able to tell them you can have peace with a God who loves you if they look at us and all they see is division.
It’s interesting to me. I was part of a church once that merged with another church, which doesn’t happen very often. There were two small churches down in Cassok, and we merged at a certain point, and we grew; we didn’t grow with like their people and our people. We grew by another 15% in the first week after we merged, and we were like, „What just happened?“ And the answer was people came from the community to figure out what was going on. I had conversations with people at Walmart where they found out that I went to one, and they said, „I heard you’re merging with another church.“ They had never heard of church mergers; they had only heard of church splits, right? We have a lot of those.
I remember driving through Kentucky and seeing the First Baptist Church, the Second Baptist Church, and the Third Baptist Church. A little farther down the road, there was the Fourth Baptist Church. And I don’t think they filled up the sanctuary and overflowed into another church. I think somebody got mad about the color of the carpet or the sermon the pastor preached or the curriculum the kids' ministry used, and they said, „I’m starting my own church.“ Everybody knows about that. They hadn’t heard about merging, and people came to see it. He says, „Do good for everyone else.“ He says, „Pursue peace with those around you.“ And peace invites the what? The presence. God sees that, and He inhabits it. His spirit rests upon it.
Here’s the thing. It’s hard to pursue peace with those over you or those around you if there’s no peace within you. And so Paul addresses that. He says, „Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.“ Bottom line, he says, „Pursue peace within you. Pursue peace within you.“ Because if you’re filled with chaos and anxiety and conflict, circumstances are going to squeeze all that stuff out of you to everyone around you. So he says, „You need to pursue peace within you.“ And he gives us the road map. He says, „Rejoice always.“
And I don’t know about you, but I spent a lot of time growing up hearing that verse and thinking, „That’s ridiculous. How can I rejoice? Oh, I’m in circumstances that aren’t rejoicable. They’re hard, and things are difficult, and there’s pain. How am I supposed to rejoice?“ But I was making a mistake that I think we often make, and that is we think about joy as though it’s a thermometer. It’s a reaction to my circumstances. It rises as my circumstances get better; my rejoicing goes up. But that’s not what happens. Because listen to me, joy isn’t a thermostat. It’s not a thermometer. It’s a thermostat. Joy is a thermostat, not a thermometer. Thermometers respond; thermostats create. They set. And he says, „Rejoice. Return to joy.“
It’s not about your circumstances; it’s not about reacting to your circumstances. It’s about rejoicing in those things that are true regardless of your circumstances. I wonder how many of us here are followers of Jesus. By a show of hands, come on. If you’re online, put it in the chat. You know what that means, right? It means your sins are forgiven. Yeah. All the stuff in the past, but even the stuff you did this morning in the church parking lot, it’s forgiven. The stuff you’re probably going to do today, it’s forgiven. The stuff you’re going to do in 20 years, it’s forgiven. It will never be held against you. As far as the east is from the west, so far has your sin been removed.
Is that worth rejoicing in for anybody? Yeah. Your name’s written in the book of life. You’re adopted into the family of God. The Spirit of God is in you. And you are not alone. Your past is forgiven. Your present has purpose. Your future is secure. And those are things worth rejoicing in, regardless of our circumstances. It doesn’t mean that we’re not aware of our circumstances or ignore them, but it means we rejoice in these things that are true, regardless of them. And that brings peace. He says, „Pray continually.“ And again, when I was a kid, I thought, „I think you have to be a monk to do that, right? You have to be-that’s got to be your full-time job.“
Just recently, I’ve started to understand something about this verse that I didn’t for a long time. That is, I’ve probably been thinking about prayer wrong. I’ve been thinking about prayer in these really formal senses. You know, it’s this long, drawn-out, ongoing experience. And formal prayer, of course, always ends the same way, right? In the name of Jesus, Amen. That’s a very formal way of communicating, isn’t it? It’s kind of like email, right? I mean, emails are pretty formal typically, aren’t they? And sometimes they’re really long. Has anybody ever gotten really long emails, and you’re like, „I’m so thankful for ChatGPT that I can now say just tell me the one thing I need to know „? Because people like emails -they’re very formal-and then always at the end of the email, there’s like „Sincerely,“ right? Or as Christians, we’re like „In His grip,“ or something else very spiritual, right? But it’s this kind of formal thing.
I was thinking about my prayer life that way, but then I realized, what if I thought about prayer like texting? Texting is a really different way of communicating, isn’t it? It’s shorter for one thing. I’ve had people do this: they’re afraid you won’t get the email, so they’ll write this really long one and then copy all of it, paste it into a text, and send it to me. I get these screens after screens of texts. Don’t do that! That’s not how texting works. Texting is short thoughts, and nobody says „Sincerely“ at the end of a text, right? Like, if someone texts, „No, no, no, sincerely your father,“ that’s weird. Don’t do that. It’s weird.
But the thing about texting is it’s short, and it’s ongoing. With my family, we text throughout the day. If someone sees something that’s kind of funny or doesn’t get something, or if this is crazy, we’ll send a picture. We’ll just send a couple of words, like, „What are you guys doing about this?“ and „How do you want to handle this?“
It’s just an ongoing conversation; it’s part of life. If you want to pray continually, start texting God. No, I don’t know His phone number, but you understand what I’m saying. Start thinking about prayer more like that. „Hey God, I’m going into a meeting; I’m not sure what’s going to happen. So, man, would You give me wisdom for whatever happens? Hey God, I’m going into this conversation. Here’s how I’d really like to show up, but I need Your strength to be able to do that. God, how do You want me to interact with this person? What’s on Your heart about this thing that’s coming up? God, this is what’s on my heart about this. " Just text.
That’s what Paul’s talking about. Start texting God. Pray continually. And you’re going to find that when you remember that God is with you throughout the day, you’re going to find that you have a little bit more, guess what? Peace. He says, «And give thanks in all circumstances.» Pay attention to the wording. Give thanks in all circumstances, not for all circumstances. It’s okay to look at circumstances and say, «I don’t like this.» When I finally realized that I could say to God, «I don’t like this circumstance, but I can still thank you in the circumstance,» that was powerful.
So listen, this is something you might want to write down: «Hey God, I can’t thank you for this, but I can thank you in this.» That was big for me to just admit it. I don’t like this. I don’t like the circumstance. I don’t like what’s happening. I don’t know why you haven’t done this.
But here’s the thing, God: I can’t thank you for this. I’m not that mature. I’m not that spiritual. Maybe someday I’ll get there, but I can’t thank you for this. But I can and I will thank you in this. Oh, and there’s a little bit more peace. He says, «Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all. Hold on to what is good. Reject every kind of evil.» May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.
What Paul is saying here is, listen, becoming a person of peace requires the power of God. Becoming a person of peace requires the power of God. Sin does not produce peace; it produces division. It produces conflict. You see it in the Garden of Eden, right? Adam and Eve sinned. The first thing that happened was they ran from God. And when God caught up to them and said, «You didn’t eat from the tree.» What did Adam do? «It was the woman that You put here.»
I didn’t think it was a good idea, but I wouldn’t say anything. Sin produces conflict. It produces division. And because we are sinful, we have not been fully perfected. He’s in process with us, but we’re not there yet. Because of that, we’re not going to be able to pull this off on our own. And so Paul says, «Listen, becoming a person of peace requires the power of God.» And He will do it. But there is a degree to which we cooperate with Him. And so he says, «Do not quench the Spirit,» which is to say, «Do not treat prophecies with contempt.» And we could spend a lot of time on this one.
Let me say this: if you haven’t found it yet, we do a little podcast throughout the week called Continuing the Conversation. This week would be a great time; if you’ve never listened to it, give it a listen because I’ll dig into this in a little bit more detail. It could easily be a full message. But you need to understand today is just that he’s going, «Hey, listen. There’s a tension we have to live in.» Okay? So he says, «Don’t quench the Spirit.» He says, «The Spirit is speaking. The Spirit is with you. Don’t treat prophecy with contempt. Don’t assume that all you can do is get dry words from God on a page. No, the Word of God is living and active because the Spirit of God brings them to life in our hearts.»
And so when God speaks, when the Spirit speaks-and the Spirit does speak -He’ll tell you, you need to have that conversation. You need to make that phone call. You need to make this gesture. You need to step into this place that you haven’t stepped into before. When the Spirit speaks, don’t throw water on the fire. And the fastest way to throw water on that fire is simply to refuse to respond. He says, «No, no, no. Respond. Make the phone call. Have the conversation. Offer the forgiveness. Step into the situation.» He says, «But there’s a tension.»
And this is again why I need a lot more time to unpack this. He says, «The Spirit is speaking, but just because it sounds spiritual doesn’t mean it’s scriptural.» He says, «Everything you think the Spirit might be leading you to do needs to be tested against Scripture. And I think you need a community of people around you to help you do it because there are some things that sound spiritual, but they really don’t have anything to do with the Spirit.» Growing up, I was told a lot of «cleanliness is next to godliness.» I was like, «Okay.» Turns out it’s not in there. Sounds right -not actually. And some of you are like, «Hallelujah. I’m going to have a conversation with my mom today.»
Again, we need more time to unpack that, so check out that podcast. But he says, «Listen, the Spirit’s speaking. Don’t throw water on what the Spirit wants to do because it’s the Spirit who will produce the peace in you. It’s the Spirit who will allow you to have peace with those around you. The Spirit will allow you to have peace with those above you. And peace invites the presence, and then the presence produces even more peace. And so we spiral, and God moves. Paul says, „Brothers and sisters, pray for us. Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss.“
So on the way out today, keep it clean. I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, which is to say that may God be with you and may you fully experience the presence of God in your life. How do we make that happen? Well, our step is to pursue peace. So the question I want to ask you today as we wrap up our study of Thessalonians is: what hard step is God calling you to take towards becoming a person of peace?
Would you close your eyes? Would you come into an attitude of prayer with me? Father, we invite You to send Your Spirit among us and speak to each one of us. But what that step is, maybe it’s a very hard step. But it’s the first step in the pursuit of peace. Speak to us. As You speak, some of us are going to recognize that we’re being called to have a conversation, to forgive, to get busy serving others and kicking the spirit of division out. Some of us are going to be called to overlook something, to let something go. But speak and give us not only clarity, but give us the courage to respond. And instead of throwing water on the fire, throw fuel on it. Throw fuel into the Spirit speaking to us and leading us and guiding us to become people of peace, people experiencing the presence, and people able to share that presence with the world. We have never known that kind of peace in Jesus' name. Amen.