16 Be joyful always;

17 pray continually;

18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

19 Do not put out the Spirit's fire;

20 do not treat prophecies with contempt.

21 Test everything. Hold on to the good.

22 Avoid every kind of evil.

And now, This is What We Do.

When I was growing up, my life was absolutely regulated by the rules set down by someone else.

It started at home with my parents.

Eat you supper.

Go to bed.

Get out of bed.

Clean your room.

Don’t make a mess.

Don’t chew with your mouth open.

And constantly, don’t hit your sister!

I finally got old enough to go to school.

Come here.

Go there.

Sit in your seat.

Don’t draw on your desk.

Don’t talk.

Don’t make paper airplanes.

For the first 20 years of my life, maybe longer, my dream was to grow up so that nobody could tell me where to go, what to do, when to do it, or how to do it.

It was certainly a dream; especially the part about people telling me where to go.

There’s never a shortage of people who want to tell me where to go!

As it turns out, all of life has its do’s and don’t’s.

To some extent, most of us resist being told what to do and what not to do.

We want to believe that we know the difference between right and wrong.

We want to believe that we know what is best for us.

Think you’re different?

How about this:

If you’re over 70, the tow trucks are removing your cars from the parking lot right now.

You are far too old to be driving.

Don’t worry.

The busses to take you to the nursing home will be waiting at every exit at the end of the service.

Sorry, but it’s the right thing to do.

Don’t want to hear that, do we?

But guess what?

If you haven’t had to say it to your parents yet, the day is probably coming.

And your turn to hear it from your children is coming, not all that far into the future.

We think that we know what is best for us.

We think that we know right from wrong.

The problem is that all too often, we are wrong about that.

If we were not wrong about that, then our prisons would not be overflowing.

If we were not wrong about that, then God would not have had to send Moses with the Ten Commandments and the rest of the law.

If we were not wrong about that, then Jesus would not have had to die for our sins.

Even with the best of rules and the best of our own intentions, too often, we are just plain wrong.

Every life and every lifestyle has to have rules: do’s and don’t’s.

When Moses brought down the Ten Commandments from Mt. Sinai, most people believed that this set of do’s and don’t’s were designed to make God like us.

If we did all that the commandments said do and did not do all that the commandments said don’t do, then God would like us and be good to us, and even take us to heaven when we die.

Many Jews, Muslims, and Christians still believe that to this day.

That’s right, isn’t it?

If we do everything right and don’t do anything wrong, then God will like us, even love us, right?

Well, yeah, but they are not related.

God can no more not love us than we can not love our own children and grandchildren.

Because of who God is God both loves us and likes us, even though from time to time, God may not lilke what we are doing; God always loves us.

We do not, and as a matter of fact, can not do anythig to make God love us or love us more.

God already loves us all that God can love us, however much that may be.

God loves us so much that God sent God’s only son to die on the cross so that none of us would ever be required to pay the price for all the times we failed to do the right thing and all the times that we did do the wrong thing.

We, on the other hand, can manage not to love each other.

We can manage to fail to do the right thing.

We can manage to do the wrong thing.

And we do manage a lot of the time.

That’s why God sent Moses with the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law.

That’s why God sent Jesus, not only to die for our sins, but to teach us the do’s and don’t’s of how to live.

That’s why God sent Paul to write to us, to record for us, what God expects from Christians: our own set of do’s and don’t’s.

No, they won’t get us into heaven, but they will make life a lot more enjoyable for us and more pleasing to God.

Last week we looked at Paul’s instructions to us to give up complaining and take up acting.

This week the first thing we read was "Be joyful always."

Not only don’t complain, but instead, be joyful about the positive things around us.

"But sometimes you can’t be joyful" you say.

That’s not true.

Sometimes it’s hard to be joyful.

Sometimes bad circumstances crowd around us and we fall into the temptation that says to us, "You can’t be joyful now. There’s nothing good about your life."

But that’s not true.

Sure, sometimes things are bad.

But there is no person who is not created in the image of God.

There is no person who is not loved by God.

There is no person for whom Jesus did not die.

Even if they’ve lost their most beloved.

Even if they’ve lost a child.

Even if they are suffering from severe injury or illness

Even if every person they know has turned against them

No person is less than another person to the Lord, our God.

No person is ever unloved by God.

Just because it’s true does not mean that everybody knows it.

But we, Christians, do know it, and we are called to live it out.

When we live our lives filled with joy, even when times are hard, we show everyone around us why they should be Christians, too.

Pray continually, Paul writes.

"How do I pray continually?" you ask.

We do have to work and sleep and drive and shop and all sorts of things.

Doesn’t that get in the way of prayer?

Well, it can if we let it, but it doesn’t have to.

I think that prayer is enormously misunderstood in the church today.

We think of the Lord’s Prayer.

We think of Communion prayers.

We think of invocations and benedictions and pastoral prayers.

We may even think of prayers at mealtime and bed time or even at the graveside.

But even with all those, we won’t manage to pray continually because all of those prayers are specific prayers at specific occasions.

They are formal prayers.

They are often one-way prayers.

The truth about prayer is that it is not supposed to be a one-way phenomenon.

The kind of prayer that Paul is talking about here is a two-way conversation with God.

It is about living life day-by-day, moment-by-moment intentionally in the presence of God.

Living like we are walking and talking and sleeping with God by our side all the time, engaged in every activity with us.

People who live like God is standing right beside them are the best examples of what it means to be a Christian.

Then Paul writes, "give thanks in all circumstances".

Paul knew that circumstances can be rough.

Paul had been in prison.

Paul had been beaten.

Paul had his life threatened on more than one occasion.

Paul had been persecuted by people whom he had once called friends.

Paul knew all about rough circumstances.

Through all that, Paul knew that as long as he was breathing he still had a chance to tell someone else about the love of God in Jesus Christ, and for that he was thankful.

Be joyful.

Be prayerful.

Be thankful.

There are three Christian "do’s" that will never steer us wrong.

If we live out those, people will suspect that we just might be Christians.

But how about some "don’t’s"?

First, there is "Do not put out the Spirit's fire."

To put out the Spirit’s fire is to pretend that God’s revelation to humanity is over.

It is to pretend that God is not still at work in the world through the power of the Holy Spirit.

If God is not still doing revelation, if God is not still at work in the world through the Holy Spirit, why bother with prayer?

Without present revelation, God’s not going to answer.

God’s not going to help us with our decisions about worship.

God’s not going to help us call a pastor.

God’s not going to help a pastor decide that he or she needs to come here.

God’s not going to help us in deciding whether to join in mission with First UCC.

Without God acting through the Holy Spirit, there would be no divine guidance for any Christian.

Without God acting through the Holy Spirit, there would be no building up of any congregation anywhere.

But God is still active in the world through the Holy Spirit.

So, since we want God active in our lives, Christians never try to put out the Spirit’s fire, nor do we even try to manage it or direct it.

We just go with it, and God’s will be done.

Do not treat prophecies (in Paul’s time, that was sermons) with contempt.

God kind of backs us into a corner here.

If we believe that God called our preachers and that God inspires our preachers, then what they say to us must not be held up to ridicule.

Not that every word that ever comes out of a preacher’s mouth is gospel, but in this preaching moment, we are all called to listen for the word of God.

I suppose if we do not believe that our preacher is called by God and inspired by God we have two choices.

Either we should not have that person as a preacher or we should adjust our belief.

In any case, I know that a congregation that wants a better preacher usually does not need to go looking for another one.

All they need to do is pray for the one they’ve got!

Successful churches and the Christians who fill them, believe that God sent them their pastor and they pray for him or her, every day.

And then we have "Avoid every kind of evil."

Everybody’s mama told them not to hang out with people who were always up to no good.

Other people will think that we are just like them.

Well, God kind of expects us to hang out with those people, so that they see and hear a witness for Jesus.

Before we can hang out with them, though, we have to be able to avoid getting involved in whatever kind of no good behavior that they are up to.

Any time that we can see that doing one thing that might be OK has a good chance of leading us into something else that is not OK at all, the right thing to do is avoid the whole thing altogether.

If it might be sin, get away from it.

What we have to remember is that it doesn’t matter what people think.

What matters is what God knows.

Avoiding every kind of evil does not mean avoiding any kind of people.

All of them are created in the image of God and saved by the blood of Jesus Christ.

You know, all these do’s and don’t’s are really like everything else that’s Christian, they are about other people.

Think about it.

Live joyfully - - somebody might find joy because of you.

Pray continually - - somebody might learn to pray from you.

Live thankfully - - somebody whose problems are not as bad as yours may be inspired by you.

Don’t live as if God can’t see you - - somebody - - lots of bodies - - need to see Christians live with God.

Don’t put down what your preachers say: nobody needs to see Christians tearing down the church.

Don’t get involved in evil/sinful activities - - Jesus calls us to lead others to him, not push them away.

Just like all the do’s and don’t’s we know, there’s a good reason behind these: