The year: 1853. Picture a man and his wife and their three children in a covered wagon headed west. They’ve been traveling for weeks. Finally, they arrive at their destination: a piece of gently rolling virgin farmland on the Great Plains in the then territory of Iowa. They’ve come to this place a thousand miles from home, because the man’s a farmer. The land here is the best in the world: six feet of black, loam topsoil. No rocks like they left behind in New York. This land will grow anything.  The cost? Ten cents an acre.

      

The man stops the team of horses and as soon as he can, pitches the tent they’ve been sleeping in all these weeks. Come morning, he begins building a lean-to cabin. Winter’s coming and his wife’s about to have a baby.    Just as the first blizzard hits, the baby’s born. They hunker down for the winter, eager for Spring and their new beginning. People of strong faith, the man and his wife, and their children will live their often arduous but ultimately fulfilling lives according to the words the Apostle Paul wrote to the early church: “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give things. For this is the will of Christ Jesus concerning you.”

Three things you and I are called to build our lives on as Christians today. Three keys that can open your door to how to live the Christian life.

REJOICE ALWAYS.

Rejoice always? Seems impossible, in dire situations, ridiculous.

But Paul is not suggesting that we’re always going to be happy. What he’s talking about isn’t happiness, it’s joy.

Happiness depends on happenings, the things going on in our lives. Lots of which certainly do make us happy. The kind of rejoicing  Paul’s talking about is the joy we have when we know the Lord is with us. In good times and bad. It’s the joy we have based on our trust that He’ll be with us, no matter what.

Paul knew that kind of joy. He was imprisoned, beaten, and ship-wrecked. But he never gave up on God. His famous words are: “I’ve been knocked down but never knocked OUT.”

Paul and the other first Christians kept going against odds that would have done in the average person. They weren’t average. They knew the living presence of God as a daily reality. They persisted. They built the church. Two thousand years later, we’re still here!

Paul goes on. He tells us we should:

PRAY WITHOUT CEASING.

Another seemingly impossible task. Nobody can literally pray constantly. We have work to do, lives to live, and some of us—children to raise. What Paul is really talking about here is a mindset we adopt when we make God the center of our lives. When we give our lives to Him, asking for His guidance, His direction, and His wisdom to make the most of the lives He gives us.

I pray every day for my wife and family for the Lord’s protection. I pray He’ll help me live the life He wants me to live. I pray through the day, every chance I get. I pray He’ll help me make the connections and the decisions He wants me to make. I pray, “Lord, help me live in Your will for my life.” Try praying that; you may find some pretty amazing things happening!

Praying reminds us that He’s a living presence, always with us, always FOR us.

Jesus was a man of prayer. In today’s Gospel (Luke 18:1-8) he tells us to pray always and not to lose heart. He kept asking the Father what He wanted him to do next. If Jesus could do it, so can we. We need to pray often and trust that He hears us and will help us. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.

IN EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS.

Thank the Lord every day. Thank Him several times a day. I look for things to be grateful for. Sometimes we need to do it most when  things seem to be going their worst. Thank Him for tough times? No. Thank Him that He’s there with us IN the difficulty, whatever it is, that somehow, some way, sooner or later, He’ll help us through to a better place. Sometimes when I’m feeling frustrated or things are going wrong, I start thanking Him for my blessings. It may not solve the problem I’m dealing with, but it helps me get to a better place. An attitude of gratitude keeps us in the right mind set.

The psalms underscore what Paul’s saying.  When things are good: Psalm 103, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits.” In hard times: Psalm 50, “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. . . Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I shall rescue you.”

We read how the rate of anxiety has shot up. Anxiety in adults, young people, even children. Try praying this beautiful anti-anxiety psalm (it’s number 34): “I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. I sought the Lord and he heard me. He delivered me from all my fears.”

Pray every day and give the day ahead, give your loved ones, give yourself to Him.   We were never meant to go it alone. We were meant to need His help. The best news there is: we have it! We have His help, His guidance, His deep and abiding love—now and always. As one of my mentors once told me, “Terry, the Christian life may not always be easy, but it’s GLORIOUS!”

The baby born that day back in 1853 when the snow fell and the wind rattled the little lean-two cabin was my great-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Elsberry. He lived to be ninety years old, a real feat in his time.

His father, my great-great-grandfather, the pioneer, cleared the land, built the house and the barns, tilled the rich Iowa soil, and built a new life for his family. Thomas followed his father in maintaining the tradition of both hard work and devotion to God. One of HIS sons, my grandfather, carried it on. As a boy, I was the fifth generation to walk those acres.

My Great grandfather, Grandpa Tom, was a legend in my family. I never knew him, but I feel like I did. Memories shared by my Dad and uncles and older cousins who knew him well made Grandpa Tom sound like he was the happiest, most upbeat, positive, fun, faith-filled man imaginable. It was a faith that carried him through and often ABOVE situations that might have felled a man of lesser faith. Raising nine children, the back-breaking work of farming  before farm equipment made farmers’ lives easier.

Dealing with the Iowa weather: howling blizzards, the occasional flood, drought, or tornado. Coming through the Great Depression. Losing his first wife, marrying again. Through it all, his sense of fun, his positive attitude, based on his deep and abiding faith in the Lord, brought him through.

When he was a very old man, I’m told, he’d get up early in the morning, in cold weather build fires in the pot-bellied stoves, settle himself in a chair in front of one of them, put his feet on the hob and sing a beloved hymn of faith and joy by the famous blind composer Fanny Crosby, who was also an overcomer because she was born blind.

The title of Grandpa Tom’s theme song: “Blessed Assurance; Jesus is Mine.” The chorus:

       ‘’THIS IS MY STORY, THIS IS MY SONG, PRAISING MY SAVIOR ALLTHE DAY LONG. THIS IS MY STORY, THIS IS MY SONG PRAISING MY SAVIOR ALL THE DAY LONG.”

You can listen to it here! Alan Jackson does a nice version.
      

My great-grandfather spent his life singing and living Paul’s words: Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks. We can do it, too. It’s the best life God has for us.

This sermon was given at Christ Church, Greenwich, Connecticut on Sunday, October 17, 2022.