Be Ready

Lead Vocalist (Kelly)

Welcome & Announcements (Mike L)

Good morning family!

Ask guests to fill out connect card

____ announcements:

1) Announcement 1

What to do and how to respond

2) Announcement 2

What to do and how to respond

3) Announcement 3

What to do and how to respond

Now please take a moment of silence to prepare your heart for worship.

Call to Worship (Revelation 7:9-12)

Prayer of Praise (Susana Donahue)

You've Already Won

Turn Your Eyes

Prayer of Confession (Laziness), ______________

Assurance of Pardon (1 Thess. 5:9-10)

All Glory Be to Christ

Your Will Be Done

Scripture Reading (1 Thess 5:1-11)

You can find it on page 1174 in the black Bibles

Pastoral Prayer (Mike L)

Prayer for PBC—Help us to be ready for the return of Christ

Prayer for kingdom partner—Christ Fellowship (Peter Hess)

Prayer for US—Vice President

Prayer for the world—UAE

Pray for the sermon

SERMON

START TIMER!!!

On October 28, 1992 the people of Dami Mission Church in Seoul, South Korea were ready.

Their leader, Lee Jang Rim, had predicted that Jesus would return at midnight that evening.

Over 20,000 South Koreans accepted this prediction setting off a social crisis across the country.

Believers sold their homes, quit their jobs, abandoned their families, and divorced their unbelieving spouses.

Some gave away small fortunes, since they wouldn’t need their money after the rapture anyways.

One woman, who had been trying to conceive for three years, aborted her 7-month-old unborn child because she believed woman shouldn’t be pregnant during the end times.

At least four people were so fearful of the return of Christ that they committed suicide before the date arrived.

As midnight approached on October 28, 1992, over 1000 faithful gathered at a building in the western part of the city.

The faithful were joined by 1500 riot police, 200 detectives, 100 journalists, and a slew of emergency vehicles.

But ten minutes after midnight, a boy shouted from a window in the building “Nothing’s happening!” [1]

This tragic event serves as a cautionary tale, not just about setting dates, but about what it truly means to be ready for Christ's return.

Most of us in this room understand the folly of setting dates for the return of Christ.

And that’s not only because we’ve seen people be wrong before.

We know it’s foolish to set dates for Christ’s return, because Jesus explicitly says in...

Matthew 24:36—But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

I think most of us understand this concept.

But perhaps we're tempted to swing the pendulum to the other extreme.

We’re not foolish enough to set dates for the return of Christ.

We’re far more likely to foolishly live as if He will never return and act is if there's nothing we can do to be ready.

Turn to 1 Thessalonians 5:1

We are near the conclusion of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonian church.

Most of the letter has been overflowing with encouragement as Paul praises this little church for all the ways they are thriving.

But in this section of the letter, Paul is tackling a series of questions raised by these young believers.

And in our text this morning, Paul answers a question about getting ready for Christ’s return.

The Big idea I believe Paul is communicating from this morning’s text is that Because believers are ready for the return of Christ we should live like it.

We’re going to unpack that idea by considering Two Truths from this passage of God’s Word:

First, in verses 1-5 we’ll examine Why Believers ALREADY ARE Ready for the Return of Christ,

Then from verses 6-11 we’ll consider How Believers LIVE LIKE We’re Ready for the Return of Christ.

Let’s begin by considering…

1) Why Believers ALREADY ARE Ready for the Return of Christ

1 Thessalonians 5:1—Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you.

That word “concerning” is the same word in the original language used several times in this section.

It’s used in 4:9, where Paul begins to answer a question about brotherly love.

It’s used in 4:13, where Paul begins to answer a question about those who die before Christ returns.

Apparently the Christians in Thessalonica also had a question about the timing of Jesus’ return.

But just like in 4:9, Paul’s initial response is “you guys don’t need me to write anything about this!”

Thankfully for us Paul explains why...

1 Thessalonians 5:2—For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

What does Paul mean by this phrase, “the day of the Lord”?

It’s a phrase that is used directly or indirectly dozens of times, all over the Bible.

One clear reference that gives you a sense of this concept comes from...

Zephaniah 1:14–16—The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter; the mighty man cries aloud there. A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements.

What’s the picture the prophet is painting about this day? It’s a day of wrath and judgment!

No wonder Paul describes it as a day of “sudden destruction” in verse 3.

The New Testament comes along and describes the day of the Lord as the final day.

2 Peter 3:10—But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

You can see that the day of the Lord is the final day because the universe is going to be purified by fire.

Notice also that Peter is using the same analogy for the day of the Lord that Paul uses in our text.

The day of the Lord will take people by surprise, just like a thief takes people by surprise.

By the way, the thief analogy didn’t originate from Peter or Paul, but from Jesus Himself...

Matthew 24:43–44—But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Jesus is saying, “If you knew when the thief was coming, he wouldn’t be able to steal anything! You’d be ready!”

If someone came up to you after service and told you they overheard someone say they were planning to break into your home tonight at 9 PM, how many of you would go to bed at 8:30?

Of course not! You would get ready!

Some of you would be REALLY ready.

But Jesus’ point is that we DON’T know what time the thief is coming. Just like we don’t know what time He will return.

So if we put all this together, the “day of the Lord” is the final day when Jesus returns to judge.

But there’s more...

1 Thessalonians 5:3—While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

If you’re not a Christian, Jesus’ return will be like a woman’s labor pains. It will come upon you suddenly and without warning.

On January 4, 2014, Holly and I were celebrating her birthday with her parents at Old Chicago Pizza in Louisville, Kentucky. While we were sitting in that booth, Holly started to get unexpected labor pains. Holly was determined that our little Phoebe wouldn’t be born on her birthday, but she was unable to control when those labor pains would come.

Thankfully for Holly, Phoebe didn’t arrive until early the next morning so they could have separate birthdays.

Thankfully for me, we didn’t have to leave for the hospital until after I ate my pizza.

But labor pains don’t always end in celebration, do they?

Two years after that night in 2014, we rushed to the same floor of the same hospital, not to celebrate the birth of a child but to grieve a miscarriage.

Our dear friends Sterling and Tasha lost their child when labor pains came upon Tasha unexpectedly.

On the other side of those labor pains was not the joy of a child, but the great agony of horrifying, irreversible loss.

Dear friend: if you will not trust Christ, THAT is what His return will look like for you. It will happen suddenly. And it will lead to horrifying, irreversible, eternal loss.

But it doesn’t have to be that way! You actually CAN be ready for the return of Christ!

Look at…

1 Thessalonians 5:4—But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.

Notice, first, who Paul is writing to.

He calls his audience “brothers”.

The CSB rightly translates this as “brothers and sisters.”

In other words, Paul is writing to Christians.

Get this: if you are a Christian, the return of Jesus shouldn’t surprise you like a thief.

But the reason we aren’t surprised ISN’T because we’re up to date on all the latest rapture theology.

For example, there’s a website called “The Rapture Index” which describes itself as “a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity,” and a “prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we’re moving towards the … rapture.” [2]

I looked at the Rapture Index when I was preparing this sermon and I learned that any number above 160 means “fasten your seat belts.”

The record low was 58 on December 12, 1993, and the record high was 189 October 10, 2016.

The current number is 180. [3]

How in the world could the Thessalonian Christians survive without the rapture index?

Trying to predict the timing of the rapture is NOT AT ALL what Paul means here!!!

The reason believers already are ready for the return of Christ is given in…

1 Thessalonians 5:5—For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

Notice that word “all.”

ALL the Thessalonians were ultimately prepared for the return of Christ because they were ALL children of light.

Notice also, that Paul changes from second person plural—you all—to first person plural—we.

He is no longer talking about one group of Christians in Thessalonica, but all Christians everywhere.

All Christians ARE ready for the return of Christ BECAUSE they are children of light.

When Paul says “we are not in darkness,” he’s not talking about being ignorant about the timing of Jesus’ return. He’s talking about moral darkness. [4]

In other words, if you’re a follower of Jesus, you are no longer enslaved by the darkness of sin.

Because Jesus died in your place and rose from the dead, you have been brought into the light.

As the Apostle Peter writes…

1 Peter 2:9—… you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

So how do you get ready for the return of Jesus?

Repent and believe the Gospel!

EXPLAIN THE GOSPEL

If you have turned from your sin and trusted in Jesus, you ALREADY ARE ready for the return of Jesus, in the most important sense.

But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing else for us to do.

In verses 6-11, Paul explains...

2) How Believers LIVE LIKE We’re Ready for the Return of Christ

Imagine you’re at an airport waiting to board your flight. You’re technically ready to go—you’ve got your boarding pass and your luggage—but you’re not really acting like you’re ready.

Maybe you’re taking a nap with noise-cancelling headphones on your head so you miss the announcement that your plane is ready for boarding.

Or maybe you’re in a different terminal eating dinner and watching football.

Similarly, it’s possible for someone to be ready for Jesus’ return by becoming a Christian, but not really live like you’re ready.

The biggest problem with this analogy, is the unprepared Christian doesn’t miss out on his flight to glory.

But you may miss out on the blessed life God intends for you if you live like you’re ready for Jesus’ return.

In his book, The Bible and the Future, Anthony Hoekema explains: “The believer should live in constant, joyful expectation of Christ’s return; though he does not know the exact time of it, he should always be ready for it.” [5]

So what does it look like to live like we’re ready?

Consider with me three ways to live ready for the return of Jesus:

First, if we want to live like we’re ready for Jesus’ return, we must...

A) REMAIN Spiritually Alert

Some of you might be thinking, “Aha! Yes, we need to be alert! That’s why I check the Rapture Index regularly, visit prophecy books and websites, read apocalyptic novels, and always pay attention to what’s going on in the Middle East!”

That’s not the kind of alertness Paul is talking about!

Look at...

1 Thessalonians 5:6–7—So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night.

Notice there are two threats to our alertness in these verses.

One threat is drowsiness.

We’ve all been there, right? When we’re bored and disinterested—and we’re not able to scroll through our phone to distract us—we get a little sleepy.

But Paul isn’t talking about physical drowsiness, but spiritual drowsiness.

Call it laziness, apathy, or indifference. It’s a lack of interest in spiritual things.

Are you spiritually drowsy, Christian? Do you get bored by the things of the Lord?

If that’s you, you need to repent, and fight to keep yourself awake!

A long time ago in a city far, far away there used to be these things called newspapers. When I was a teenager my brother and I were paper boys, which meant we had to wake up every morning between 4:30-5:00 AM to deliver the newspaper in time. Almost every morning I battled sleep as I made the fifteen minute drive into town to my paper route.

Do you know what I did to battle my drowsiness? I turned up the radio as loud as I could. I asked my brother to talk to me. I opened the window so the cold air could blow on my face. I occasionally pinched myself and sometimes even slapped myself in the face so I could stay awake.

Maybe there’s a spiritual lesson there. If you’re struggling with spiritual drowsiness, you don’t need less Bible you need more. You need to turn up the volume of God’s Word in your life. You need more time with God’s people to help you stay away. Maybe you even need more hardship to protect you from being overly comfortable.

What will it look like for you to fight to stay awake spiritually?

The other threat to spiritual alertness is drunkenness.

The Spirit is urging us not only to be awake, but to be sober. Not to be drunk, like the people of the night.

In his commentary, G.K. Beale writes this “To be drunk spiritually is to imbibe too much of the world’s way of looking at things and not enough of the way God views reality. To be intoxicated with the world’s wine is to be numbed to feeling any fear in the present of a coming judgment.” [6]

Christian: are you intoxicated by the things of the world?

It is not wrong to enjoy the good gifts that God gives us in this world, but it is wrong to be intoxicated by them.

To be so distracted—by sales on Amazon, or shows on Netflix, or sports on television, or likes on social media, or whatever your thing is—to be so distracted that we become spiritually intoxicated.

If that’s you, you need to repent, and fight to be sober, or self-controlled.

Just like someone battling the sin of drunkenness may need to stop drinking alcohol entirely, you may need to cut out some intoxicating things from your life.

Maybe that means deactivating social media for awhile, or not grabbing your phone until after you’ve read your Bible in the morning, or cancelling one of your streaming services for awhile.

What will it look like for you to fight to remain sober spiritually?

If we’re going to live like we’re ready for Jesus’ return we need to remain spiritually alert.

Second, we must...

B) REMEMBER our Salvation

1 Thessalonians 5:8—But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

Just like a soldier puts on a breastplate to protect his heart and a helmet to protect his head, the believer too must arm himself.

But notice, Paul is not telling these believers to “put on” this spiritual armor. He’s reminding them that they already have it.

So why does he bring this up? To remind them of the salvation they have already received.

It is a salvation received by faith, rooted in hope, and resulting in love.

And it’s a salvation that was purchased by the blood of Jesus in our place.

1 Thessalonians 5:9–10—For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.

Think about how comforting these words would be for the Thessalonian Christians.

They’re enduring serious persecution because they’re followers of Jesus.

Perhaps some are thinking that God must be mad at them.

But Paul reminds them, no Christians. You aren’t receiving God’s wrath.

God’s wrath was poured out on Jesus in your place!

If you’re a Christian, you don’t need to be afraid about the return of Jesus.

That day, which will be terrifying for all who reject Christ—is the day of our rescue!

It will be far easier for you to live like you’re ready for the return of Jesus if you fight to remember what Jesus has already done for you. He died on a cross and rose from the dead so that you can be saved.

If God has already done that for you, why would you have any reason to be afraid about His return?

That said, we should fear for those who are still under God’s wrath.

One of the ways we remember our salvation is by faithfully telling others the good news of the Gospel!

Mormon girls at Food Lion—courageously inviting people to church and I am afraid to invite my neighbor.

If we’re going to live like we’re ready for Jesus’ return we need to remember our salvation.

Finally, we must...

C) RELY on God’s People

1 Thessalonians 5:11—Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

I’ve never run a marathon—and I never intend to—but I’m told that the scene near the finish line is very electric. Supporters are clapping, shouting words of encouragement, holding signs, and doing whatever they can to encourage the runners at the final stretch.

According to Google, finishing a marathon is really hard.

And many would be unable to finish without the love and support of those cheering them on.

Waiting for the return of Christ has been a 2000-year marathon for the people of God.

It’s tempting to get discouraged. To feel as if Jesus will never return. To think that we cannot possibly keep going.

That’s why we need each other!

Christian: your responsibility is to encourage and build up your brothers and sisters in your church family.

You also need to be open about how you’re doing! Often we cannot help you if you won’t share where you’re struggling.

If we’re going to live like we’re ready for Jesus’ return we need to rely on God’s people.

Twenty years after that fateful night on October 28, 1992, a South Korean news publication wrote a follow-up story titled “After the apocalypse that never was.” Reporters were able to track down some of the people who were caught up in the doomsday cult and ask them what they believed now.

Sadly some of them were back at it again. Some were predicting the rapture to occur shortly after President Obama’s reelection in 2012. Wasn’t it obvious that Obamacare would be the mark of the beast?

Although the article didn’t share their stories, I’m sure there were some who abandoned their faith entirely.

But what was most encouraging to me were the multiple people in the article who said they were still following Jesus, but they stopped trying to put a date on his return.

One person said, “After the Oct. 28 Armageddon day passed without the second coming of Christ, I studied real theology out of repentance for what I did in 1992.”

Another said, “We do believe in the second coming of Christ as Christians, but we do not pick a specific date for the end of the world.” [7]

Brothers and sisters, that’s what Christians do.

We are not the people who never mess up. We are not the people who always get it right.

But we are the people who—with God’s help—repent when our errors are exposed.

What about you?

Have you bought into sensational, unbiblical ideas about the return of Christ?

Have you succumbed to spiritual drowsiness that dulls you to the glories of the gospel?

Have you given yourself over to spiritual drunkenness that distracts you from what’s most important?

Are you numb to the reality that unbelievers around you are headed to a Christless eternity when Jesus returns?

Are you living as if you can make it through the Christian life without God’s people?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, the solution is simple: tell Jesus you’re sorry, and ask Him for help to live like you’re ready for His return.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

Benediction (1 Thess. 3:12-13)