Comfort In The Coming King

Picture two college students in their sophomore year. Sarah knows exactly what she's studying, has mapped out her four-year plan, understands the requirements for her degree, and already has a job lined up through an internship program. She knows that in exactly two and a half years, she'll walk across that stage, diploma in hand, and start her career.

Meanwhile, Jake is constantly changing majors. He's not sure what he wants to study, doesn't know how long it will take to graduate, has no idea what jobs might be available, and honestly isn't even certain he'll finish college at all. Every semester brings new anxiety about whether he's making the right choices.

Now, both students face the same daily challenges - difficult classes, financial pressure, relationship drama, the stress of exams. But watch how differently they handle these challenges. Sarah can push through a brutal chemistry class because she knows it's part of her plan. She can invest in deep friendships because she's not constantly second-guessing whether she should even be here. She can enjoy campus life, take calculated risks, even fail a test occasionally, because she has confidence in her future.

Jake, on the other hand, lives in constant anxiety. Every setback feels catastrophic because he doesn't know where he's headed. He holds back from deep relationships because he might transfer schools. He second-guesses every decision because he has no framework for understanding how today connects to tomorrow.

The difference isn't their circumstances - it's their certainty about the future. And that certainty doesn't eliminate challenges; it transforms how they face them.

The Christians in Thessalonica were living like Jake and the Apostle Paul wanted to bring assurance and pastor them through this very real life experience that we all face. In the midst of uncertainty and even in the face of death, Jesus’ return gives us comfort about the future so we can be fully alive in the present.

If you have your Bibles or devices with you, please turn to 1 Thessalonians 4, where we'll read verses 13 through 18 together.

If you are willing and able, please stand as I read God’s word this morning… this is the word of the Lord

Pray… please be seated.

I. The Problem: Grief Without Hope (v. 13a)

The Thessalonians' cultural shock: abandoning pagan afterlife assurances

When these former pagans converted to Christianity, they likely faced a terrifying theological gap. In their previous religious framework:

(like the cult of Dionysus or Demeter at Eleusis) promised blessed afterlife who completed specific rituals Mystery Religions only to initiates

often tied one's standing with the gods to participation in community religious life Civic/Imperial Cults

Many believed that abandoning one's ancestral gods could result in divine abandonment or curse

We can bring what we know to this new found faith… it’s not for lack of genuine faith but we’re relying on what helped make sense of our world before until we either can read God’s word, be discipled in the knowledge of God and who He is, that we can start to deconstruct those formerly strongly held cultural and spiritual beliefs.

Their fear: "Did our dead miss out on Christ's return?"

Paul's pastoral heart: "I do not want you to be uninformed"

II. The Difference: Christian Grief vs. Hopeless Grief (v. 13b)

We grieve differently, not hopelessly

We have greater understanding, more than most as to what happens after this body ceases to function.

We are more than just a body but we have a soul, and that soul lives on

Jesus told us, John 11:25–26 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?””

Hope informs our sorrow

This is not Paul saying we should not grieve. We do grieve. If you love deeply, you grieve at the loss of something beautiful and precious

This same passage as I quoted earlier in John 11, has the shortest verse of the Bible that says, John 11:35 “Jesus wept.”

BUT we do not grieve as if death is the end. It’s a grief that is like when a loved one goes on a journey that you can’t follow. There is an ache, there is a hole, but you know that the whole will be filled on a blessed reunion. Not because we’ve been good or worthy, but because Jesus is the resurrection and the life

Romans 8:1–2 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” Such is everyone who is in Christ when their body ceases to work.

Death as "sleep" - temporary, not final

It is almost certain that Paul’s depiction of death as sleep is influenced by teachings from Jesus. There is the well-known story in the Synoptics where Jesus visits the house of a synagogue leader and heals his daughter. According to Matthew, he proclaims, “the girl is not dead but sleeping” (Matt 9:24; cf. Mark 5:39; Luke 8:52). The point is not that the mourners were wrong to think the young girl dead (for she was dead). Rather, the point of this saying is that death is such an unequal match for the life-giving power of Jesus that it does not even deserve to be called “death.” Jesus is so bursting with vitality that restoring her from the dead, something no human could do with this kind of authority and ease, is as simple for Jesus as rousing a sleeping child.

III. The Foundation: Jesus' Death and Resurrection (v. 14)

"We believe that Jesus died and rose again"

A confession of the Christian. If we can not confess this we can not be followers of Jesus. Romans 10:9 “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Philippians 2:8–11 “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Romans 6:8–11 “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

John 11:25-26.

This is the basis for all Christian hope about death

In Christ, we live, and eternal life with Christ begins as we are born-again

Apart from Christ, if we seek to live our own life, being god of our own soul, God will not force eternity with Him upon us. So they must account for their own sins and rebellion. Judgement will fall on all of us… either we have Christ who has taken that judgment or we stand under the weight of it ourselves

The ministry of reconciliation: 2 Corinthians 5:17–21 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

God will bring the dead "with him"

IV. The Process: How Christ's Return Works (vv. 15-17)

Every generation of the church has lived with expectancy that Christ can return at anytime (even Paul)

Notices Paul uses the 1st person plural pronoun “WE”

Christ descends with deceased saints' souls Stage 1 ( I don’t know that this is chronological (v14))

Notice the coordinating conjunctions in verse 14, 15, 16 “For” One is building on the other… not causation where there is forward chronological time

Dead bodies are raised first (no disadvantage but in some ways more faithful!) Stage 2

1 Corinthians 15:51–52 “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”

Living and raised meet the Lord together "in the air" Stage 3… caught up Harpazo (GRK) and Rapio (LTN) … more on this in a second

Key imagery: Parousia (royal visit), trumpets, clouds, "coming” (vs15)

Caesar or general coming back to a city after a great victory

Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey

Jesus coming back in the air because He’s not coming back for a city/land, but coming back for the whole world

V. Is This The Rapture or Not?

This is a decide for and debate for issue (paradigm: die, divide, debate, decide). This has absolutely nothing to do with salvation and our position in Christ. God has not appointed His church to wrath and the great judgement. So whether God keeps His church through it or He removes His church, His will, will be done.

One of the main texts used to understand the rapture (the taking away of the church from the Earth)

DEFINE: God removing the church either before or in the middle of the last seven years of God’s divine plan for the Earth. It is a time of wrath, the church is not appointed to wrath. It is prophesied that there will be 3.5 years of peace and 3.5 years of hell on Earth (graphic)

John 14:1–3 ““Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house (temple language) has many rooms (temple rooms were used for travelers); if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (NT Wright argues that Heaven is not a physical space… so this means that we are with God, hidden away with Him).

Revelation 4-19 (church is not seen)

Helps understand the prophetic calendar in Daniel 9 and the pattern laid out in Revelation

Or is this the second coming?

Identical language found in 1 Corinthians 15:35-58 .

Clouds do not indicate heaven but where God meets man in scripture

Heaven is not mentioned but “air” is specifically used (to make this work, they must become synonymous)

This is a loud undeniable event (not secret or covert)

Does God want the church to escape or is the church a tool of God to restore, reclaim, and cultivate that which He has redeemed? Or both?

VI. The Result: Forever with the Lord (v. 17b-18)

The ultimate comfort: eternal reunion

Both living and dead in Christ share the same destiny

"Therefore encourage one another with these words"

The God who loves us, formed us, gave us breath and life, will keep us and sustain us even in death

Romans 8:38–39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Those who don’t have this hope, remember that God has given us this ministry of reconciliation to impart the hope of eternal life through Jesus.

Conclusion

Jesus’ return gives us comfort about the future so that we can fully alive in the present

So here's what Paul wants you to walk away with today: Jesus' return isn't just a theological concept to debate or a distant event to wonder about - it's the anchor that allows you to live fully alive right now. When you know with absolute certainty that death is not the end, that your future is secure in Christ, that every person you love who belongs to Jesus will be with you forever, it changes everything about how you face today. You can grieve losses without being crushed by them. You can take risks in relationships because love isn't limited by death. You can serve sacrificially because nothing you do for Christ is wasted. You can face your own mortality with peace because you know Who has you. The Thessalonians needed this comfort, and so do you. So Paul's final words to them are his final words to you: 'Therefore encourage one another with these words.' Don't keep this hope to yourself - share it with others who are living in fear of the future. Because when you truly believe that Jesus is coming back for you, that Jesus holds you in the present and will in the future, it doesn't make you less engaged with this world - it makes you more fully alive in it.

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