Sermon Tone Analysis

*LIVING FOR THE LORD’S RETURN*

*1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11*

 

According to a poll by George Gallup, "Religion in America," Leadership, FAll, 1987, The belief that Jesus Christ will return to earth someday is held by 62 percent of all Americans, but that’s probably where the similarity of belief ends.

What that will be like is highly discussed among Christians with very different ideas.

There are in fact at least 5 major perspectives among studious Christians as to the order and type of events surrounding the 2nd Coming of Jesus and the end of the world.

The 5 major views of eschatology are:  Pre-Millenialism, Post-Millenialism, and Amillenialism, with 3 sub variations of pre-millenialism which include pre-trib, mid-trib, and post-tribulation theories.

If you work at trying to figure it all out, it can be enough to make your head spin.

I like the student who said he believed in Pan-Millenialism.

When asked what that view believes, he said,  “It’ll all pan out in the end.”

* *

Everybody should do a little reading in theology so I want to recommend an author to you:  Charles Schultz.

In a Peanuts Cartoon Lucy is in a room with Linus.

Lucy is looks out a window and she wonders: "Boy, look at it rain . . .

what if it floods the whole world?"

Linus says: "It will never do that.

In the 9th chapter of Genesis, God promised Noah that would never happen again, and the sign of the promise is the rainbow."

Lucy replies: "You’ve taken a great load off my mind."

Linus says: "Sound theology has a way of doing that!"

* *

Apparently Thessalonians had a theology problem.

Some were worried that those Christians who had died wouldn’t be around for the Lord’s return and would therefore miss Him.*  *Apparently they still were influenced by their former pagan philosophy that death is the end and the great separator and that they would not see their loved ones again.

Sound theology does bring peace.

People today are still plagued by unsound theology even when it comes to the afterlife.

One of the common modern misconceptions regarding the afterlife is the idea that when we die we become angels.

Not so.

Angels are created beings as we are.

But they have a different experience* *than the descendants of Adam.

In fact, the Bible says we are for a little while lower than the angels, but that in eternity we will exist in a position above angels and will judge them.

The Bible says that in eternity humans are /like/ the angels in this respect that they neither marry or are given in marriage.

This is the only aspect in which Jesus said we would be like angels.

The Bible records that angels are messengers that move between heaven and earth, but for believers in Christ, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” and in this passage 4:18 says, “And so we will be with the Lord forever.”

After death believers in Christ will not be traveling back and forth between heaven and earth as angels are able to do now.

* *

In the midst of confusing and incorrect ideas about life after death Paul has some straightforward things to say to these young Christians for their education and encouragement.

We need the same perspective for living today in light of the Lord’s return.

We need to (1) Look forward to the Resurrection Reunion, (2) Stay Ready In Faith, and (3) Live Together in Hope.

* *

* I.

Look Forward to the Resurrection Reunion*

“First off, you must not carry on over them like people who have nothing to look forward to, as if the grave were the last word.

Since Jesus died and broke loose from the grave, God will most certainly bring back to life those who died in Jesus.”

4.13-14

Mess.

For pagans in those days death ended all.

They talked about an eternal sleep from which no one would awaken.

Ancient letters to those who lost friends to death were always hopeless-- sometimes inspiring things would be said but never to give hope to those who were left alive.

In a tremendous contrast that is nothing like the philosophy of the day Paul says by God’s inspiration:  We do not “grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope.

We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

15 /According to the Lord’s own word/, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And so we will be with the Lord forever.”

As an old spiritual phrases it, there’s gonna be a great meeting in the air!

           

--Our* *resurrection is tied to the fact of Jesus’ resurrection...His resurrection is one of the best attested and documented facts in all of history.

We stake everything on Him being who the Bible says He is.

And the same Lord says we’re going to rise with Him.  /Rapturo/ is the Latin translation of the word “caught up” to meet the Lord in the air when He comes.

Larry Michael tells of visiting an elderly woman who had lived through much adversity, but had also outlived the doctor who had described her condition as terminal many years earlier.

She

had a contagious confidence in the Lord.

One day the pastor began speaking with Mrs. Blackburn about death, and she responded that - although she was not afraid of death - she preferred to concentrate on the Bible's promises of Christ's return.

"I'm not looking for the undertaker," she exclaimed confidently.

"I'm looking for the Uppertaker!" (Michael is Pastor of Baptist Church, Vevay, IN)

 

[Not only is there a reunion in the aird, there’s also a re-constitution in the resurrection.]

There are several miraculous experiences in all of this:  rising,, eternity w~/God and I think--reconstituting bodies.

This used to bother me.

Scientific concepts of the 90’s along with their popularization Jurassic Park style have helped me imagine God reconstructing body from dna--don’t need to find every destroyed molecule to reassemble the body.

[cp.

Ezek.

37- dry bones coming together, flesh growing, and breathing new life.]

Even in Jesus’ day some people didn’t believe in supernatural things.

In response to their rational, naturalistic, theologically liberal Sadducees  who did not believe in the realm of the supernatural/, /Jesus said: 

/And regarding your speculation on whether the dead are raised or not, don’t you read your Bibles?

The grammar is clear: God says, ‘I am—not was—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’

The living God defines himself not as the God of dead men, but of the living.”/

[Mt 22.31-32, Mess.]

A grave is not the end of life for a Christian.

We will not be worm food nor will we be pushing up daisies.

Christians are going to reunite with the Lord in the air and like Him we will be flying without wings!

Why meet in the air?

Because it’s the way He left earth and He will return in the same way as the angels said to His disciples when He left, AND because it demonstrates the complete victory and Lordship of Jesus.

The enemy of our souls is called the Prince of the Power of the Air.

Jesus ascended victoriously through that realm untouched and He will return the same way.

Christians of the first century were so filled with the idea that Jesus is coming again that they  used a new greeting among themselves - “Maranatha,” an Aramaic word meaning “Lord, come.”

Don DeWelt, one of my college professors used to say something similar when someone greeted him saying, “Good morning Bro.

DeWelt.

How are you this morning?”

He would respond, “Happy on my way.”

It’s the title of his autobiography.

When we are living for the Lord’s return, we have hope, excitement, and enthusiasm for living;  There’s always something worth getting up for because of our hope for the future.

“In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged.

Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!”  [Romans 5:5, The Message]

 

Joseph Stowell told about the problem at Shepherd's Home.

This institution in Union Grove, Wisconsin was established to provide loving home for the mentally impaired.

Many children have been nurtured in Christian love through this home.

Many have also come to know Christ as Savior.

They have also learned about the soon return of Jesus Christ.

This is a teaching the children of Shepherd's Home have taken seriously.

And that is the problem - Each day the children run to the window to see if this is the day Jesus will return.

They just can't keep their windows clean!

* *

We need this kind of anticipation for the resurrection reunion with our Lord*, *and we need to...

* *

*II.

Stay Ready In Faith*

“That day of the Lord will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night.

When people are saying, “All is well; everything is quiet and peaceful.”

[1 Thessalonians 5.2-3, Living Bible]