Untitled Sermon

Message 5/16/22

Introduction (This is where you get the audiences attention and connect with them personally)

Imagine[DN1] with me for a minute that you are[DN2] living in Macedonia[DN3] a long time ago. You have held fast to your family’s traditions all of your life. You have been a good son or daughter and believed what your parents believed, which is what their parents believed, which is what their parents believed, and so on and so on. In your desire to uphold your family’s traditions you have studied every little nuance of each ceremony, you have memorized the stories that have led to your family traditions and you look forward to one day sharing everything that you have learned with your own kids so that they can in turn follow in your footsteps.

Thanks to the Roman rule of the entire area you have a hard life, but a good life. You know what is expected of you and you know pretty well how to operate day by day within those expectations. You have a regular pattern that you can stick to and which year after year has served you and your community well.

Part of what you and your family has always believed is that there is a Savior coming that is going to make every aspect of your life better. He is going to not only help you to firmly connect with your Almighty God, but you also believe he is going to completely change your life situation so that it will no longer be difficult, but rather be glorious. You believe you are one of a special people, chosen by God to be His very own people. As such, you are certain that he is going to overthrow the ruthless rulers who are over you and restore you and your Jewish community to their proper place like it was back at the time of King David.

Come to find out, there was this guy that some had made a big hub-bub over a ways away, over in the home country near Jerusalem. While there were some stories about him that had made it to your city of Thessalonica, you had heard that he was killed by the vile Romans with their horrid method of hanging a man on a cross. Recently you heard a man who had come to your synagogue speak about this man, named Jesus, and how he had lived unlike any other man.

This guy you were listening to, who apparently now goes by the name of Paul, told you that Jesus lived a life without sin, how he was in fact both God and Man, and how he not only died at the hands of the Romans on a cross, but how he also rose again on the third day. He explained with such passion and excitement that you couldn’t help but listen with curiosity and wonder as he unfolded how this man fulfilled every scripture passage that had predicted the coming of a Savior. Paul went on to tell you about his own incredible transformation and how it was because Jesus had come to him and interrupted his trip to persecute more followers of Jesus. Paul was convicted of his sin and himself became a follower of Jesus.

You were amazed to discover that this man Paul’s message was not only compelling, but that it seemed to fill a hole you have had in your heart for as long as you could remember that all the ceremonies and rituals you had taken part in over the years never seemed to be able to fill.

You, along with many other Jews and Greeks in your city, came to believe in this Jesus, known as the Christ, as the Savior that you had heard so much about over your lifetime. In that moment you truly recognized your sinfulness for the first time in your life, despite the countless sacrificial animals you had killed to pay the penalty for your sin for so many years already. The sacrifice of this God-man made sense to you as the ultimate sacrifice for your sin, and you slowly began to see for the first time that your relationship with God hadn’t been a relationship until now, you had simply been following traditions and hoping for freedom and power in your own life. This Jesus was just what your heart and your relationship with God needed.

Unfortunately, after only a few weeks Paul was making some Jews jealous, as so many Jews were converting to become Jesus-followers instead. Come to find out, this had happened in other Jewish synagogues as well. As a result, anti-Paul Jews stirred up some folks who, lets say, aren’t the sweetest and kindest in the neighborhood, and these folks went whole-hog and got all riot-y and made a big stink.

Turns out, Romans aren’t big fans of rioting in the towns they rule. They threatened to get all kill-y and wouldn’t calm down until some money was paid them to chill out. As a result, Paul and his helper Silas were whisked away in the night soon after you had come to faith in Jesus and he left you and so many others to figure out your way in this new way of life all on your own. You and the others who had come to believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior were unsure how to live in this new life, as it was a radical change from the church you had grown up in.

You were instructed by Paul to work out your salvation by holding fast to your hope in Jesus and showing love to other believers as well as non-believers in a radically new way. He had told you that you were going to suffer for your faith, and he told you several stories about all the suffering he had already done for his. He instructed you to follow his example and to share this Gospel message with everyone you can, to turn from idols and to abstain from sexual immorality. He encouraged you to be holy, as God is holy, and to love others as God had so richly loved you.

Some time after Paul’s sudden departure, he sent to you a young man by the name of Timothy, who carried with him further instructions for you in how to live in this new faith you had found in Jesus. He shared with you news of how Paul was doing, how he and the others with him were winning many to Christ through the sharing of the Gospel message, and how he was so concerned for you and wanted to learn how you were doing in your faith. Timothy shared with you how Paul was so eagerly praying for your spiritual health and well-being, and how glad he would be to hear that you had been praying for him as well. Timothy seemed lighter and truly happy to see how you and your brothers and sisters in Christ had been living out your faith. You were glad to see this, but you have so many questions that you don’t know how to find the answers to in this new faith you had found.

For example, you were told by Paul that Jesus had ascended to heaven some forty days after he exited the grave and came back to life, but Paul had assured you that Jesus was soon going to be coming back to take you to heaven with him. You have wondered how much temptation, how much suffering, how much abuse you would have to experience before Jesus came back for you. Furthermore, you wondered how much longer it would be before Paul himself would come back to you and teach you more about this new Way that you have been shown to live. You were surprised to see brothers and sisters in Christ, those who had shown a dramatic change in how they lived, how they loved, how they saw God pass away before your Lord and Savior had come back to take you all to heaven. What about them? Will they still be able to be with you for all eternity in heaven? How much longer will it be?

Tension (This is where you present the question that your message will answer.)

That’s[DN4] where we are as we come to today’s passage of scripture. Try to understand this as we jump into some incredible instructions that people have debated, argued over and struggled with for centuries.

So as you turn to the fourth chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians on page 987 in the bibles in the chairs in front of you, let's go to prayer to ask God for help with all of this, shall we?

God, thank you first and foremost for your Son, Jesus Christ. Thank you for sending him to us on earth to save us from our sin. Thank you for his perfection and for the grace that he extends to all of us who are not perfect, so that through believing in him we can come to you in faith and receive the gift of eternal life. Jesus, thank you for not only coming here to earth in human form, but also for giving up your life to pay the penalty for every sin I have committed. I am so grateful that you did that, Lord, even though I have never deserved that. I thank you that, as we were so blessed to celebrate a few weeks ago with Easter, you rose from the dead and overcame death and that you live once more. Thank you for showing yourself to the apostles and so many others and for giving us your Holy Spirit as well as your Word to show us how to live, how to love and how to follow you more closely. Please guide my tongue to not say anything that does not honor you, guide the ears of all who hear this message, Lord, to receive what you have for them to hear, and may you bless this time of worship Lord that your will be done, here on earth as it is in heaven. We ask all of this in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Truth (This is where you answer the question you got us all asking with God’s Word)

With the back story that we now have in mind, we’ll jump right into our first point of the message today, which is

The return of Christ is meant to be a comfort for believers.

Let’s take a look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 13, which reads, “13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, gthat you may not grieve as others do hwho have no hope.”

In the three weeks that Paul preached in Thessalonica, clearly he firmly impressed upon the new believers to believe that Jesus was coming back for them very soon. It is clear from verse 13 that they were greatly concerned. It is fair to guess that they asked Timothy, when he came to check in on them, about what happens to their brothers and sisters in Christ that are dying before Jesus returned for them all.

Just to be clear, being asleep was a common euphemism used for death. There are many references to death being sleep throughout the bible. 1 Corinthians 15:51 reads, “51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. sWe shall not all sleep”, meaning that not everyone will die before Jesus’s return. We see it used in John 11:11 as Jesus refers to Lazarus as not dead, but rather that he has fallen asleep, and again in Mark 5:39 (display 5:38-42?) as Jesus is at the house of the ruler of the synagogue when he admonishes the crowd that the ruler’s child is not dead but sleeping. In both of these cases Jesus raises them back to life, by calling Lazarus out of the tomb and telling the girl “Talitha cumi”, which means “Little girl, I say to you, arise.”

The very same is true for every believer that has “fallen asleep” in this life. We will be raised by Jesus to eternal life with Him at the call of his voice. We don’t need to grieve or despair when a fellow brother or sister in Christ dies, as we will be joining them again soon in Heaven and will get to share the joy of being with God forever more. We are going to be separated only for a short time, but on the back side of that time of separation we will be joined together with all believers by Jesus when he returns to bring all believers to heaven with him to enjoy all of eternity in the presence of God. I can’t overstate that. We get to be with God and Jesus in heaven for all of eternity.

We shouldn’t want anyone to miss out on this. This is why the mission that Jesus has given us through The Great Commission is so important and imperative! He has charged us to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (in Matthew 28:19) We don’t want anyone to “grieve as others do who have no hope” as stated in verse 13 of 1 Thessalonians 4.

The hopelessness of eternal separation from God in hell is more than anyone can bear, but so many are headed right to it without truly realizing it. They falsely believe that they have plenty of time to come to Christ, or they believe that God is too kind and too sweet to send anyone to hell. What other lies has the devil convinced them of, that they can make up for their sin on their own, or that their good outweighs their bad, so Saint Peter will let them in the pearly gates and they can sneak into heaven on a wing and a prayer. None of this is true and these lies all lead the unbeliever to hell.

One of the great things about being a follower of Christ is that every one of us also knows what it was like not being a follower of Christ. No one was born a Christian, and no-one inherited faith at birth. Some may have come to faith at an early age, but every believer was at one point an unbeliever. As such, Ephesians 2:12 rings in our ears to “12 remember lthat you were at that time separated from Christ, malienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to nthe covenants of promise, ohaving no hope and without God in the world.”

We know what it is like to have no hope, because at one time in our lives we were there. We have to recognize that this doesn’t give us the kind of cocky arrogance that makes us want to give non-believers a nanna-nana-boo-boo and thumb our noses at them, but rather it should give us the drive, the passion, the desire to share Christ with them to hopefully help them to faith before the clock runs out on being able to do so. The final buzzer is either going to go off as their lives come to an end, or when Jesus returns, whichever comes first. Here’s the thing, none of us know when either of those two events are going to occur. That’s why we have to see the urgency of sharing the Gospel with everyone that we can.

Even though we can’t know anyone’s heart, have you ever been to a funeral of someone who likely was a non-believer? It’s not a whole lot of fun, is it? There is definitely a different vibe than that of a celebration of life for a believer. We believers have what every non-believer needs to be able to avoid an eternity in hell and instead enjoy an eternity in heaven with our Creator God. That which we have—that they so desperately need—is the Gospel message.

We can’t fall asleep on our responsibility (see what I did there?) to share the Gospel every chance we get. That might mean telling them about it, or it might mean living in such a way that the Gospel is evident in our lives so that we get an opportunity to tell them the gospel. Either way, we believers carry with us the responsibility and unique opportunity to show Christ to others.

Now let’s take a look at the second point from today’s passage, The return of Christ is rooted in the resurrectionof Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:14-15). Verse 14 reads, “14 For isince we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him jthose who have fallen asleep.”

We see here that believing Jesus died and rose again is a fundamental basis for our faith. We can’t truly believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior without believing in his death and resurrection. Think about it, without his death, the penalty for sin would not be paid for us. Romans 6:23 says, “23 dFor the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Sin costs something. The wage, or cost, of sin is death. Jesus was unique in many ways, one of the most important ways for us was that he didn’t sin. What that means is that he shouldn’t have died. No sin equals no death. [Graphic?] However, he went to the cross willingly and gave his life up for us so that the penalty of our sin would be paid. His death was the wage for our sin. [Graphic?]

His resurrection was what makes Him sovereign over everything in this world, including death. Coming back to the passage in 1st Corinthians, I love what Paul has to say about Jesus’ victory over death:

54bx“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

55y“O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

56The sting of death is sin, and zthe power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God, awho gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58bTherefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in cthe work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord dyour labor is not in vain.

The resurrection of Jesus is what gives us hope of our own resurrection. We are to be like him, and one day we will be very much so. Even to the point of coming back to life, just like he did. If we believe that Jesus came back to life and lives still today, we can have hope that we too will overcome death and come back to life to be with him for all eternity. And when we come back to life, we will also ascend, just like Jesus did, to be with the Father in Heaven for all eternity, just like Jesus!

In the second part of verse 14 we see “God will bring with him jthose who have fallen asleep”. We can compare this to verses 51-53 from 1 Corinthians 15, “We shall not all sleep, tbut we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For uthe trumpet will sound, and vthe dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and wthis mortal body must put on immortality.” These two passages point to what is commonly referred to as the rapture of the church. If you’ve ever read or watched the Left Behind series, or if you have studied the book of Revelation, you may be familiar with this.

Jesus is going to come back for his own and it will happen suddenly, “in the twinkling of an eye” as Paul puts it to the Corinthians. This has left some to speculate what this will look like - will suddenly planes piloted by believers crash due to the sudden absence of their pilot, or cars crash into one other as their drivers are quickly skirted away to heaven? I don’t know. I don’t know that wondering about that is what God really wants us to focus on. Here I’m going to point to Colossians 3:1-4 for a dual purpose:

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Colossians 3:1-4

We are to set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. While we can hope for the rapture to occur in our own lifetime, just as believers have been doing since the time of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, we shouldn’t consume ourselves with guessing when it will be and how it will happen and what it should look like. Also, did you catch the last part of that passage? “When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” This again points to Jesus coming back for us and taking us with him to heaven. Isn’t that great?

If you think about it, it is far better that we don’t know when Jesus is coming back. I’ll use the garbage pickup as my evidence for this. Wait, did I say garbage pickup? Yup, I did.

Let’s say that the garbage pickup day is on Tuesdays for you. When do you put the garbage out? Friday night? Nope. Saturday morning? No. If you are really good, you do it Monday night, but I’m going to guess most of us would leave it until Tuesday morning. Or we would remember as we are backing out the driveway. Or we are half way to work when we finally think of it, right?

What does that have to do with the return of Christ? Well, maybe nothing. But if we knew when Christ as going to return, we would go on with life as usual until just before his return. Chances are, knowing our human nature, we wouldn’t feel compelled to share the Gospel message of Jesus Christ with our neighbor or a stranger or our loved ones until the day of his return, which might be way too late for many. We are prone to procrastination, and the Gospel message is way too important–eternal destinations are way too important–for us to put any of this off for even a moment. Not knowing when Christ will return, or when we may die, or when the person who needs Christ may die puts emphasis on the importance of dealing with our sin and our decision on the claims of Christ right now. We are way better off not knowing these things.

John 14:1-3 spells it out for us very well as Jesus speaks to his disciples and also to us, “14Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us, and he is most assuredly going to come back for us to take us to himself, so we can be with him in Heaven for all eternity. We are absolutely assured of this! Does it get any better than this?

So we don’t get things out of order, let’s now look at verse 15 from the 4th chapter of 1st Thessalonians. It reads, “15 For this we declare to you kby a word from the Lord,4 that lwe who are alive, who are left until mthe coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.” Here is the answer to the question that the new believers in Thessalonica were worried about. Believers who have already died will most assuredly get to experience the return of Christ. In fact, it sounds to me like those who have already physically died when Christ returns will get to go to the front of the line. Those who haven’t yet experienced a physical death will have to go to the back of the line, but because of what the line leads to, I’m guessing no one will complain about their position in it.

So now, we have seen that the return of Christ is meant to be a comfort for believers and the return of Christ is rooted in the resurrection of Christ. Our final point for today’s passage is The return of Christ will be clearlydistinguished by several unique events (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18). “16 For nthe Lord himself will descend ofrom heaven pwith a cry of command, with the voice of qan archangel, and rwith the sound of the trumpet of God. And sthe dead in Christ will rise first.”

We can be assured that we aren’t going to miss the greatest homecoming in the history of homecomings. We are told here in verse 16 that the Lord himself will come with a cry of command. What that will sound like, I’m not sure, but it comes from the same one who simply spoke and calmed the sea in the midst of a terrible storm. He also spoke the world into existence, so there’s that too. His voice will be unmistakeable, and it will be impossible to miss. But, just in case you are a heavy sleeper, or your noise-cancelling headphones are really, really good, there will also be the voice of an archangel to accompany the cry of command.

Oh, and let’s not forget the trumpet of God. I’m going to guess that it sounds much more beautiful, but I can easily recall hearing the sound of the trumpet of my sister growing up. No matter where you were. In the house, outside the house, in the yard. Down at the neighbor’s house a quarter mile away. You could hear that blessed trumpet no matter what. So I’m willing to guess that you aren’t going to miss God’s trumpet when it gets blown at the return of Christ.

“17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be tcaught up together with them uin the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so vwe will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.” At this time we will all be scooped up and get our first lesson in cloud surfing. Or something like that. Let me point back to Acts 1:9, which says, “9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, the was lifted up, and ua cloud took him out of their sight.” Once again, just like Jesus, we will get to ascend into heaven on a cloud.

How can you not smile when you think about this? What a glorious day it will be! We will get the greatest of all eternities you could ever imagine. And it is likely coming soon. Here we need to be careful, as we can make several mistakes with the second coming of Jesus. One is that we can think that it is so far into the future that we shouldn’t concern ourselves with it right now. That is no different than being nonchalant about unbelievers. If we lose the perspective that this could happen at any time, we will lose our desire and drive to share Christ. We can also swing the other way and get so excited for heaven that we end up being of no earthly good.

We are here for a purpose: to glorify God. One of the many ways we can glorify Him is by showing the world what it is to have a biblical world view. Dan has been sharing this with us for several weeks now, and I think it is worthwhile to remind us of this even here today. We need to see God as the ultimate good, so that we see sin as our ultimate problem. Then we will view God’s Word as the ultimate guide to help us make God’s glory our ultimate goal. This view helps us to keep from focusing on our own happiness and personal feelings instead, leading us to a secular view that distorts our right view of God and keeps us from His purpose for our lives.

A biblical world view doesn’t happen by accident. As a believer, you need to invest time and effort into your relationship with God through Jesus Christ by spending time in His word. You need to spend time in prayer and spend time with fellow believers to sharpen your understanding of God’s Word and your own faith in Him. You need to give of yourself, your time and your efforts to allow God to use you for His purposes. How will you allow God to be glorified in your life?

Are you correctly seeing the return of Jesus as something that is coming very soon? As a result are you earnestly sharing the Gospel message of Jesus with everyone who will listen? Does his imminent return make you so excited that you are striving to live a holy life? Are you turning your back to sin and choosing instead to suffer for a short time until Jesus returns to take you to the place he has prepared for your in heaven? If not, will you?

If the praise team would like to come up, let’s pray in closing.