Matthew 5, I Corinthians 6
July 2, 2000
Introduction: Collins H. Haines was a Navy pilot when he was shot down over Hanoi on June 5, 1967. That day in June began a tortuous 5 years and 9 months confinement as a prisoner-of-war. On March 4, 1973, Collins Haines walked out of his Hanoi prison toward a homeward-bound C141 Air Force transport jet. Captain Haines remembers, “Those were my first steps to freedom… how very precious they were.”
Everyman’s first step to freedom has always been very, very precious.
On July 4th of the year 1776, 56 men of courage from 13 American colonies took their first steps to freedom by affixing their signatures to a declaration of independence.
Their first steps taken toward freedom, though precious, would be costly ones indeed. In the months that followed this declaration of independence, “five signers of the Declaration (of Independence) were captured by the British and tortured before they died. 12 had their homes… sacked, looted, occupied by the enemy, or burned. Two lost their sons in the army. One had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 died in the war, from its hardships or from its bullets.”
The steps to freedom have always been very, very precious.
In the case of these founding fathers of our great land, consider the magnitude of the impact of their steps toward freedom. There is no other country in the world that has developed the concepts of republic and democracy like this one has! Even 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson said, “My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!” Of course, with the hindsight of 200 years, we know more than they did! The initial steps to freedom taken by these 56 men and their countrymen started a journey that is beyond compare in history.
There is another dimension to their declaration of independence that many of us are aware of and all of us should be. These 56 signers also affirmed their dependence upon Almighty God. The closing words of their proclamation, the climax to their bold statement to the world, read like this: “With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
These great men knew that God plays a role in the affairs of men and countries and nations. These early leaders knew that there was a Redeemer who proclaimed a Gospel that set people free to be free indeed.
John Quincy Adams wrote in that era, “From the day of the Declaration (of Independence)… the American people were bound by the laws of God, which they all acknowledged as the rules of their conduct., and (the American people were bound ) by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.”
James Madison would also write in that day, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
Some of the parting words of George Washington are these: “…you do well to wish to learn our arts and way of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are.”
What Mr. Washington, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Adams were communicating was the truth of the Scriptures. What they were communicating was a spiritual freedom that went hand in hand with their experiment of political freedom!
It was the Lord Jesus who had said in John 8:36, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” It was the apostle Paul who had written in Gal. 5:1, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free…” The great prophet Isaiah had looked forward to the coming of the Redeemer and wrote, “(He will come) to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners…” (Isa. 61:1)
So what about the magnitude of the freedom Jesus offers? What did He have in mind when He offered a freedom that would make us free indeed?
When we look at His Sermon on the Mount, we get great exposure into the extend of the freedom He offered. To those poor in spirit (Mt. 5:3 ff.), He offered the kingdom of heaven. ‘Poor in spirit’ describes those who have no clue about spiritual things, no clue about religion. They are spiritual paupers with no spiritual qualifications and no spiritual abilities. Spiritually, they are bankrupt, deficient – beggars without a clue or a hope. To these, the Lord Jesus offers the gracious touch of heaven, a relationship with the One Who is now present in their midst.
To those who mourn, the Lord Jesus offers comfort. To those with broken hearts -- the heartbreak of rejection, the heartbreak of death, the heartbreak of financial loss, there are a thousand ways we are brought to grief…. To all these the freedom Jesus offers bursts forth in comfort and laughter. Tears are turned to joy; mourning gives way to comfort, tragedy becomes blessing. When Jesus sets us free, we are free indeed.
To those who are meek, gentle, they shall inherit the earth. (Mt. 5:5) The freedom Jesus offers takes the shy ones, the reserved ones, the unassuming, unassertive, intimidated people of the world and gives them standing as children whose Father holds it all in His hand and gives it as they have need. When Jesus sets us free, we are free indeed!
To those who are pure in heart, they shall see God. (Mt. 5:8) To the ones who are perfectionists, who can never see a thing without seeing its imperfections, who are never satisfied, not with everyone and everything else, most of all themselves… To those who constantly complain… the food isn’t cooked right, this dress doesn’t fit right, these colors don’t match and they don’t complement… To these miserable souls whose everyday is one frustration and disaster after another, the Lord Jesus offers the prospect of seeing God, the One who is perfect, the One who is good enough, the One who is able to satisfy all their expectations without fail. In the Lord Jesus, freedom is freedom indeed!
There is much more that Jesus offers, not only in the Sermon on the Mount, but in the rest of the Scriptures, but this is enough to help us begin to see the magnitude of the freedom that He intended that we experience in our relationship with Him.
And remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthians on this issue of freedom in Christ? “Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” (I Cor. 6:9-11)
Where the Gospel is proclaimed and believed, men and women are set free. They experience liberty! They are let loose from the bonds of sexual lust. They are set free from the constraints of perversions. The chains of greed are broken. The shackles of co-dependency are unlocked. They know freedom from the fetters of swindle. The handcuffs of contemptuous, abusive language are removed.
The steps to freedom are precious indeed. When the Lord Jesus sets us free, we know a freedom that is beyond compare.
July the 4th is certainly the day to celebrate our freedoms in this great land. The steps taken to provide these freedoms have been precious and costly. They should not be disregarded nor downplayed; they should not be overlooked or forgotten. They are our joy and the envy of the world.
But as great as these freedoms are, as far into our lives as they reach, as profound and blessed as we hold them, they cannot compare to the freedom we can know that was made available by the death of the Savior.
Today, friends, some of us need to heed the words of the Lord Jesus found in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. The Savior said, in Mt. 4:17, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The Savior, representing God’s rule in our realm, the kingdom of heaven, invites us to change the direction in which we are headed. That’s what repent means! When the rule of heaven comes down upon our lives through a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, we are set free!
Some of us, in our heart of hearts, would have to say today, “I don’t know the kind of freedom I’m hearing about today!” My life is one of hopelessness, characterized by day after day of quiet desperation (Thoreau). We don’t do much that counts, we haven’t been able to reach our dreams, we don’t feel secure, we are more frantic than peaceful, we are more despairing than delighted. “Repent, for the Savior is at hand.”
July 2, 2000, would be a good day to make a personal declaration: “From today forward, I’m going to make it a priority to develop a relationship with Jesus Christ. Lord, I’m ready to take freedom’s road—I want to be under the rule of the Liberator.” Won’t you make that decision today?
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Friday, May 30, 2008
Final challenges for the church looking for His return
I Thessalonians 5:12-28
January 9, 2000
Introduction: I read this week a brief biography of a harpist by the name of Turlough O’Carolan. He was born in Ireland in 1670, and he is known as the master of the Irish harp. During his lifetime he composed some 220 songs called jigs and planxties, and his songs are the only songs of his time to survive to our day. Interestingly, he was blinded by smallpox as a 17 year old teenager, but that didn’t keep him from becoming the best. He supported himself by composing music and playing for fans and supporters. He did this for 50 years.
Amadeo Peter Giannini dropped out of school at the age of 14, having lost his father at the age of 7.. He bought the Bank of America in 1928, and when he retired in 1945, his bank was the largest in America. As a one-time laborer, he had a dream for a bank that would market its services to ordinary people who were struggling to make something of their lives and who needed a helping hand to do it. He would be quoted as saying, “It’s no use to decide what’s going to happen unless you have the courage of your convictions. Many a brilliant ideas has been lost because the man who dreamed it lacked the spunk or the spine to put it across. It doesn’t matter if you don’t always hit the exact bulls-eye,” he said, “the other rings in the targets score points, too.”
Both O’Carolan and Giannini started out in life with huge challenges on their plates. They saw the challenges as obstacles to be overcome so they might make a mark in their world.
When Paul comes to the end of his first letter to these Thessalonians, he concludes with a number of challenges. He lays these challenges before his friends as a way for them to mark their world for the Lord Jesus and His Gospel. In light of all his emphasis in this letter upon the return of the Lord Jesus, it is obvious that Paul has certain expectations of this particular group of believers. These Thessalonians are a good church; they are an assembly with many strengths and many good qualities; there is the certain expectation that the Lord Jesus may return very soon. In that light, Paul seeks to encourage them on in their faith with some attention to a number of particular issues.
These issues can be grouped into three categories that will help us get a handle on Paul’s final instructions.
He first speaks to all those in the church who would be leaders and followers. All the church would be included in one of these two categories.
He then speaks to the church regarding some with particular needs, needs that are evident, needs that can be helped within the church body.
Then thirdly, he returns to general instructions for everyone—leaders, followers, needy, everyone who makes up this fellowship.
If those of us in this church will give heed to these commands, the church will continue to mature; it will continue to know the presence of God in its experience; it will continue to be a bright light to its community and its world; and perhaps most of all, it will be prepared for the return of the Lord Jesus.
What was good counsel for this first century church is good counsel for us! This is a great church; it has many strengths and many accomplishments. But it, we, can excel even more. And we can be better prepared for the Lord’s return. If the Lord Jesus was given the signal this afternoon to return, we’d want to be found doing these things. And if we have a week or a month yet to wait, there’s still time to be improving in these areas. How we live here is important, for one day our future involvement in God’s kingdom will be dependent upon how we have lived here. So let’s consider Paul’s final instructions and learn some practical lessons to take home with us.
Our text is the last half of the 5th chapter of I Thessalonians. It reads like this, beginning in verse 12: “But we request of you, brethren that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another.
We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people.
Rejoice always; pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.
Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
Paul’s first exhortations are to the church leaders and to those they lead. These are kindly requests. In verses 12 and 13, we see at least two characteristics of church leaders. (1) Those who lead are known for their labor on behalf of the church. Their work, verse 13, is done with diligence, vs. 12. Diligent work is indeed labor. (2) They have authority from the Chief Shepherd, the Lord Jesus. The text of verse 12 says these leaders have charge over you in the Lord. Leaders have the responsibility from the Lord Jesus to urge their followers in the church along to obedience and maturity. Leaders have the important obligation to guide church members into truth and commitment. The instruction they give is valuable, it is profitable, it is life-giving and life-saving.
Further, in these two verses, we see two requirements for everyone else in the church. (1) Followers are to appreciate those who lead them, and (2) they are to honor them. The expression ‘appreciate’ comes from a little word that means ‘to know’. Paul is saying that appreciation comes from knowing fully the value and worth of leaders who are working hard to lead the church in the paths of Jesus. We recognize it is hard to appreciate someone or something we don’t know very well. Paul’s request to the Thessalonians is that they acknowledge more clearly the role of leaders as valuable elements in the life of the assembly. That acknowledgement is a definition of appreciation.
Knowing leaders in this way leads to Paul’s second request: Honor them, esteem them very highly. Honor has always meant to express to someone how much he means to you. Honor takes a thousand forms, from the briefest note to the most expensive of gifts.
I had this kind of experience this week when Steve and Ron and I left Upland at 4 am Wednesday to pray and anoint Herb Frye with oil at the IU Med Center in Indy. During that time with Herb and Kathy, Herb motioned for me to lean close, he shared some thoughts with me, then he kissed me on the cheek, thanking me for being his pastor. That was an expression of honor.
Paul requests of these believers that they salute the high calling of their leaders, that they praise them for their hard work, and that they let their leaders know how valuable they are to them.
Notice, both appreciation and honor are to flow out of love.
And, leaders and followers are to live in peace with one another.
So, how do we at the UCC measure up? For those of us who are leaders, we want to evaluate how hard we are working on behalf of the local church. ‘Diligent labor’ and ‘work’ are the foundation in this text for the rewards of honor and esteem. It may be hard for the church family to appreciate us as leaders if the extent of our ‘work’ is a couple of hours a month attending a board meeting.
I would love to have all of us, at the beginning of this new year, take a few moments with our spouses or close friends and honestly evaluate our lives in relationship to the church. Some of us leaders are stretched way too thin because we are serving in too many ministries. Others of us are doing the bare minimum for conscience’s sake, or for a line on a resume, or whatever.
I would love to see all our church leaders spending 2 ½ hours a week in church work—elders making calls and visits and praying, trustees stopping by the church to walk around with eyes wide open, stewardship board members dreaming and brainstorming about inspiring stewardship among us, missions board members calling us to greater vision of a lost world, ed. min. folks visiting Sunday School classes and nurseries on Sunday mornings with an eye to evaluation and improvement. 2 ½ hours a week, out of 168, would be a step toward balance, wouldn’t it?
For those of us who are followers, how are we doing with our following? We do a great job in October honoring and esteeming our pastors, a great job! But how are we doing week-to-week, for example, in taking our Sunday instruction seriously? In our Sunday school hour and in our worship hour, we leaders are seeking to give guidance from the word of God that will be beneficial for the coming week. Is our first response to question, challenge, or criticize?
How are we doing with our attitudes of submission and respect? The writer of Hebrews (13:17) would say, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy, not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.”
I know in these days of independence and prosperity it is sometimes hard to think about authority and submission. But there is great advantage is developing these traits in this day, for our future in the kingdom will be far more profitable for it!
Peace will reign in the church when leaders work hard and when followers follow with respect and appreciation.
Paul’s second set of challenges are directed to groups within the church who have particular needs. While the first challenges were kindly requests, these are urgent summons. According to verse 14, the first are the Unruly: they need warning. The second are the Fainthearted: they need comfort. The third are the Weak: they need support. And the fourth group is Everyone else: all need patience.
I like how Peterson, in The Message ties these together: “Our counsel is that you warn the freeloaders to get a move on. Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet…”
When Paul uses the terms ‘admonish’ and ‘unruly’, he is drawing upon strong and unusual terms. ‘Admonish’ means to confront and call to account, even when it may be difficult for a leader to do and a follower to receive. ‘Unruly’ is a picture word of a soldier out of step or out of rank. It is also used of an army moving in disarray. I was once lined up in a parade formation in boot camp, and I was too far forward in this long line of Marines. The drill instructor walked down the line and punched me in the stomach. I stepped back a tad! That was a painful experience of being admonished as unruly!
For the Thessalonians, some had stepped out of line, some had left their duties, some were neglecting their responsibilities. Paul instructed the church leaders to warn these to return to a more disciplined approach to life and ministry.
Yes, there are those in the church who are undisciplined, idle, neglecting their duties, not keeping their word, out of line. It does no one any good to overlook this kind of behavior. It does the church’s testimony no good for leaders to wink at these kinds of actions.
On the other hand, there are those who need not admonishing, they need encouraging. The fainthearted need gentle touches, encouraging words, a smile, a shoulder to lean on. These are those who have suffered, who have been pressed down, who are discouraged, who feel temporarily overwhelmed by the stresses and pressures of life. They need tender understanding and reassurances.
The weak need support. They are exhausted and drained, perhaps burned-out. They need to know that others are strong, and these who are strong will not leave them, will not forsake them. It’s OK for us to be weak in the church; we need not fear being left behind. We need not fear being abandoned. The strong will be available to be clung to for support, for refreshment, for healing.
Finally, everyone needs patience. Patience means ‘long-tempered’. It means a long fuse, slow irritability, everyone giving everyone else a chance to grow up, space to mature. Patience means calmness when others are too slow to see their need to change, or having seen it, too slow to take action in the right direction.
So, how are we doing here at the UCC? Do the unruly get admonished? Do the fainthearted find comfort? Do the weak get supported? Are we patient with one another?
In the last segment of the chapter, Paul offers challenges to all the church, verse 15 to the end of the chapter. The first segment of challenges were kindly requested, the second set of summons were urgently needed, these final charges are always appropriate.
All need to pursue good and avoid evil, especially the evil of revenge. Pursue the good of the one you can’t stand. Look for ways to do good to the one who regularly offends you. Help your co-worker to succeed. Take down fences in the neighborhood. Seek after that which is good for one another
All need to rejoice always in all things. God is bigger than all our circumstances, and He is faithfully at work in all things to bring us to glory. I read in Psalm 37 this week the encouragement to “feed on His faithfulness”. When we see ourselves figuratively munching of fond memories of God’s help in times past, we have just cause for rejoicing. We can have a sense of humor, we can face the day with optimism. Our God is up to great things.
All need to pray at all times. This phrase means to be in such a relationship with God that you are conversing with Him throughout the day in praise and in petitions.
All need to give thanks continually. To learn to give thanks IN every situation develops a grateful heart. If God is at work shaping us into the image of His Son, then we can give thanks in everything. IN marks a crucial difference from FOR. We may not be thankful for a storm, but we can be, and God expects us to be, grateful IN the storm. There are great purposes at work that God wants us to thank Him for.
All need to never quench the Spirit. This admonition means to not put out the fire of the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit flames up in our hearts, when He nudges us in a direction we need to go, it is wise for us to obey. When He gives us a burden for someone, we need to follow through. When He won’t let us sleep about a dream or vision from God, we need to pay attention and be responsive. When He makes a verse leap off the page of the Scripture, we do well to pay attention. When we don’t… we have turned in the direction of disobedience.
All need to never despise prophecies. For these first century believers, this was an admonition to pay attention to prophecies. Perhaps because of the false prophets spreading tales of the Lord’s having already returned, the Thessalonians were skeptical of all prophecies. Paul wanted them to listen to real prophets who spoke the truth of God’s word. For us in this day, with a completed Word of God, this injunction would refer to those who speak the Word to us, to those that God uses to speak to us. One commentator suggests we need to listen to wise exhortations from people who challenge us to live according to the Word.
All need to test everything. In a nutshell, we need to be discerning. We need to ask certain kinds of questions: Is this instruction something I can verify from the Word? Does this teaching lead to the glorifying of the Lord Jesus? How does this strike my spirit, the place where the Holy Spirit gives me confidence?
All need to abstain from every form of evil. If an issue passes the test, hold on to it. If it doesn’t, avoid it decisively. Make no compromises. Don’t toy with it. Be separated from it completely.
That makes quite a list of challenges, don’t you think?
Finally, Paul’s Benediction follows in verses 23-28. God can be trusted to keep us; it is His work to preserve us; He is the faithful one. Greet one another with a holy kiss. Read this letter to everyone.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
January 9, 2000
Introduction: I read this week a brief biography of a harpist by the name of Turlough O’Carolan. He was born in Ireland in 1670, and he is known as the master of the Irish harp. During his lifetime he composed some 220 songs called jigs and planxties, and his songs are the only songs of his time to survive to our day. Interestingly, he was blinded by smallpox as a 17 year old teenager, but that didn’t keep him from becoming the best. He supported himself by composing music and playing for fans and supporters. He did this for 50 years.
Amadeo Peter Giannini dropped out of school at the age of 14, having lost his father at the age of 7.. He bought the Bank of America in 1928, and when he retired in 1945, his bank was the largest in America. As a one-time laborer, he had a dream for a bank that would market its services to ordinary people who were struggling to make something of their lives and who needed a helping hand to do it. He would be quoted as saying, “It’s no use to decide what’s going to happen unless you have the courage of your convictions. Many a brilliant ideas has been lost because the man who dreamed it lacked the spunk or the spine to put it across. It doesn’t matter if you don’t always hit the exact bulls-eye,” he said, “the other rings in the targets score points, too.”
Both O’Carolan and Giannini started out in life with huge challenges on their plates. They saw the challenges as obstacles to be overcome so they might make a mark in their world.
When Paul comes to the end of his first letter to these Thessalonians, he concludes with a number of challenges. He lays these challenges before his friends as a way for them to mark their world for the Lord Jesus and His Gospel. In light of all his emphasis in this letter upon the return of the Lord Jesus, it is obvious that Paul has certain expectations of this particular group of believers. These Thessalonians are a good church; they are an assembly with many strengths and many good qualities; there is the certain expectation that the Lord Jesus may return very soon. In that light, Paul seeks to encourage them on in their faith with some attention to a number of particular issues.
These issues can be grouped into three categories that will help us get a handle on Paul’s final instructions.
He first speaks to all those in the church who would be leaders and followers. All the church would be included in one of these two categories.
He then speaks to the church regarding some with particular needs, needs that are evident, needs that can be helped within the church body.
Then thirdly, he returns to general instructions for everyone—leaders, followers, needy, everyone who makes up this fellowship.
If those of us in this church will give heed to these commands, the church will continue to mature; it will continue to know the presence of God in its experience; it will continue to be a bright light to its community and its world; and perhaps most of all, it will be prepared for the return of the Lord Jesus.
What was good counsel for this first century church is good counsel for us! This is a great church; it has many strengths and many accomplishments. But it, we, can excel even more. And we can be better prepared for the Lord’s return. If the Lord Jesus was given the signal this afternoon to return, we’d want to be found doing these things. And if we have a week or a month yet to wait, there’s still time to be improving in these areas. How we live here is important, for one day our future involvement in God’s kingdom will be dependent upon how we have lived here. So let’s consider Paul’s final instructions and learn some practical lessons to take home with us.
Our text is the last half of the 5th chapter of I Thessalonians. It reads like this, beginning in verse 12: “But we request of you, brethren that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another.
We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people.
Rejoice always; pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.
Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
Paul’s first exhortations are to the church leaders and to those they lead. These are kindly requests. In verses 12 and 13, we see at least two characteristics of church leaders. (1) Those who lead are known for their labor on behalf of the church. Their work, verse 13, is done with diligence, vs. 12. Diligent work is indeed labor. (2) They have authority from the Chief Shepherd, the Lord Jesus. The text of verse 12 says these leaders have charge over you in the Lord. Leaders have the responsibility from the Lord Jesus to urge their followers in the church along to obedience and maturity. Leaders have the important obligation to guide church members into truth and commitment. The instruction they give is valuable, it is profitable, it is life-giving and life-saving.
Further, in these two verses, we see two requirements for everyone else in the church. (1) Followers are to appreciate those who lead them, and (2) they are to honor them. The expression ‘appreciate’ comes from a little word that means ‘to know’. Paul is saying that appreciation comes from knowing fully the value and worth of leaders who are working hard to lead the church in the paths of Jesus. We recognize it is hard to appreciate someone or something we don’t know very well. Paul’s request to the Thessalonians is that they acknowledge more clearly the role of leaders as valuable elements in the life of the assembly. That acknowledgement is a definition of appreciation.
Knowing leaders in this way leads to Paul’s second request: Honor them, esteem them very highly. Honor has always meant to express to someone how much he means to you. Honor takes a thousand forms, from the briefest note to the most expensive of gifts.
I had this kind of experience this week when Steve and Ron and I left Upland at 4 am Wednesday to pray and anoint Herb Frye with oil at the IU Med Center in Indy. During that time with Herb and Kathy, Herb motioned for me to lean close, he shared some thoughts with me, then he kissed me on the cheek, thanking me for being his pastor. That was an expression of honor.
Paul requests of these believers that they salute the high calling of their leaders, that they praise them for their hard work, and that they let their leaders know how valuable they are to them.
Notice, both appreciation and honor are to flow out of love.
And, leaders and followers are to live in peace with one another.
So, how do we at the UCC measure up? For those of us who are leaders, we want to evaluate how hard we are working on behalf of the local church. ‘Diligent labor’ and ‘work’ are the foundation in this text for the rewards of honor and esteem. It may be hard for the church family to appreciate us as leaders if the extent of our ‘work’ is a couple of hours a month attending a board meeting.
I would love to have all of us, at the beginning of this new year, take a few moments with our spouses or close friends and honestly evaluate our lives in relationship to the church. Some of us leaders are stretched way too thin because we are serving in too many ministries. Others of us are doing the bare minimum for conscience’s sake, or for a line on a resume, or whatever.
I would love to see all our church leaders spending 2 ½ hours a week in church work—elders making calls and visits and praying, trustees stopping by the church to walk around with eyes wide open, stewardship board members dreaming and brainstorming about inspiring stewardship among us, missions board members calling us to greater vision of a lost world, ed. min. folks visiting Sunday School classes and nurseries on Sunday mornings with an eye to evaluation and improvement. 2 ½ hours a week, out of 168, would be a step toward balance, wouldn’t it?
For those of us who are followers, how are we doing with our following? We do a great job in October honoring and esteeming our pastors, a great job! But how are we doing week-to-week, for example, in taking our Sunday instruction seriously? In our Sunday school hour and in our worship hour, we leaders are seeking to give guidance from the word of God that will be beneficial for the coming week. Is our first response to question, challenge, or criticize?
How are we doing with our attitudes of submission and respect? The writer of Hebrews (13:17) would say, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy, not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.”
I know in these days of independence and prosperity it is sometimes hard to think about authority and submission. But there is great advantage is developing these traits in this day, for our future in the kingdom will be far more profitable for it!
Peace will reign in the church when leaders work hard and when followers follow with respect and appreciation.
Paul’s second set of challenges are directed to groups within the church who have particular needs. While the first challenges were kindly requests, these are urgent summons. According to verse 14, the first are the Unruly: they need warning. The second are the Fainthearted: they need comfort. The third are the Weak: they need support. And the fourth group is Everyone else: all need patience.
I like how Peterson, in The Message ties these together: “Our counsel is that you warn the freeloaders to get a move on. Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet…”
When Paul uses the terms ‘admonish’ and ‘unruly’, he is drawing upon strong and unusual terms. ‘Admonish’ means to confront and call to account, even when it may be difficult for a leader to do and a follower to receive. ‘Unruly’ is a picture word of a soldier out of step or out of rank. It is also used of an army moving in disarray. I was once lined up in a parade formation in boot camp, and I was too far forward in this long line of Marines. The drill instructor walked down the line and punched me in the stomach. I stepped back a tad! That was a painful experience of being admonished as unruly!
For the Thessalonians, some had stepped out of line, some had left their duties, some were neglecting their responsibilities. Paul instructed the church leaders to warn these to return to a more disciplined approach to life and ministry.
Yes, there are those in the church who are undisciplined, idle, neglecting their duties, not keeping their word, out of line. It does no one any good to overlook this kind of behavior. It does the church’s testimony no good for leaders to wink at these kinds of actions.
On the other hand, there are those who need not admonishing, they need encouraging. The fainthearted need gentle touches, encouraging words, a smile, a shoulder to lean on. These are those who have suffered, who have been pressed down, who are discouraged, who feel temporarily overwhelmed by the stresses and pressures of life. They need tender understanding and reassurances.
The weak need support. They are exhausted and drained, perhaps burned-out. They need to know that others are strong, and these who are strong will not leave them, will not forsake them. It’s OK for us to be weak in the church; we need not fear being left behind. We need not fear being abandoned. The strong will be available to be clung to for support, for refreshment, for healing.
Finally, everyone needs patience. Patience means ‘long-tempered’. It means a long fuse, slow irritability, everyone giving everyone else a chance to grow up, space to mature. Patience means calmness when others are too slow to see their need to change, or having seen it, too slow to take action in the right direction.
So, how are we doing here at the UCC? Do the unruly get admonished? Do the fainthearted find comfort? Do the weak get supported? Are we patient with one another?
In the last segment of the chapter, Paul offers challenges to all the church, verse 15 to the end of the chapter. The first segment of challenges were kindly requested, the second set of summons were urgently needed, these final charges are always appropriate.
All need to pursue good and avoid evil, especially the evil of revenge. Pursue the good of the one you can’t stand. Look for ways to do good to the one who regularly offends you. Help your co-worker to succeed. Take down fences in the neighborhood. Seek after that which is good for one another
All need to rejoice always in all things. God is bigger than all our circumstances, and He is faithfully at work in all things to bring us to glory. I read in Psalm 37 this week the encouragement to “feed on His faithfulness”. When we see ourselves figuratively munching of fond memories of God’s help in times past, we have just cause for rejoicing. We can have a sense of humor, we can face the day with optimism. Our God is up to great things.
All need to pray at all times. This phrase means to be in such a relationship with God that you are conversing with Him throughout the day in praise and in petitions.
All need to give thanks continually. To learn to give thanks IN every situation develops a grateful heart. If God is at work shaping us into the image of His Son, then we can give thanks in everything. IN marks a crucial difference from FOR. We may not be thankful for a storm, but we can be, and God expects us to be, grateful IN the storm. There are great purposes at work that God wants us to thank Him for.
All need to never quench the Spirit. This admonition means to not put out the fire of the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit flames up in our hearts, when He nudges us in a direction we need to go, it is wise for us to obey. When He gives us a burden for someone, we need to follow through. When He won’t let us sleep about a dream or vision from God, we need to pay attention and be responsive. When He makes a verse leap off the page of the Scripture, we do well to pay attention. When we don’t… we have turned in the direction of disobedience.
All need to never despise prophecies. For these first century believers, this was an admonition to pay attention to prophecies. Perhaps because of the false prophets spreading tales of the Lord’s having already returned, the Thessalonians were skeptical of all prophecies. Paul wanted them to listen to real prophets who spoke the truth of God’s word. For us in this day, with a completed Word of God, this injunction would refer to those who speak the Word to us, to those that God uses to speak to us. One commentator suggests we need to listen to wise exhortations from people who challenge us to live according to the Word.
All need to test everything. In a nutshell, we need to be discerning. We need to ask certain kinds of questions: Is this instruction something I can verify from the Word? Does this teaching lead to the glorifying of the Lord Jesus? How does this strike my spirit, the place where the Holy Spirit gives me confidence?
All need to abstain from every form of evil. If an issue passes the test, hold on to it. If it doesn’t, avoid it decisively. Make no compromises. Don’t toy with it. Be separated from it completely.
That makes quite a list of challenges, don’t you think?
Finally, Paul’s Benediction follows in verses 23-28. God can be trusted to keep us; it is His work to preserve us; He is the faithful one. Greet one another with a holy kiss. Read this letter to everyone.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Y2K: A time to awaken unsaved sleepers
I Thessalonians 5: 1-11
January 2, 2000
Introduction: Chuck Swindoll, in his little Bible study guide on I Thessalonians, tells the story of a New Yorker who lived on Long Island. In September of 1938, he ordered a barometer from the respected company of Abercrombie and Fitch. Now this barometer was no ordinary instrument. It was an expensive, extremely sensitive barometer. When the order arrived at his home, the new owner was disappointed to discover that the needle of the barometer was pointed to the sector on the dial marked “Hurricane”.
After shaking this new gauge vigorously a few times and seeing no change in the indicator, the New Yorker wrote a scathing letter to Abercrombie and Fitch detailing his disappointment with their defective product. He mailed his letter the next day on his way to his office in New York City. We can imagine his surprise when he returned home that evening to find his new barometer missing --- along with his house!
It seems the barometer’s indicator had been right all along; a hurricane had passed through his area and demolished his neighborhood.
The text we want to study together today is like a barometer whose dial is pointed toward “Hurricane” or “Tornado” or “Severe Storm”. This text warns us that there is a dangerous storm coming, a very dangerous storm like none other that has ever devastated the earth, and it describes for us what we need to be about in anticipation of its arrival.
The question we must face is, “Do I believe this warning indicator?” Like the man from Long Island in 1938, will we assess the indicator to be wrong OR will we begin to take precautionary action? Are there things we ought to be doing before the storm arrives, OR do we go about our normal routines as if nothing will be different today from yesterday? These are questions we want to answer before we leave here today.
Now the storm that Paul anticipates in I Thessalonians 5 is none other than the Great Tribulation, referred to here by the technical terms, Day of the Lord. We know from our previous studies in Daniel and Revelation in years past that this will be a time of unprecedented, world-wide disaster, judgment, and tribulation. So we are fortunate to have some warning indicators. We have been given a heads-up concerning how we should be living, both toward each other in the church and especially towards those who are outside the church, outside the fold of Christ, unsaved as the Bible calls them.
It seems especially appropriate on this Sunday, the first in a new year and a new century, that this particular text comes up on the screen of our sermon schedule. We paused in our studies of I Thessalonians to focus upon the hymns of Christmas, and now it’s time to return to this little book and finish it up. Interestingly, right after Christmas and the first coming of the Lord, we pick up with a text regarding the second coming of the Lord!
The text is I Thessalonians 5:1-11 – (The Message) “I don’t think, friends, that I need to deal with the question of when all this is going to happen. You know as well as I that the day of the Master’s coming can’t be posted on our calendars. He won’t call ahead and make an appointment any more than a burglar would. About the time everybody’s walking around complacently, congratulating each other – “We’ve sure got it made! Now we can take it easy!” – suddenly everything will fall apart. It’s going to come as suddenly and inescapably as birth pangs to a pregnant woman.
But friends, you’re not in the dark, so how could you be taken off guard by any of this? You’re sons of Light, daughters of Day. We live under wide open skies and know where we stand. So let’s not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let’s keep our eyes open and be smart. People sleep at night and get drunk at night. But not us! Since we’re creatures of Day, let’s act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith , love, and the hope of salvation.
God didn’t set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we’re awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we’re alive with Him! So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it.”
Our text before us today deals with three issues, so those are what we want to consider this morning. The first is the timing of this coming Day of the Lord and how that day will come. The second is how the coming of that day will have consequences that affect unbelievers. And the third is how the coming of that day should impact us who are believers.
First then, what is this Day of the Lord, and how and when will it come? Paul gives us a clue that he is shifting gears somewhat from chapter 4 when he begins with the phrase, “Now as to the times and epochs, brethren…” The New King James version translates this “But concerning the times and the seasons…” In Paul’s writings, this phrase, “But concerning” characteristically introduces a new topic, and that is the case here. Paul had finished chapter 4 with insights and instruction concerning the rapture of the church, what we know as the initial phase of the second coming of Christ. Now he wants to remind his readers of what follows the rapture of the church. Notice in your Bibles, Paul had instructed the Thessalonians about the rapture; he now reminds them about a matter they already had knowledge of, the Day of the Lord.
“The Day of the Lord” as a technical phrase is used throughout the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament, to encompass two events. It is used in connection with both the coming judgment of God upon the world and the final dramatic return of the Lord Jesus to reign upon the earth. When we come across the phrase, the context of our reading lets us know which of these two elements is being emphasized. (If you have a good study Bible, you might look this afternoon at the Old Testament book of Joel to gain further insight into this particular Day.)
For Paul’s readers of this Thessalonian letter, they knew what Paul had in mind. They knew he was referencing the beginning of “that day”, for in verse 3 he writes, “While they are saying ‘Peace and safety!’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child…” Paul had also just made reference in verse two to that day coming “just like a thief in the night.”
So we have some clarity here in reference to our first issues. We know what the Day of the Lord is, and we know how and when it will come. As the Day of the Lord, this is the beginning of the great judgment of God upon the world.
Secondly, as to how it will come, we know now that it will come suddenly. I can still remember clearly that night in Indonesia when Suzie woke me to say she was having labor pains. She was pregnant with our first daughter, Stephanie, and it was too early for her birth. Though the pregnancy needed to go longer, there was no question that birth pangs had started. Labor pains, so I’m told, have a way of getting one’s attention! Suzie certainly got mine! So we know that this Day will begin suddenly and without warning, much as labor pains do, much as a burglar does when he breaks into a house.
And thirdly, we now know that this Day will begin in a time frame when, as Peterson has paraphrased it (vs. 3), “About the time everybody’s walking around complacently, congratulating each other – ‘We’ve sure got it made! Now we can take it easy!’…”
These phrases could be a description of our days, couldn’t they? How many times have we read in the newspapers and heard on the nightly news that the economy is purring along perfectly? In this “New Era” of economics, the old rules don’t apply. Now there is great productivity, there is no inflation to speak of, we have the fullest employment in decades, the stock market is going to the moon, people are spending more because their investments have made them wealthier…. How could life be any better? When this kind of news is wide-spread, it’s time to be alert and sober and perhaps a bit cautious.
One final thought on the “when” issue”-- For us who believe in a pre-tribulation rapture, we are convinced that this Day of the Lord, this day of destruction and judgment and the wrath of God, this day will begin AFTER the church has been snatched away, out of the world. That was what chapter four was about; that’s why we started our study in this book with chapter 4 instead of chapter one! But having said that, we still don’t know exactly when the trumpet of the Lord will sound and when we who are believers will be called to the skies. That is a mystery! We know it will happen, we just don’t know the precise timing. That’s exclusively God’s business. But the same signs that indicate the coming of the Day of the Lord are valid for the Rapture, for the Rapture immediately precedes the time of the great tribulation.
Also in this passage, Paul addresses a second issue: what will be the consequences of this coming day upon unbelievers? How will those outside the fold of faith be impacted when this day suddenly arrives without warning? We know Paul has these folks in mind because of the pronouns.
Notice how the pronouns change from verses 1 & 2 and verse 3. In verses one and two, it is “you, you, you”, the people of the church who receive this letter. Now in verse 3, it is “they”, the people outside, those without faith, those without Christ as their savior.
For these, Paul uses a single word to describe their fate: destruction! Destruction here means utter ruin; it means a loss of everything of any value; it portrays hopelessness and despair brought about by cataclysmic losses. We only have to glance through Revelation 6-18 to get a perspective of the nature of this destruction. Because of the judgments that come from the 7 seals, the 7 trumpets, and the 7 bowls, the world and all in it are basically destroyed. For just a peek, consider Rev. 9:1-3 – “Then the fifth angel sounded (his trumpet), and I (John)a saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him. He opened the bottomless pit, and smoke went up out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power…” It wouldn’t take 30 minutes this afternoon to read Rev. 6-18 if one wanted to get a clearer picture of God’s wrath poured out upon an unbelieving world. In a word, it is almost unbelievable.
Worse than all that, this destruction that Paul refers to is unanticipated destruction. It’s one thing to see the flares and hear the enemy’s’ bugles. It’s quite another to look up and see him ready to fire into your foxhole. It’s one thing to hear the weather report and see the sky turning black. It’s quite another to look out the window and see a funnel cloud a block away. For these unbelievers, Paul says that while in a spirit of peace and safety, while in a spirit of security and well-being, the whole world falls apart. It’s like the alarm system is set, but it didn’t go off. It’s a bit like playing soccer and having your knee suddenly and inexplicably crumple on you. It’s like the Y2K bug was real, but none of these folks took any precautions whatsoever. It’s like the earthquake fault lines running through California. Scientists have long anticipated a quake near the very top of the Richter scale, but few people living out there seem to think it will happen in their lifetime.
Destruction will be sudden and without remedy. Paul says in verse three, “they will not escape.” There will be no way out. There will be no back doors, there will be no bridges, there will be no trap doors by which to escape. Destruction will be total and complete.
In the third and final issue Paul addresses, he speaks to the church family and challenges it to a particular kind of response in light of this coming day. He says in verse 4, “But you, brethren…” But friends, you are not like those outside. That little word “But” could be spelled, r-e-l-i-e-f! All those terrible things wrapped up in the expression “destruction” are not for us! But there is a challenge for us. Let’s not sleep as others do!, vs. 6, i.e., to be asleep morally. Let’s be alert and sober!, vs. 6. Let’s be sober, vs. 8. Sober simply suggests senses that are un-numbed. Let’s be sure we’ve put on the breastplate of faith and love. Let’s be sure we’ve put on as a helmet the hope of salvation. Let’s be sure we are encouraging one another. Let’s be sure we are building up one another.
Did you notice the lack of panic in these challenges? Did you see the lack of anxiety and worry here? Yes, judgment is coming. A terrible judgment is just over the horizon. But for us in Christ, we are to be about the stuff of light. We are to be bearers of light. We are to be forewarning those who are yet lost in the darkness.
These are the smallest expectations that God has for those for whom Christ died. The Lord Jesus died for us that whether we are alive or whether we die, we will live together with Him. To be alive and to live with Him means that all of these things could be said about us!
Having a grip on what the text has said, there are a couple of lessons from this passage we can take with us this morning.
One, A safe tomorrow should not mean a complacent today. Yes, we who are in Christ have no reason whatsoever to be afraid of what’s coming prophetically tomorrow. Paul makes it very clear that we have not been destined for wrath (vs. 9) like the rest of the unbelieving world. Our future is as secure as the promises of God! Christ took all of our condemnation upon Himself upon the cross. There is therefore no wrath or condemnation for us. We want to be encouraging one another daily with this truth. The idea behind this word in verse 11 is of “strengthening by means of one’s words”. We need to tell each other these precious things.
But, our unsaved friends do not have the same assurances. They are in a different boat altogether. In fact, if we are complacent about sharing the good news with them, if we are careless in allowing them to continue to sleep in moral darkness, we can be very sure of the nature of their future! It will be destruction with no escape.
As sons of light, as daughters of day, our most distinguishing feature, our most prominent trait, is light. We are not to be known for things characterized by night or darkness. We are not to be spiritually insensitive as ‘sleepers’ would be. We are to be temperate and balanced. We are to be wary of situations and circumstances that look spiritually dangerous. For us to wear the breastplate of faith and love surely means that we are being bold for Christ (faith) and selfless for others (love). For us to wear the helmet of salvation’s hope surely means we are confident every day.
Sadly, sometimes we are easily complacent and careless because we are genuinely facing a very secure future.
Two, A calm today does not guarantee a calm tomorrow. If all is going well in your life, if you are healthy, your bank account is growing, life is good… if you are here today without a relationship to God through Jesus Christ, I want you to know, God wants you to know, today’s calm cannot last. The Scriptures make it very clear that judgment is coming. There is a storm coming. And when it comes, there will be no escape.
Today would be a good day to make a decision that locks in your future.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
January 2, 2000
Introduction: Chuck Swindoll, in his little Bible study guide on I Thessalonians, tells the story of a New Yorker who lived on Long Island. In September of 1938, he ordered a barometer from the respected company of Abercrombie and Fitch. Now this barometer was no ordinary instrument. It was an expensive, extremely sensitive barometer. When the order arrived at his home, the new owner was disappointed to discover that the needle of the barometer was pointed to the sector on the dial marked “Hurricane”.
After shaking this new gauge vigorously a few times and seeing no change in the indicator, the New Yorker wrote a scathing letter to Abercrombie and Fitch detailing his disappointment with their defective product. He mailed his letter the next day on his way to his office in New York City. We can imagine his surprise when he returned home that evening to find his new barometer missing --- along with his house!
It seems the barometer’s indicator had been right all along; a hurricane had passed through his area and demolished his neighborhood.
The text we want to study together today is like a barometer whose dial is pointed toward “Hurricane” or “Tornado” or “Severe Storm”. This text warns us that there is a dangerous storm coming, a very dangerous storm like none other that has ever devastated the earth, and it describes for us what we need to be about in anticipation of its arrival.
The question we must face is, “Do I believe this warning indicator?” Like the man from Long Island in 1938, will we assess the indicator to be wrong OR will we begin to take precautionary action? Are there things we ought to be doing before the storm arrives, OR do we go about our normal routines as if nothing will be different today from yesterday? These are questions we want to answer before we leave here today.
Now the storm that Paul anticipates in I Thessalonians 5 is none other than the Great Tribulation, referred to here by the technical terms, Day of the Lord. We know from our previous studies in Daniel and Revelation in years past that this will be a time of unprecedented, world-wide disaster, judgment, and tribulation. So we are fortunate to have some warning indicators. We have been given a heads-up concerning how we should be living, both toward each other in the church and especially towards those who are outside the church, outside the fold of Christ, unsaved as the Bible calls them.
It seems especially appropriate on this Sunday, the first in a new year and a new century, that this particular text comes up on the screen of our sermon schedule. We paused in our studies of I Thessalonians to focus upon the hymns of Christmas, and now it’s time to return to this little book and finish it up. Interestingly, right after Christmas and the first coming of the Lord, we pick up with a text regarding the second coming of the Lord!
The text is I Thessalonians 5:1-11 – (The Message) “I don’t think, friends, that I need to deal with the question of when all this is going to happen. You know as well as I that the day of the Master’s coming can’t be posted on our calendars. He won’t call ahead and make an appointment any more than a burglar would. About the time everybody’s walking around complacently, congratulating each other – “We’ve sure got it made! Now we can take it easy!” – suddenly everything will fall apart. It’s going to come as suddenly and inescapably as birth pangs to a pregnant woman.
But friends, you’re not in the dark, so how could you be taken off guard by any of this? You’re sons of Light, daughters of Day. We live under wide open skies and know where we stand. So let’s not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let’s keep our eyes open and be smart. People sleep at night and get drunk at night. But not us! Since we’re creatures of Day, let’s act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith , love, and the hope of salvation.
God didn’t set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we’re awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we’re alive with Him! So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it.”
Our text before us today deals with three issues, so those are what we want to consider this morning. The first is the timing of this coming Day of the Lord and how that day will come. The second is how the coming of that day will have consequences that affect unbelievers. And the third is how the coming of that day should impact us who are believers.
First then, what is this Day of the Lord, and how and when will it come? Paul gives us a clue that he is shifting gears somewhat from chapter 4 when he begins with the phrase, “Now as to the times and epochs, brethren…” The New King James version translates this “But concerning the times and the seasons…” In Paul’s writings, this phrase, “But concerning” characteristically introduces a new topic, and that is the case here. Paul had finished chapter 4 with insights and instruction concerning the rapture of the church, what we know as the initial phase of the second coming of Christ. Now he wants to remind his readers of what follows the rapture of the church. Notice in your Bibles, Paul had instructed the Thessalonians about the rapture; he now reminds them about a matter they already had knowledge of, the Day of the Lord.
“The Day of the Lord” as a technical phrase is used throughout the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament, to encompass two events. It is used in connection with both the coming judgment of God upon the world and the final dramatic return of the Lord Jesus to reign upon the earth. When we come across the phrase, the context of our reading lets us know which of these two elements is being emphasized. (If you have a good study Bible, you might look this afternoon at the Old Testament book of Joel to gain further insight into this particular Day.)
For Paul’s readers of this Thessalonian letter, they knew what Paul had in mind. They knew he was referencing the beginning of “that day”, for in verse 3 he writes, “While they are saying ‘Peace and safety!’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child…” Paul had also just made reference in verse two to that day coming “just like a thief in the night.”
So we have some clarity here in reference to our first issues. We know what the Day of the Lord is, and we know how and when it will come. As the Day of the Lord, this is the beginning of the great judgment of God upon the world.
Secondly, as to how it will come, we know now that it will come suddenly. I can still remember clearly that night in Indonesia when Suzie woke me to say she was having labor pains. She was pregnant with our first daughter, Stephanie, and it was too early for her birth. Though the pregnancy needed to go longer, there was no question that birth pangs had started. Labor pains, so I’m told, have a way of getting one’s attention! Suzie certainly got mine! So we know that this Day will begin suddenly and without warning, much as labor pains do, much as a burglar does when he breaks into a house.
And thirdly, we now know that this Day will begin in a time frame when, as Peterson has paraphrased it (vs. 3), “About the time everybody’s walking around complacently, congratulating each other – ‘We’ve sure got it made! Now we can take it easy!’…”
These phrases could be a description of our days, couldn’t they? How many times have we read in the newspapers and heard on the nightly news that the economy is purring along perfectly? In this “New Era” of economics, the old rules don’t apply. Now there is great productivity, there is no inflation to speak of, we have the fullest employment in decades, the stock market is going to the moon, people are spending more because their investments have made them wealthier…. How could life be any better? When this kind of news is wide-spread, it’s time to be alert and sober and perhaps a bit cautious.
One final thought on the “when” issue”-- For us who believe in a pre-tribulation rapture, we are convinced that this Day of the Lord, this day of destruction and judgment and the wrath of God, this day will begin AFTER the church has been snatched away, out of the world. That was what chapter four was about; that’s why we started our study in this book with chapter 4 instead of chapter one! But having said that, we still don’t know exactly when the trumpet of the Lord will sound and when we who are believers will be called to the skies. That is a mystery! We know it will happen, we just don’t know the precise timing. That’s exclusively God’s business. But the same signs that indicate the coming of the Day of the Lord are valid for the Rapture, for the Rapture immediately precedes the time of the great tribulation.
Also in this passage, Paul addresses a second issue: what will be the consequences of this coming day upon unbelievers? How will those outside the fold of faith be impacted when this day suddenly arrives without warning? We know Paul has these folks in mind because of the pronouns.
Notice how the pronouns change from verses 1 & 2 and verse 3. In verses one and two, it is “you, you, you”, the people of the church who receive this letter. Now in verse 3, it is “they”, the people outside, those without faith, those without Christ as their savior.
For these, Paul uses a single word to describe their fate: destruction! Destruction here means utter ruin; it means a loss of everything of any value; it portrays hopelessness and despair brought about by cataclysmic losses. We only have to glance through Revelation 6-18 to get a perspective of the nature of this destruction. Because of the judgments that come from the 7 seals, the 7 trumpets, and the 7 bowls, the world and all in it are basically destroyed. For just a peek, consider Rev. 9:1-3 – “Then the fifth angel sounded (his trumpet), and I (John)a saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him. He opened the bottomless pit, and smoke went up out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power…” It wouldn’t take 30 minutes this afternoon to read Rev. 6-18 if one wanted to get a clearer picture of God’s wrath poured out upon an unbelieving world. In a word, it is almost unbelievable.
Worse than all that, this destruction that Paul refers to is unanticipated destruction. It’s one thing to see the flares and hear the enemy’s’ bugles. It’s quite another to look up and see him ready to fire into your foxhole. It’s one thing to hear the weather report and see the sky turning black. It’s quite another to look out the window and see a funnel cloud a block away. For these unbelievers, Paul says that while in a spirit of peace and safety, while in a spirit of security and well-being, the whole world falls apart. It’s like the alarm system is set, but it didn’t go off. It’s a bit like playing soccer and having your knee suddenly and inexplicably crumple on you. It’s like the Y2K bug was real, but none of these folks took any precautions whatsoever. It’s like the earthquake fault lines running through California. Scientists have long anticipated a quake near the very top of the Richter scale, but few people living out there seem to think it will happen in their lifetime.
Destruction will be sudden and without remedy. Paul says in verse three, “they will not escape.” There will be no way out. There will be no back doors, there will be no bridges, there will be no trap doors by which to escape. Destruction will be total and complete.
In the third and final issue Paul addresses, he speaks to the church family and challenges it to a particular kind of response in light of this coming day. He says in verse 4, “But you, brethren…” But friends, you are not like those outside. That little word “But” could be spelled, r-e-l-i-e-f! All those terrible things wrapped up in the expression “destruction” are not for us! But there is a challenge for us. Let’s not sleep as others do!, vs. 6, i.e., to be asleep morally. Let’s be alert and sober!, vs. 6. Let’s be sober, vs. 8. Sober simply suggests senses that are un-numbed. Let’s be sure we’ve put on the breastplate of faith and love. Let’s be sure we’ve put on as a helmet the hope of salvation. Let’s be sure we are encouraging one another. Let’s be sure we are building up one another.
Did you notice the lack of panic in these challenges? Did you see the lack of anxiety and worry here? Yes, judgment is coming. A terrible judgment is just over the horizon. But for us in Christ, we are to be about the stuff of light. We are to be bearers of light. We are to be forewarning those who are yet lost in the darkness.
These are the smallest expectations that God has for those for whom Christ died. The Lord Jesus died for us that whether we are alive or whether we die, we will live together with Him. To be alive and to live with Him means that all of these things could be said about us!
Having a grip on what the text has said, there are a couple of lessons from this passage we can take with us this morning.
One, A safe tomorrow should not mean a complacent today. Yes, we who are in Christ have no reason whatsoever to be afraid of what’s coming prophetically tomorrow. Paul makes it very clear that we have not been destined for wrath (vs. 9) like the rest of the unbelieving world. Our future is as secure as the promises of God! Christ took all of our condemnation upon Himself upon the cross. There is therefore no wrath or condemnation for us. We want to be encouraging one another daily with this truth. The idea behind this word in verse 11 is of “strengthening by means of one’s words”. We need to tell each other these precious things.
But, our unsaved friends do not have the same assurances. They are in a different boat altogether. In fact, if we are complacent about sharing the good news with them, if we are careless in allowing them to continue to sleep in moral darkness, we can be very sure of the nature of their future! It will be destruction with no escape.
As sons of light, as daughters of day, our most distinguishing feature, our most prominent trait, is light. We are not to be known for things characterized by night or darkness. We are not to be spiritually insensitive as ‘sleepers’ would be. We are to be temperate and balanced. We are to be wary of situations and circumstances that look spiritually dangerous. For us to wear the breastplate of faith and love surely means that we are being bold for Christ (faith) and selfless for others (love). For us to wear the helmet of salvation’s hope surely means we are confident every day.
Sadly, sometimes we are easily complacent and careless because we are genuinely facing a very secure future.
Two, A calm today does not guarantee a calm tomorrow. If all is going well in your life, if you are healthy, your bank account is growing, life is good… if you are here today without a relationship to God through Jesus Christ, I want you to know, God wants you to know, today’s calm cannot last. The Scriptures make it very clear that judgment is coming. There is a storm coming. And when it comes, there will be no escape.
Today would be a good day to make a decision that locks in your future.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Will you be snatched away or left behind?
I Thessalonians 4:13-17
September 19, 1999
Introduction: Many of us are familiar with the so-called Darwin Awards. If you do not know about these honorable mentions, they are given annually (and posthumously) to those individuals who did the most for the human gene pool by removing themselves from it.
For 1999, one of the finalists was an employee of the local gas company. In his small west Texas town, employees in a medium-sized warehouse noticed the smell of gas. Wisely, management evacuated the building and turned off all potential sources of ignition—lights, power, etc. Two employees of the gas company were dispatched to the warehouse to assess the situation. Upon entering the building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the vision of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a lighter. Upon operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to 3 miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The gas company employee who was suspected of causing the explosion had never been thought of as “bright” by his peers.
A runner-up in this year’s awards (a runner-up because she didn’t die) was a cleaning lady who greatly aided several others in hastening their trip to see the Almighty. A spokeswoman for the Pelonomi Hospital, in the Free State, South Africa, told reporters the following:
“For several months, our nurses have been baffled to find a patient dead in the same bed every Friday morning. There was no apparent cause for any of the deaths, and extensive checks on the air conditioning system and a search for possible bacterial infection failed to reveal any clues. However, further inquiries have now revealed the cause of these deaths. It seems that every Friday morning a cleaning lady would enter the ward, remove the plug that powered the patient’s life support system, plug her floor polisher into the vacant socket, then go about her business. When she had finished her chores, she would plug the life support machine back in and leave, unaware that the patient was now dead. After all, she could not hear the patient’s struggle and eventual straight-line beep of the monitor over the sound of her polishing machine.” The hospital spokeswoman went on to add, “We are sorry, and we have sent a strong letter to the cleaner in question. Further, the Free State Health and Welfare Department is arranging for an electrician to fit an extra socket, so there should be no repetition of this incident. The inquiry is now closed.”
One of these days, friends, perhaps very soon, maybe even tomorrow, we will all be going about our daily routines—some of us will be in the classroom, some on a factory assembly line, some making an ambulance run, some caring for hospital patients, some on the golf course, some changing a diaper, some visiting a widow, some milking cows and harvesting crops, some reading a good book, and whatever else is part of a normal day for each of us-- and in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye-- we are going to be confronted with a cataclysmic event even more sizeable than those faced by our Darwin Award finalists. We are going to be completely out of control, flying heavenward through the clouds like the angels. We will be totally at the mercy of God, completely dependent upon Him, newly clothed in a brand new robe (that fits us just right—not too loose, not too tight), and winding our way upward through the clouds toward heaven. This unbelievable experience is known in theological terms as the Rapture of the church. Now this event will not include all those who have memberships in local churches, but it will include all who are members of THE church of the Lord Jesus Christ. More about that in a little bit.
The central text for this Biblical concept is found in the first letter Paul wrote to the Thessalonians. We leave our study of the Proverbs with some sadness, at least for me, and for the next few weeks, we want to explore the books of I and II Thessalonians. They are rich in truth that is so encouraging. These are letters that Paul wrote, some of the earliest of the New Testament, that have a decided prophetic theme to them. In our study, we hope to be encouraged about life in the midst of a world that seems to be getting more bizarre by the day. Shootings of kids in a Baptist church in Fort Worth, the largest peacetime evacuation of Americans in history in the face of the largest hurricane ever, more and more earthquakes in Turkey, Indonesians killing Indonesians in East Timor… and perhaps some things closer to home that are just as earthshaking to some of us—loneliness, depression, discouragement, hopelessness, pain. What is our hope for tomorrow? Is that hope of tomorrow so grand that we live encouraged today? Is that prospect glorious enough to keep me moving in the right direction today? Is that expectation so compelling I leave my temptations to pornography, to overspending, to overeating, to laziness, to whatever… to continue walking with the Lord Jesus as closely as possible today? What Paul writes to the Thessalonians is just that, friends, a glorious, compelling expectation that stirs our hearts to faithfulness and steadfastness every day that we wait for His return!
Now I know it’s customary to start a book at the beginning, but like we did in Genesis, we are going to begin somewhere else. We’ll go back to chapter one next week, but for today, we want to look at one of the most famous passages in these two books. This is the passage that deals with the rapture of the church at the Lord’s return.
There are three dimensions of this concept called the Rapture for our consideration today. First, we want to know what happens. When the rapture takes place, just exactly what will happen? Secondly, we want to know what is its impact. What will be the effect upon the world, to both Christians and non-Christians, when the rapture occurs? And thirdly, what are the blessings on this cataclysmic phenomenon? What will be the benefits for us who experience the rapture?
The answers to our questions are found in our text for today, I Thessalonians 4:13-18. Follow along in your Bible or on the screen above as I read.
I Thessalonians 4:13-18: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
Our first question was, “What Happens?” What takes place at the Rapture? According to verse 16, the Lord Jesus comes down out of heaven towards the earth. His descent is not a complete descent, for verse 17 tells us there is a meeting of the Lord in the air. The Lord Jesus’ coming down is accompanied by a loud shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet (call) of God. These three alerts are three signals.
1. The loud shout or loud command is a call for the dead in Christ to rise. We remember the Lord Jesus standing outside the grave where Lazarus was entombed (Jn.11: 43). Jesus commanded, with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And he did. And it’s the same here. At the loud command of the Lord Jesus, those who have died in the faith are raised again to life. (vs. 16c) Even those bodies of believers that went down on the Titanic and the Arizona, even those bodies burned in fires and destroyed in war, even those bodies of believers in airplane crashes at Little Rock and Lockerbye, even the bodies of believers cremated or buried at sea!
You see, for the God who holds all things together, as Paul had written to the Colossians, “He (the Lord Jesus) is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together,” for that kind of God, it is a small thing to pull all those pieces back together into a whole body once again. (As a sidebar here, I’ve had more questions this past year about what the Bible says about cremation. It doesn’t say anything, and so there’s no prohibition against the practice. Theologically, you can see why cremation is not a problem for God, just like fires and explosions are not either.)
And so the dead in Christ will rise.
Paul makes this point to the Thessalonians because they did not know what would happen to those fellow believers who died and the Lord had not returned yet. You see, all the believers in the early church expected the Lord Jesus to return at any moment—within days or maybe a few months at most. Everything the Lord Jesus had said seemed to suggest that they would all still be alive when He returned. He had said, Watch, Be ready, Don’t be deceived, the Son of Man will come at an hour that you do not think… There didn’t seem to be any likelihood that believers would die before that remarkable event. But some had, and the Thessalonians were confused. “What would happen to those who had died before the Lord’s return?”
Paul reassured these believers at Thessalonica that their loved ones in Christ would not miss out on the Lord’s return or be left behind when He called. Indeed, they would rise first at the Lord’s loud command. Why first? Dr. Walvoord, in the video we’ll see tonight says, tongue-in-cheek, that they rise first because, being in the ground, they have further to go!
2. Now there’s a second alert, and we see it in 16b—there is the voice of the archangel as the Lord Jesus descends. The only archangel named in the Scriptures is Michael—and according to the Old Testament book of Daniel, Michael is uniquely related to the nation of Israel. So it may be here, just maybe, that the Lord Jesus calls together the 144,000 Jews (12,000 from the 12 tribes) who will play a part in the great tribulation. In Revelation 7, the apostle John saw these 144,000 individuals, sealed and protected as Gospel evangelists, who serve during the 7 years of the tribulation period. So it may be that as Christ descends from heaven, He calls this remnant of Israel into a new relationship with Him by means of Michael’s shouting voice, calling them to their service of evangelism.
3. And finally, there is the third alert, after the loud command, after the voice of the archangel, there is the trumpet call of God, 16c. This is the call to the believers who are alive at the time—Paul had said to the Corinthian believers in I Cor. 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.” So those who are not yet “asleep”—a reference to death for the believer—will be changed.
So when the trumpet call of God sounds, when its note reaches the ears of believers, we will be changed and caught up into the clouds to be with the Lord. This is what verse 17 says.
In a flash, we disappear; we meet in the air our deceased loved ones in the faith, and we join the Lord Jesus in the clouds! This is what I understand happens at the Rapture. The dead in Christ are called to life. The living in Christ are called skyward. The Jewish remnant is commissioned to a 7 year work of evangelism.
Our second question this morning is, “What is the impact of that event?” Well, upon the earth there is chaos and grief. Let’s put our imaginations to work for a few minutes.
**The captain of an airliner is suddenly gone-- there is his uniform, his cap, his watch, his wedding band, and his shoes are there on the floor at the rudder pedals. If the co-pilot is a believer, then he’s gone too. We can imagine what will happen to the airplane.
**All the cars being driven by Christians at the time of the rapture will become uncontrolled battering rams. Those of us who car pool to work or school with unbelievers may want to alert them to grab the wheel if we suddenly disappear. What a nightmare that might be
--at the airport where passengers disembark,
--on every highway and interstate where huge semi’s run out of control.
--in a parking garage after a concert. Just how much could a tow truck driver make clearing a parking garage like the one next to Purdue’s 6000 seat Elliott Hall?
**All the children in the world below the age of accountability disappear.
**Hundreds of band instruments in high school and college bands fall to the floor as Christian students disappear.
**Police forces find their ranks depleted. There are not enough firemen to man the fire trucks and emergency vehicles in their departments.
**Doctors and nurses vanish. Patients who know Christ disappear from gurneys in operating rooms.
**Husbands who never got around to going to church with their wives—who never bought into the Gospel—wake in the night to find family members missing. Husbands and wives are separated; one is taken, one is left behind.
**There will be much grief and anguish as youth realize parents are gone. So too the same for parents who try to come to grips with the fact their children are gone.
**Robbery and looting become epidemic when it’s noticed that so many homes are vacant, so many stores are understaffed.
There will be this dawning realization on the part of some unbelievers that there was something to that “Jesus” stuff. And for those, there may be the terrible self-accusing, recrimination that goes like this: Why didn’t I listen? How could I have been so blind? What do I do now?
But by far the greatest blow to those left behind will be the coming 7 years of tribulation. Shortly after the rapture of the church takes place, the whole world becomes subject to the wrath of God. Finally, God’s patience with sinful mankind has reached its limit. Finally, His anger and wrath and judgment fall upon a sin-filled world. It will be a terrible time of war, of famine and pestilence, of plagues and natural disasters, of persecution and deprivation and death. Believe me, no one in his right mind would choose to endure these experiences. They are described in detail in Revelation 6-18, about 40 minutes of reading material some afternoon or evening. And yet, all those who have rejected the claims of Christ upon their lives, who are not saved, who are not born again, will enter this seven year period of judgment, punishment, and condemnation. It will be a terrible time to be alive. Revelation tells us even some will seek to take their own lives and will be unable to do so!
So, in short, that is the impact of the rapture upon the earth. Believers will be snatched away, unbelievers will be left behind to face judgement and condemnation.
That brings us to the final question, “What is the blessing for us in this event?”
For one thing, it means there will be no dying for believers alive on that day. It means no walk through the valley of the shadow of death, or more literally, no trek through the darkest of valleys. Several older Christians—mature believers—have told me that death was not something they feared. But the process of dying—that was scary!! If you have ever watched a loved one die, then you can begin to appreciate what it will mean to be suddenly translated directly to heaven!! That will be a blessing indeed.
Another blessing is the beginning of eternity with the Lord Jesus (17d- …and thus we shall always be with the Lord.). We will know His daily presence more fully than we’ve known it here. We will begin to know the depths of His incredible love. We will become conformed to His image—no more of anything of our carnal and fleshly natures. No more sin, no more sickness, no more misunderstandings, no more – you name it.
Soon will follow the marriage feast of the Lamb, then the 1000 year reign of Christ upon the earth, and finally a new heaven and a new earth, a new Jerusalem, and an eternity of blissful worship and service of God almighty.
Well, that’s the rapture—the snatching away of the saints, the resulting chaos upon the world, and the blessing of coming into the presence of the Lord forever.
As we conclude this morning, we are left with just two questions.
(1) Will I be snatched away or will I be left behind? I want it to be clear this morning that the Gospel is a simple message. Christ died for our sins. He paid the price of our disobedience. If we are ready to acknowledge that we are people of flawed character, that we don’t always please God in what we do and say, then He is ready to receive us as our Savior. He simply awaits our decision to acknowledge our sin and invite Him into our life. His grace, His unmerited favor can handle whatever misdeeds I’ve done! Waiting to make that decision could be a disaster of incredible proportions!
A second question is for those of us who know we are saved, who have the assurance that we are His and He is ours. The question is this: If these things are coming to pass, how should we then live? If we are going to meet the King, perhaps very soon, how should we then be living? John would write in I John 3:3, “And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
Friends, of all the prophecies in the Bible, there is not one that must be fulfilled in order for the Rapture to take place. It is the next big event waiting to happen in our world. It could happen at any time. What will we be doing when the trumpet sounds? What kind of attitude will we have about the day?
We should be living with power. (That’s next week, chapter 1) We should be living in the presence of God. (That’s next week, chapter 1) We should be living as those known for faith, love, and hope. (That’s next week, chapter 1) We should be living free, unenslaved by obsessions, idolatry, and immorality. (That’s next week, chapter 1) We should be living joyfully. (That’s in a few weeks, chapter 5) We should be living in the Word which has power to perform its work in us who believe. (That’s in a few weeks, chapter 2)
Today is decision day! Some of us need to make a decision about our sin and accept the Savior. “Come just as you are, come and live forever!” Some of us need to shine brighter and move away from our worldly ways. Let’s decide today!
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
September 19, 1999
Introduction: Many of us are familiar with the so-called Darwin Awards. If you do not know about these honorable mentions, they are given annually (and posthumously) to those individuals who did the most for the human gene pool by removing themselves from it.
For 1999, one of the finalists was an employee of the local gas company. In his small west Texas town, employees in a medium-sized warehouse noticed the smell of gas. Wisely, management evacuated the building and turned off all potential sources of ignition—lights, power, etc. Two employees of the gas company were dispatched to the warehouse to assess the situation. Upon entering the building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the vision of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a lighter. Upon operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to 3 miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The gas company employee who was suspected of causing the explosion had never been thought of as “bright” by his peers.
A runner-up in this year’s awards (a runner-up because she didn’t die) was a cleaning lady who greatly aided several others in hastening their trip to see the Almighty. A spokeswoman for the Pelonomi Hospital, in the Free State, South Africa, told reporters the following:
“For several months, our nurses have been baffled to find a patient dead in the same bed every Friday morning. There was no apparent cause for any of the deaths, and extensive checks on the air conditioning system and a search for possible bacterial infection failed to reveal any clues. However, further inquiries have now revealed the cause of these deaths. It seems that every Friday morning a cleaning lady would enter the ward, remove the plug that powered the patient’s life support system, plug her floor polisher into the vacant socket, then go about her business. When she had finished her chores, she would plug the life support machine back in and leave, unaware that the patient was now dead. After all, she could not hear the patient’s struggle and eventual straight-line beep of the monitor over the sound of her polishing machine.” The hospital spokeswoman went on to add, “We are sorry, and we have sent a strong letter to the cleaner in question. Further, the Free State Health and Welfare Department is arranging for an electrician to fit an extra socket, so there should be no repetition of this incident. The inquiry is now closed.”
One of these days, friends, perhaps very soon, maybe even tomorrow, we will all be going about our daily routines—some of us will be in the classroom, some on a factory assembly line, some making an ambulance run, some caring for hospital patients, some on the golf course, some changing a diaper, some visiting a widow, some milking cows and harvesting crops, some reading a good book, and whatever else is part of a normal day for each of us-- and in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye-- we are going to be confronted with a cataclysmic event even more sizeable than those faced by our Darwin Award finalists. We are going to be completely out of control, flying heavenward through the clouds like the angels. We will be totally at the mercy of God, completely dependent upon Him, newly clothed in a brand new robe (that fits us just right—not too loose, not too tight), and winding our way upward through the clouds toward heaven. This unbelievable experience is known in theological terms as the Rapture of the church. Now this event will not include all those who have memberships in local churches, but it will include all who are members of THE church of the Lord Jesus Christ. More about that in a little bit.
The central text for this Biblical concept is found in the first letter Paul wrote to the Thessalonians. We leave our study of the Proverbs with some sadness, at least for me, and for the next few weeks, we want to explore the books of I and II Thessalonians. They are rich in truth that is so encouraging. These are letters that Paul wrote, some of the earliest of the New Testament, that have a decided prophetic theme to them. In our study, we hope to be encouraged about life in the midst of a world that seems to be getting more bizarre by the day. Shootings of kids in a Baptist church in Fort Worth, the largest peacetime evacuation of Americans in history in the face of the largest hurricane ever, more and more earthquakes in Turkey, Indonesians killing Indonesians in East Timor… and perhaps some things closer to home that are just as earthshaking to some of us—loneliness, depression, discouragement, hopelessness, pain. What is our hope for tomorrow? Is that hope of tomorrow so grand that we live encouraged today? Is that prospect glorious enough to keep me moving in the right direction today? Is that expectation so compelling I leave my temptations to pornography, to overspending, to overeating, to laziness, to whatever… to continue walking with the Lord Jesus as closely as possible today? What Paul writes to the Thessalonians is just that, friends, a glorious, compelling expectation that stirs our hearts to faithfulness and steadfastness every day that we wait for His return!
Now I know it’s customary to start a book at the beginning, but like we did in Genesis, we are going to begin somewhere else. We’ll go back to chapter one next week, but for today, we want to look at one of the most famous passages in these two books. This is the passage that deals with the rapture of the church at the Lord’s return.
There are three dimensions of this concept called the Rapture for our consideration today. First, we want to know what happens. When the rapture takes place, just exactly what will happen? Secondly, we want to know what is its impact. What will be the effect upon the world, to both Christians and non-Christians, when the rapture occurs? And thirdly, what are the blessings on this cataclysmic phenomenon? What will be the benefits for us who experience the rapture?
The answers to our questions are found in our text for today, I Thessalonians 4:13-18. Follow along in your Bible or on the screen above as I read.
I Thessalonians 4:13-18: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
Our first question was, “What Happens?” What takes place at the Rapture? According to verse 16, the Lord Jesus comes down out of heaven towards the earth. His descent is not a complete descent, for verse 17 tells us there is a meeting of the Lord in the air. The Lord Jesus’ coming down is accompanied by a loud shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet (call) of God. These three alerts are three signals.
1. The loud shout or loud command is a call for the dead in Christ to rise. We remember the Lord Jesus standing outside the grave where Lazarus was entombed (Jn.11: 43). Jesus commanded, with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And he did. And it’s the same here. At the loud command of the Lord Jesus, those who have died in the faith are raised again to life. (vs. 16c) Even those bodies of believers that went down on the Titanic and the Arizona, even those bodies burned in fires and destroyed in war, even those bodies of believers in airplane crashes at Little Rock and Lockerbye, even the bodies of believers cremated or buried at sea!
You see, for the God who holds all things together, as Paul had written to the Colossians, “He (the Lord Jesus) is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together,” for that kind of God, it is a small thing to pull all those pieces back together into a whole body once again. (As a sidebar here, I’ve had more questions this past year about what the Bible says about cremation. It doesn’t say anything, and so there’s no prohibition against the practice. Theologically, you can see why cremation is not a problem for God, just like fires and explosions are not either.)
And so the dead in Christ will rise.
Paul makes this point to the Thessalonians because they did not know what would happen to those fellow believers who died and the Lord had not returned yet. You see, all the believers in the early church expected the Lord Jesus to return at any moment—within days or maybe a few months at most. Everything the Lord Jesus had said seemed to suggest that they would all still be alive when He returned. He had said, Watch, Be ready, Don’t be deceived, the Son of Man will come at an hour that you do not think… There didn’t seem to be any likelihood that believers would die before that remarkable event. But some had, and the Thessalonians were confused. “What would happen to those who had died before the Lord’s return?”
Paul reassured these believers at Thessalonica that their loved ones in Christ would not miss out on the Lord’s return or be left behind when He called. Indeed, they would rise first at the Lord’s loud command. Why first? Dr. Walvoord, in the video we’ll see tonight says, tongue-in-cheek, that they rise first because, being in the ground, they have further to go!
2. Now there’s a second alert, and we see it in 16b—there is the voice of the archangel as the Lord Jesus descends. The only archangel named in the Scriptures is Michael—and according to the Old Testament book of Daniel, Michael is uniquely related to the nation of Israel. So it may be here, just maybe, that the Lord Jesus calls together the 144,000 Jews (12,000 from the 12 tribes) who will play a part in the great tribulation. In Revelation 7, the apostle John saw these 144,000 individuals, sealed and protected as Gospel evangelists, who serve during the 7 years of the tribulation period. So it may be that as Christ descends from heaven, He calls this remnant of Israel into a new relationship with Him by means of Michael’s shouting voice, calling them to their service of evangelism.
3. And finally, there is the third alert, after the loud command, after the voice of the archangel, there is the trumpet call of God, 16c. This is the call to the believers who are alive at the time—Paul had said to the Corinthian believers in I Cor. 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.” So those who are not yet “asleep”—a reference to death for the believer—will be changed.
So when the trumpet call of God sounds, when its note reaches the ears of believers, we will be changed and caught up into the clouds to be with the Lord. This is what verse 17 says.
In a flash, we disappear; we meet in the air our deceased loved ones in the faith, and we join the Lord Jesus in the clouds! This is what I understand happens at the Rapture. The dead in Christ are called to life. The living in Christ are called skyward. The Jewish remnant is commissioned to a 7 year work of evangelism.
Our second question this morning is, “What is the impact of that event?” Well, upon the earth there is chaos and grief. Let’s put our imaginations to work for a few minutes.
**The captain of an airliner is suddenly gone-- there is his uniform, his cap, his watch, his wedding band, and his shoes are there on the floor at the rudder pedals. If the co-pilot is a believer, then he’s gone too. We can imagine what will happen to the airplane.
**All the cars being driven by Christians at the time of the rapture will become uncontrolled battering rams. Those of us who car pool to work or school with unbelievers may want to alert them to grab the wheel if we suddenly disappear. What a nightmare that might be
--at the airport where passengers disembark,
--on every highway and interstate where huge semi’s run out of control.
--in a parking garage after a concert. Just how much could a tow truck driver make clearing a parking garage like the one next to Purdue’s 6000 seat Elliott Hall?
**All the children in the world below the age of accountability disappear.
**Hundreds of band instruments in high school and college bands fall to the floor as Christian students disappear.
**Police forces find their ranks depleted. There are not enough firemen to man the fire trucks and emergency vehicles in their departments.
**Doctors and nurses vanish. Patients who know Christ disappear from gurneys in operating rooms.
**Husbands who never got around to going to church with their wives—who never bought into the Gospel—wake in the night to find family members missing. Husbands and wives are separated; one is taken, one is left behind.
**There will be much grief and anguish as youth realize parents are gone. So too the same for parents who try to come to grips with the fact their children are gone.
**Robbery and looting become epidemic when it’s noticed that so many homes are vacant, so many stores are understaffed.
There will be this dawning realization on the part of some unbelievers that there was something to that “Jesus” stuff. And for those, there may be the terrible self-accusing, recrimination that goes like this: Why didn’t I listen? How could I have been so blind? What do I do now?
But by far the greatest blow to those left behind will be the coming 7 years of tribulation. Shortly after the rapture of the church takes place, the whole world becomes subject to the wrath of God. Finally, God’s patience with sinful mankind has reached its limit. Finally, His anger and wrath and judgment fall upon a sin-filled world. It will be a terrible time of war, of famine and pestilence, of plagues and natural disasters, of persecution and deprivation and death. Believe me, no one in his right mind would choose to endure these experiences. They are described in detail in Revelation 6-18, about 40 minutes of reading material some afternoon or evening. And yet, all those who have rejected the claims of Christ upon their lives, who are not saved, who are not born again, will enter this seven year period of judgment, punishment, and condemnation. It will be a terrible time to be alive. Revelation tells us even some will seek to take their own lives and will be unable to do so!
So, in short, that is the impact of the rapture upon the earth. Believers will be snatched away, unbelievers will be left behind to face judgement and condemnation.
That brings us to the final question, “What is the blessing for us in this event?”
For one thing, it means there will be no dying for believers alive on that day. It means no walk through the valley of the shadow of death, or more literally, no trek through the darkest of valleys. Several older Christians—mature believers—have told me that death was not something they feared. But the process of dying—that was scary!! If you have ever watched a loved one die, then you can begin to appreciate what it will mean to be suddenly translated directly to heaven!! That will be a blessing indeed.
Another blessing is the beginning of eternity with the Lord Jesus (17d- …and thus we shall always be with the Lord.). We will know His daily presence more fully than we’ve known it here. We will begin to know the depths of His incredible love. We will become conformed to His image—no more of anything of our carnal and fleshly natures. No more sin, no more sickness, no more misunderstandings, no more – you name it.
Soon will follow the marriage feast of the Lamb, then the 1000 year reign of Christ upon the earth, and finally a new heaven and a new earth, a new Jerusalem, and an eternity of blissful worship and service of God almighty.
Well, that’s the rapture—the snatching away of the saints, the resulting chaos upon the world, and the blessing of coming into the presence of the Lord forever.
As we conclude this morning, we are left with just two questions.
(1) Will I be snatched away or will I be left behind? I want it to be clear this morning that the Gospel is a simple message. Christ died for our sins. He paid the price of our disobedience. If we are ready to acknowledge that we are people of flawed character, that we don’t always please God in what we do and say, then He is ready to receive us as our Savior. He simply awaits our decision to acknowledge our sin and invite Him into our life. His grace, His unmerited favor can handle whatever misdeeds I’ve done! Waiting to make that decision could be a disaster of incredible proportions!
A second question is for those of us who know we are saved, who have the assurance that we are His and He is ours. The question is this: If these things are coming to pass, how should we then live? If we are going to meet the King, perhaps very soon, how should we then be living? John would write in I John 3:3, “And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
Friends, of all the prophecies in the Bible, there is not one that must be fulfilled in order for the Rapture to take place. It is the next big event waiting to happen in our world. It could happen at any time. What will we be doing when the trumpet sounds? What kind of attitude will we have about the day?
We should be living with power. (That’s next week, chapter 1) We should be living in the presence of God. (That’s next week, chapter 1) We should be living as those known for faith, love, and hope. (That’s next week, chapter 1) We should be living free, unenslaved by obsessions, idolatry, and immorality. (That’s next week, chapter 1) We should be living joyfully. (That’s in a few weeks, chapter 5) We should be living in the Word which has power to perform its work in us who believe. (That’s in a few weeks, chapter 2)
Today is decision day! Some of us need to make a decision about our sin and accept the Savior. “Come just as you are, come and live forever!” Some of us need to shine brighter and move away from our worldly ways. Let’s decide today!
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Biblical grief: The grave is not the last word
I Thessalonians 4:13-14
Sunday, November 21, 1999
Introduction: The Pope met with his cardinals to discuss a proposal from Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister of Israel. The issue before them was an invitation by Mr. Netanyahu to a game of golf with the Pope to show the ecumenical spirit of the Jewish and Catholic faiths.
The Pope wanted to accept the invitation but he had never had a golf club in his hands. “Have we not a cardinal who can represent me in the game with the Israeli leader?”
“None that can play very well,” he was told. “But there is a devout Catholic by the name of Jack Nicklaus who plays very well. We could offer him a cardinalship, ask him to play as your representative, then we would be showing a spirit of cooperation, and we’ll also win the game!”
The idea was approved. Nicklaus accepted the offer to become a cardinal and agreed to represent the Pope in a game of golf.
The day after the game, Nicklaus arrived at the Vatican to report on the ecumenical match. “I have some good news, and some bad news, Your Holiness.”
“Give me the good news first, Cardinal Nicklaus.”
“Well, your Holiness, I don’t like to brag, but even though I’ve played some terrific rounds of golf in my life, this was the best I’ve ever played. I must have been inspired from above; my drives were long and true, my irons were accurate and purposeful, and my putting was perfect. With all due respect, my play was truly miraculous.”
“So what’s the bad news?” asked the Pope.
Nicklaus sighed, “I lost to Rabbi Tiger Woods by three strokes.”
Now friends, the game of golf is seldom a life and death matter, but we come today to a topic in our study of I Thessalonians that is exactly that, life and death. The topic is grief.
I doubt there is a soul here today who has not had an experience of grief. I remember my bitter sense of loss when as a young boy my uncle Arthur died as a result of an accident on a road repair project. When our 3 day old daughter died in Indonesia, it seemed I had a brick in my stomach for two weeks. Recently we had to have our dog put to sleep after 11 years with us, and I confess I wasn’t prepared for the emotional hit I took that day. And many of us have suffered grief to a far greater extent than I have, losing brothers, sisters, parents, spouses, and children. So what can we to do in the face of this all-too-common experience called grief?
How do we handle it? As followers of the Lord Jesus, what can we do to honor Him in the face of the wrenching emotions of grief? How do we not only bear it, but how do we conquer it? What do the Scriptures offer us by way of counsel for this most difficult of experiences? Are we doomed to continual defeat in the face of this monster, or is there a basis for hope?
Let’s consider what Paul says here on the subject, then let’s draw some conclusions, some lessons for life. Out of these lessons we can be encouraged, we can have hope as we journey through life, and especially when the journey takes us through the valleys of death.
Our text, I Thessalonians 4:13,14,18—“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” And then verse 18: “Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
The first observation we can make here from Paul’s statement is that he wrote so they would be both informed and comforted. Verse 13 and then verse 18 make these points. “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep…therefore comfort one another with these words.” And this observation leads us to our first lesson (1) in dealing with grief—Truth is the key that unlocks the prison door of grief. We know from all kinds of experiences that grief is very much like a prison. It locks us up as genuinely as the heavy metal doors of the Grant County jail confine inmates there. In the early stages of grief, often we cannot function. I say ‘often’ because it’s not always so. Over the years, I’ve been with many members of this church family in the corridors and waiting rooms of the local hospitals. Reactions vary to that first news of the death of a loved one, in part because we are all different--different in our personalities, different in our temperaments, different in our maturity levels, different in our closeness to the Lord Jesus, different in our experiences with death.
We see the same differences in the men and women of the Bible. Abraham is dry-eyed and fully functional as he prepares to deal with Isaac’s impending death. No tears prevent him from seeing the ram in the thicket that will become the alternate sacrifice. Ezekiel sheds not a tear as he is told by God this message: ‘“Son of man, behold, I am about to take from you the desire of your eyes with a blow; but you shall not mourn and you shall not weep, and your tears shall not come. Groan silently; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban and put your shoes on your feet, and do not cover your mustache, and do not eat the bread of men.” So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. And in the morning I did as I was commanded.’ (Eze.24) On the other hand, we see Peter in Luke 22 weeping bitterly in grief as the rooster crows and he comes to grips with his denial of the Lord Jesus. We know from Philippians 2 that Paul would have known ‘sorrow upon sorrow’ if Epaphroditus had died from his illness. We can imagine what forms that sorrow could have taken, knowing Paul as the emotional man that he was. So when grief comes, it takes different forms and expressions because we are different people in the way we are made.
But it is not uncommon that often we are in such a state of emotional shock we seem to have little control over much of anything. But with some time, in the course of the passing of some hours or days or weeks, what we know to be true, what God has said, is able to prevail over what I am feeling. Truth, what God has said, becomes for us the key that unlocks the prison door of grief. That’s exactly why Paul writes, “Therefore, comfort one another with these words.” There is comfort in the truth of what God has said.
Remember our earlier study in chapter 2, verse 13, how the word of God has the power to change us? “…the word of God…which performs its work in you who believe.” When the Thessalonians believed what God had said, they were forever changed. And those Thessalonians now grieving would find comfort in what God said through his servant, the apostle Paul. The term ‘comfort’ here has the idea of strengthening in it. Literally we could read this verse, “Strengthen one another’s hands with these words.” We can never say enough about the importance of the Word of God in this matter of grief. I’ve asked Terry Brooks to come this morning and share with us a vignette out of her personal experience of loss and grief. Her mother and father were both killed in a plane crash when she was a teenager growing up in Kansas.
(Terry’s story: Making sure no one was around, I slipped quietly into Mom and Dad’s bedroom. I ran my hand along the wall in search of the light switch but decided against turning it on. The sunlight coming through the lines of the draperies was adequate. Crossing toward the dresser, I noticed Dad’s picture. He had given it to Mom to put up while he was at the State Capitol. Staring into the picture, I recalled the picnics and political gatherings we had attended as a family. “What will happen now since Dad won’t be able to run for the election next month?” I wondered.
My eyes scanned the dresser. Books, magazines, folders, and music were stacked neatly. Music. It was so important to us as a family. Many evenings had been spent singing around the piano for enjoyment or practicing for a recital, concert, or church.
As I turned from the dresser, my eyes beheld the paintings on the wall over the bed. An old plantation house in a cotton field composed the painting on the left. It was painted for Mom as a reminder of her childhood home in Mississippi. The painting on the right was for Dad, a golden wheat field and granary symbolized Kansas, Dad’s heritage.
Sitting on the bed, I smothered my face in my hands. Would all of this soon be a thing of the past? Experiences with the whole family flashed through my mind—laughter around the dinner table, Sunday afternoon drives, planting flowers in the garden, so many family times together. I wanted something to hold on to. Something more than sweet memories.
My eyes focused on the bedstand as I lifted my head. Yes, that was it. There it was, the thing I had come in search of. The black leather had taken on a look I had never noticed before. It was like new. Or maybe it was the newness I felt within that made it seem so. I lifted it from the stand. My fingers guided themselves along the gold lettering: Raymond and Yvonne King. Opening the book, I turned the crisp page to the title page. The Holy Bible. Yes, this was my treasure. No inheritance of tangible items would really be important without the Christian heritage passed down from my parents. This tragedy could turn to triumph by the strengthening of my faith if God. Sure, there would be grief and hard times, but the promises in God’s Word would be my hope.
A second life lesson (2) for coping with grief is also nestled here in this text. I’m sure you’ve seen it already here in verse 18. “Therefore, comfort one another…” The lesson is this: Fellowship is the fire escape out of the burning house of grief. This is one of 30+ verses in the New Testament where ‘one’ and ‘another’ are tied together. Oh, how hard grief is to bear when one is alone! I was reminded in reading John 11 this week in personal devotions that when Lazarus died, “many of the Jews had come to Mary and Martha to console them concerning their brother.” Grief is always more bearable in the context of fellowship.
If we tie the ‘comfort’ with the ‘one another’ in verse 18, we could also read this verse, “Come to the side of one another, strengthening the hands of one another, with these words. Come alongside one another with God’s words, and grief will begin to loosen its grip on hearts and emotions.” With friends, friends of faith, friends who know God’s words, friends who strengthen us with God’s words, there is a way of escape. I hope we are all about building the right kinds of friendships. They will be absolutely necessary in the day of our crisis. I hope we are all working to find our niche in the Body of Christ, for it’s there that we become a part of ‘one another’.
The third lesson (3) this text holds for us in found in verse 14. “For if we believe that Jesus died…” God’s son, Jesus, died. Have you ever thought about God the Father knowing the pain of grief? Our lesson is this: God is personally experienced with grief; to Him we ought to run when it becomes our experience. Let’s think for a minute about God’s experience with grief. It all began back in the book of Genesis, back in the garden of Eden.
The first death that is recorded in the Bible is recorded here, and the first person to experience grief is none other than God Himself! We have read in Genesis (2:16-17) that God had given to Adam the privilege of eating from any tree in the garden of Eden except for one. Adam was solemnly warned that if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in that day, he would surely die.
And of course, we all know what happened. Eve was tricked by the enemy, she ate of the fruit of that particular tree, she shared the fruit with Adam, and he ate too. Then “they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’
Let’s put ourselves in God’s shoes for a moment. Dad, you’ve come home from work. All the way home you’ve been thinking about your wife, the delight of your life, and those munchkins, the gifts that God has placed in your quiver like arrows. You come in the door and announce, “Hey, I’m home!” The reason you went to work was to provide for them, to make it possible to meet their needs, to care for and support them. “Hey, I’m home! Tell me about your day!” But imagine that no one comes running. There’s no one there awaiting your homecoming. You ask, “Where is everybody?”
In one sense that is what happened to God. The Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” When the man responds from his hiding place, God knows something horrible has taken place. The man and woman have disobeyed by eating the forbidden fruit, and in their sinning, they have died spiritually.
Friends, the first person in all the world to experience grief is none other than God Himself. There is no one better to turn to in the heartache of loss that God Himself. He knows how you feel. He has personally experienced what you have experienced. He knows your emotions. He made you in His own image. He has given us words of comfort to console us. He can give us understanding of “Why?” and “Why now?”.
So, how do we run to Him? We do the basic things: We find a place to be alone. We open His Book and read His words. We pray and pour out our heart to him. Perhaps we imagine Him in the chair across from us, listening to all our concerns and fears and loss and uncertainty. We reaffirm our commitment to Him. We ask Him to help us trust Him in the days ahead. We journal our thoughts and impressions as we read and pray. We record answers He has given to our prayers. Hopefully, friends, we are simply doing the things we’ve been doing all along the journey of life. Os Guinness, in his book, The Call, has a chapter entitled, “The Audience of One”. Guinness writes fundamentally about living in the presence of God, one’s Audience of One. He tells the story of General Charles Gordon, the peerless military strategist, the legendary commander, the mostly all-conquering victor who lived so closely before the Audience of One that when his time for death came, he had only a short step home. When Gordon was left abandoned to die at Khartoum, his friend John Bonar wrote to Gordon’s brother these words: “What at once, and always struck me was the way in which his oneness with God ruled all his actions, and his mode of seeing things. I never knew one who seemed so much to ‘endure as seeing Him who is invisible. Gordon seemed to live with God and for God.”
My friends, it will not be hard to run to God in our time of grief if we have been living with Him and before Him as our Audience of One. And it will not be hard to receive His comfort out of the His vast reservoir of consolation He can give, knowing full well exactly what we are going through.
There is a corollary lesson here in connection with lesson three (3a) that is not referenced in the Thessalonian letter: This lesson states: God authors good purposes in the pain of our grief. For example, one Biblical purpose of grief: Grief can be a wake-up call
Do you remember how Stephen was murdered in Acts 7, then Peter was imprisoned in Acts 12? We read in Acts 12 that the church was praying fervently to God for him. Why hadn’t the church been praying for Stephen? The church wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. To suffer the loss of Stephen was hard; to experience it again in the loss of Peter would have been doubly difficult. Grief is sometimes God’s wake up call to us. I don’t want to make that mistake again!
I heard Joe Stowell this week on WGNR talking about how trouble is an attention-getter. He was pretending that God was looking down from heaven, seeing a complacent Joe Stowell. Trouble or grief can shake us out of our complacency, out of our comfort zones.
I know a young man of this town who came to Christ at his father’s death bed. The thought of losing his father, the prospects of seeing him again brought the man to a saving relationship with the Savior. Grief is often a wake-up call. You have my attention, Lord. What is it you want of me?
Another Biblical purpose for grief: Grief enlarges our capacity for joy.
Hebrews 12 tells us that Jesus, for the joy set before Him endured the cross… Contrast that with His experience in the Garden of Gethsemane where He sweat drops of blood in agony and grief at the prospect of His death on the cross.
Tell me, who has a greater appreciation for the greatness of America? The one who has spent his whole life in a little town in Nebraska or the one who has traveled the world and seen slavery, poverty, corruption, and abuse? Grief is a God-given adventure that enlarges our capacity for joy.
Another Biblical purpose for grief is
Grief is a call to trust God and His mysteries.
Consider Job. Who can forget the old man sitting in a heap of ashes, his head shaved, and his clothes torn and ripped after he has received news that all 10 of his children have died in a terrible wind storm? Perhaps only in time did Job finally understand what the Devil had been up to.
Stephen Curtis Chapman has a new CD out with a song titled ‘With Hope’. It begins this way: “This is not at all how we thought it was supposed to be. We had so many plans for you. We had so many dreams. And now you’ve gone away and left us with the memories of your smile and nothing we can do can take away the pain, the pain of losing you, but…
Grief is a call to trust God in the mysteries of life. Grief is a call to us to recognize that God is about things that we may not understand at the moment, like Job, like Ezekiel, like David, like the early church with Stephen.
A final lesson: Lesson Four-- There is no hope in grief without God. I Thess 4:13 introduces us to a category of people who have no hope. Paul writes, “so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope…” Our hope is defined in this context as seeing our loved ones again! Vs. 14 says, “…even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” We have the example of Mary and Martha in John 11 who received their brother, Lazarus, back again!
And Steven Curtis Chapman’s song, “With Hope” goes on in the chorus to say, “We can cry with hope, we can say goodbye with hope ‘cause we know our goodbye is not the end, oh no, and we can grieve with hope ‘cause we believe with hope, there’s a place where we’ll see your face again.”
Conclusion: I’m sure there is much more that could be said, from the Scriptures, about this topic of grief. But at least as Paul has touched upon the subject here in his Thessalonian letter, we have explored some of its dimensions. We can draw a number of conclusions from these three short verses: Only in God is there real hope for grief; because God is personally experienced with grief, we can run to Him for help and consolation; in the fellowship of others we find an escape; and truth is the key that unlocks the prison of grief to all who suffer it.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Sunday, November 21, 1999
Introduction: The Pope met with his cardinals to discuss a proposal from Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister of Israel. The issue before them was an invitation by Mr. Netanyahu to a game of golf with the Pope to show the ecumenical spirit of the Jewish and Catholic faiths.
The Pope wanted to accept the invitation but he had never had a golf club in his hands. “Have we not a cardinal who can represent me in the game with the Israeli leader?”
“None that can play very well,” he was told. “But there is a devout Catholic by the name of Jack Nicklaus who plays very well. We could offer him a cardinalship, ask him to play as your representative, then we would be showing a spirit of cooperation, and we’ll also win the game!”
The idea was approved. Nicklaus accepted the offer to become a cardinal and agreed to represent the Pope in a game of golf.
The day after the game, Nicklaus arrived at the Vatican to report on the ecumenical match. “I have some good news, and some bad news, Your Holiness.”
“Give me the good news first, Cardinal Nicklaus.”
“Well, your Holiness, I don’t like to brag, but even though I’ve played some terrific rounds of golf in my life, this was the best I’ve ever played. I must have been inspired from above; my drives were long and true, my irons were accurate and purposeful, and my putting was perfect. With all due respect, my play was truly miraculous.”
“So what’s the bad news?” asked the Pope.
Nicklaus sighed, “I lost to Rabbi Tiger Woods by three strokes.”
Now friends, the game of golf is seldom a life and death matter, but we come today to a topic in our study of I Thessalonians that is exactly that, life and death. The topic is grief.
I doubt there is a soul here today who has not had an experience of grief. I remember my bitter sense of loss when as a young boy my uncle Arthur died as a result of an accident on a road repair project. When our 3 day old daughter died in Indonesia, it seemed I had a brick in my stomach for two weeks. Recently we had to have our dog put to sleep after 11 years with us, and I confess I wasn’t prepared for the emotional hit I took that day. And many of us have suffered grief to a far greater extent than I have, losing brothers, sisters, parents, spouses, and children. So what can we to do in the face of this all-too-common experience called grief?
How do we handle it? As followers of the Lord Jesus, what can we do to honor Him in the face of the wrenching emotions of grief? How do we not only bear it, but how do we conquer it? What do the Scriptures offer us by way of counsel for this most difficult of experiences? Are we doomed to continual defeat in the face of this monster, or is there a basis for hope?
Let’s consider what Paul says here on the subject, then let’s draw some conclusions, some lessons for life. Out of these lessons we can be encouraged, we can have hope as we journey through life, and especially when the journey takes us through the valleys of death.
Our text, I Thessalonians 4:13,14,18—“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” And then verse 18: “Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
The first observation we can make here from Paul’s statement is that he wrote so they would be both informed and comforted. Verse 13 and then verse 18 make these points. “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep…therefore comfort one another with these words.” And this observation leads us to our first lesson (1) in dealing with grief—Truth is the key that unlocks the prison door of grief. We know from all kinds of experiences that grief is very much like a prison. It locks us up as genuinely as the heavy metal doors of the Grant County jail confine inmates there. In the early stages of grief, often we cannot function. I say ‘often’ because it’s not always so. Over the years, I’ve been with many members of this church family in the corridors and waiting rooms of the local hospitals. Reactions vary to that first news of the death of a loved one, in part because we are all different--different in our personalities, different in our temperaments, different in our maturity levels, different in our closeness to the Lord Jesus, different in our experiences with death.
We see the same differences in the men and women of the Bible. Abraham is dry-eyed and fully functional as he prepares to deal with Isaac’s impending death. No tears prevent him from seeing the ram in the thicket that will become the alternate sacrifice. Ezekiel sheds not a tear as he is told by God this message: ‘“Son of man, behold, I am about to take from you the desire of your eyes with a blow; but you shall not mourn and you shall not weep, and your tears shall not come. Groan silently; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban and put your shoes on your feet, and do not cover your mustache, and do not eat the bread of men.” So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. And in the morning I did as I was commanded.’ (Eze.24) On the other hand, we see Peter in Luke 22 weeping bitterly in grief as the rooster crows and he comes to grips with his denial of the Lord Jesus. We know from Philippians 2 that Paul would have known ‘sorrow upon sorrow’ if Epaphroditus had died from his illness. We can imagine what forms that sorrow could have taken, knowing Paul as the emotional man that he was. So when grief comes, it takes different forms and expressions because we are different people in the way we are made.
But it is not uncommon that often we are in such a state of emotional shock we seem to have little control over much of anything. But with some time, in the course of the passing of some hours or days or weeks, what we know to be true, what God has said, is able to prevail over what I am feeling. Truth, what God has said, becomes for us the key that unlocks the prison door of grief. That’s exactly why Paul writes, “Therefore, comfort one another with these words.” There is comfort in the truth of what God has said.
Remember our earlier study in chapter 2, verse 13, how the word of God has the power to change us? “…the word of God…which performs its work in you who believe.” When the Thessalonians believed what God had said, they were forever changed. And those Thessalonians now grieving would find comfort in what God said through his servant, the apostle Paul. The term ‘comfort’ here has the idea of strengthening in it. Literally we could read this verse, “Strengthen one another’s hands with these words.” We can never say enough about the importance of the Word of God in this matter of grief. I’ve asked Terry Brooks to come this morning and share with us a vignette out of her personal experience of loss and grief. Her mother and father were both killed in a plane crash when she was a teenager growing up in Kansas.
(Terry’s story: Making sure no one was around, I slipped quietly into Mom and Dad’s bedroom. I ran my hand along the wall in search of the light switch but decided against turning it on. The sunlight coming through the lines of the draperies was adequate. Crossing toward the dresser, I noticed Dad’s picture. He had given it to Mom to put up while he was at the State Capitol. Staring into the picture, I recalled the picnics and political gatherings we had attended as a family. “What will happen now since Dad won’t be able to run for the election next month?” I wondered.
My eyes scanned the dresser. Books, magazines, folders, and music were stacked neatly. Music. It was so important to us as a family. Many evenings had been spent singing around the piano for enjoyment or practicing for a recital, concert, or church.
As I turned from the dresser, my eyes beheld the paintings on the wall over the bed. An old plantation house in a cotton field composed the painting on the left. It was painted for Mom as a reminder of her childhood home in Mississippi. The painting on the right was for Dad, a golden wheat field and granary symbolized Kansas, Dad’s heritage.
Sitting on the bed, I smothered my face in my hands. Would all of this soon be a thing of the past? Experiences with the whole family flashed through my mind—laughter around the dinner table, Sunday afternoon drives, planting flowers in the garden, so many family times together. I wanted something to hold on to. Something more than sweet memories.
My eyes focused on the bedstand as I lifted my head. Yes, that was it. There it was, the thing I had come in search of. The black leather had taken on a look I had never noticed before. It was like new. Or maybe it was the newness I felt within that made it seem so. I lifted it from the stand. My fingers guided themselves along the gold lettering: Raymond and Yvonne King. Opening the book, I turned the crisp page to the title page. The Holy Bible. Yes, this was my treasure. No inheritance of tangible items would really be important without the Christian heritage passed down from my parents. This tragedy could turn to triumph by the strengthening of my faith if God. Sure, there would be grief and hard times, but the promises in God’s Word would be my hope.
A second life lesson (2) for coping with grief is also nestled here in this text. I’m sure you’ve seen it already here in verse 18. “Therefore, comfort one another…” The lesson is this: Fellowship is the fire escape out of the burning house of grief. This is one of 30+ verses in the New Testament where ‘one’ and ‘another’ are tied together. Oh, how hard grief is to bear when one is alone! I was reminded in reading John 11 this week in personal devotions that when Lazarus died, “many of the Jews had come to Mary and Martha to console them concerning their brother.” Grief is always more bearable in the context of fellowship.
If we tie the ‘comfort’ with the ‘one another’ in verse 18, we could also read this verse, “Come to the side of one another, strengthening the hands of one another, with these words. Come alongside one another with God’s words, and grief will begin to loosen its grip on hearts and emotions.” With friends, friends of faith, friends who know God’s words, friends who strengthen us with God’s words, there is a way of escape. I hope we are all about building the right kinds of friendships. They will be absolutely necessary in the day of our crisis. I hope we are all working to find our niche in the Body of Christ, for it’s there that we become a part of ‘one another’.
The third lesson (3) this text holds for us in found in verse 14. “For if we believe that Jesus died…” God’s son, Jesus, died. Have you ever thought about God the Father knowing the pain of grief? Our lesson is this: God is personally experienced with grief; to Him we ought to run when it becomes our experience. Let’s think for a minute about God’s experience with grief. It all began back in the book of Genesis, back in the garden of Eden.
The first death that is recorded in the Bible is recorded here, and the first person to experience grief is none other than God Himself! We have read in Genesis (2:16-17) that God had given to Adam the privilege of eating from any tree in the garden of Eden except for one. Adam was solemnly warned that if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in that day, he would surely die.
And of course, we all know what happened. Eve was tricked by the enemy, she ate of the fruit of that particular tree, she shared the fruit with Adam, and he ate too. Then “they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’
Let’s put ourselves in God’s shoes for a moment. Dad, you’ve come home from work. All the way home you’ve been thinking about your wife, the delight of your life, and those munchkins, the gifts that God has placed in your quiver like arrows. You come in the door and announce, “Hey, I’m home!” The reason you went to work was to provide for them, to make it possible to meet their needs, to care for and support them. “Hey, I’m home! Tell me about your day!” But imagine that no one comes running. There’s no one there awaiting your homecoming. You ask, “Where is everybody?”
In one sense that is what happened to God. The Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” When the man responds from his hiding place, God knows something horrible has taken place. The man and woman have disobeyed by eating the forbidden fruit, and in their sinning, they have died spiritually.
Friends, the first person in all the world to experience grief is none other than God Himself. There is no one better to turn to in the heartache of loss that God Himself. He knows how you feel. He has personally experienced what you have experienced. He knows your emotions. He made you in His own image. He has given us words of comfort to console us. He can give us understanding of “Why?” and “Why now?”.
So, how do we run to Him? We do the basic things: We find a place to be alone. We open His Book and read His words. We pray and pour out our heart to him. Perhaps we imagine Him in the chair across from us, listening to all our concerns and fears and loss and uncertainty. We reaffirm our commitment to Him. We ask Him to help us trust Him in the days ahead. We journal our thoughts and impressions as we read and pray. We record answers He has given to our prayers. Hopefully, friends, we are simply doing the things we’ve been doing all along the journey of life. Os Guinness, in his book, The Call, has a chapter entitled, “The Audience of One”. Guinness writes fundamentally about living in the presence of God, one’s Audience of One. He tells the story of General Charles Gordon, the peerless military strategist, the legendary commander, the mostly all-conquering victor who lived so closely before the Audience of One that when his time for death came, he had only a short step home. When Gordon was left abandoned to die at Khartoum, his friend John Bonar wrote to Gordon’s brother these words: “What at once, and always struck me was the way in which his oneness with God ruled all his actions, and his mode of seeing things. I never knew one who seemed so much to ‘endure as seeing Him who is invisible. Gordon seemed to live with God and for God.”
My friends, it will not be hard to run to God in our time of grief if we have been living with Him and before Him as our Audience of One. And it will not be hard to receive His comfort out of the His vast reservoir of consolation He can give, knowing full well exactly what we are going through.
There is a corollary lesson here in connection with lesson three (3a) that is not referenced in the Thessalonian letter: This lesson states: God authors good purposes in the pain of our grief. For example, one Biblical purpose of grief: Grief can be a wake-up call
Do you remember how Stephen was murdered in Acts 7, then Peter was imprisoned in Acts 12? We read in Acts 12 that the church was praying fervently to God for him. Why hadn’t the church been praying for Stephen? The church wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. To suffer the loss of Stephen was hard; to experience it again in the loss of Peter would have been doubly difficult. Grief is sometimes God’s wake up call to us. I don’t want to make that mistake again!
I heard Joe Stowell this week on WGNR talking about how trouble is an attention-getter. He was pretending that God was looking down from heaven, seeing a complacent Joe Stowell. Trouble or grief can shake us out of our complacency, out of our comfort zones.
I know a young man of this town who came to Christ at his father’s death bed. The thought of losing his father, the prospects of seeing him again brought the man to a saving relationship with the Savior. Grief is often a wake-up call. You have my attention, Lord. What is it you want of me?
Another Biblical purpose for grief: Grief enlarges our capacity for joy.
Hebrews 12 tells us that Jesus, for the joy set before Him endured the cross… Contrast that with His experience in the Garden of Gethsemane where He sweat drops of blood in agony and grief at the prospect of His death on the cross.
Tell me, who has a greater appreciation for the greatness of America? The one who has spent his whole life in a little town in Nebraska or the one who has traveled the world and seen slavery, poverty, corruption, and abuse? Grief is a God-given adventure that enlarges our capacity for joy.
Another Biblical purpose for grief is
Grief is a call to trust God and His mysteries.
Consider Job. Who can forget the old man sitting in a heap of ashes, his head shaved, and his clothes torn and ripped after he has received news that all 10 of his children have died in a terrible wind storm? Perhaps only in time did Job finally understand what the Devil had been up to.
Stephen Curtis Chapman has a new CD out with a song titled ‘With Hope’. It begins this way: “This is not at all how we thought it was supposed to be. We had so many plans for you. We had so many dreams. And now you’ve gone away and left us with the memories of your smile and nothing we can do can take away the pain, the pain of losing you, but…
Grief is a call to trust God in the mysteries of life. Grief is a call to us to recognize that God is about things that we may not understand at the moment, like Job, like Ezekiel, like David, like the early church with Stephen.
A final lesson: Lesson Four-- There is no hope in grief without God. I Thess 4:13 introduces us to a category of people who have no hope. Paul writes, “so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope…” Our hope is defined in this context as seeing our loved ones again! Vs. 14 says, “…even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” We have the example of Mary and Martha in John 11 who received their brother, Lazarus, back again!
And Steven Curtis Chapman’s song, “With Hope” goes on in the chorus to say, “We can cry with hope, we can say goodbye with hope ‘cause we know our goodbye is not the end, oh no, and we can grieve with hope ‘cause we believe with hope, there’s a place where we’ll see your face again.”
Conclusion: I’m sure there is much more that could be said, from the Scriptures, about this topic of grief. But at least as Paul has touched upon the subject here in his Thessalonian letter, we have explored some of its dimensions. We can draw a number of conclusions from these three short verses: Only in God is there real hope for grief; because God is personally experienced with grief, we can run to Him for help and consolation; in the fellowship of others we find an escape; and truth is the key that unlocks the prison of grief to all who suffer it.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Job One: Excelling at pleasing God
I Thessalonians 4:1-12
November 14, 1999
Introduction: History buffs among us will recognize the name Simon Bolivar. He lived in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s and came to be known as the liberator of five South American countries. What we know today as Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia owe their independence to the man Bolivar. The turning point in the history of these five countries was the Battle of Boyaca. Bolivar had called his rebel army commanders together on May 23, 1819, in Venezuela. He described a plan that would begin the defeat of Spain’s larger, better-equipped army.
Bolivar and his men would attack the enemy at its weakest point in New Granada (Colombia now)—on the other side of the Andes. The Spanish garrison commander had seen no need to post a large force to watch for guerrillas coming across 12,000 foot high peaks. Bolivar finally convinced 2500 rag-tag rebels to go with him, even though it was the rainy season, and they would have to cross swampy plains just to get to the base of the mountains. A number of the poorly clad and ill-equipped rebels died along the way, but their final entrance into New Granada completely astonished the Spanish army and victory was won.
As Scott Smith tells the story, Bolivar “rightly thought that any event likely to strike the imagination of the Granadinos as a dramatic defeat of Spain would determine a political landslide.” And that is exactly what happened, though there would be 6 more years of battles and campaigns. Simon Bolivar, as a leader of troops, knew that a battle could be lost by something as insignificant as a poorly shoed horse. His attention to detail was legendary. Bolivar would go on to become the leader of each of these five nations at one time or another. Who would dispute that he lived a life in the political world that excelled?
Perhaps the name Scott Fischer rings a bell with you. Scott led an American team up Mount Everest in May of 1996. Eight climbers died in the largest single death toll for any mountain-climbing accident in history. Scott Fischer was one of those who perished that day.
Newsweek called him “one of the strongest (mountain) climbers in the world.” His friend, Kevin Cusack, writing for World magazine (May 9, 1998), remembered a time twenty years earlier when they were preparing for a climb in the Wind River Range of Wyoming. Scott was by far the strongest climber on the team. His workout routine included 3 sets of 50 two-handed pull-ups, 25 one-handed pull-ups, and 15 two-finger pull-ups.
In the world of mountain climbing, Scott Fischer lived a life that excelled.
With the death on November first of 45 year old Walter Payton, we are reminded of a man who wanted to be the best he could be. He wanted to excel in the NFL, and he was willing to pay the price to achieve that goal. He knew that the only way to perform was to prepare and condition himself, and his favorite technique for developing his strength and stamina was to run up a hill. Near his Lake Forest home in Arlington Heights, Ill., he found the perfect site. This hill was 85 yards high and rose at a 45-degree angle. The first time he and some teammates tried it, they could only run it twice. But by the time training camp opened, Mr. Payton and his teammates could run it 25 times. By the time his football career had run its course, over 13 years, he was the best running back to play the game. Walter Payton lived a life in the world of pro-football that excelled.
History as recent as November 1, history as distant as 1819, and much of history in between would acclaim many men and women as individuals who lived lives that excelled in a number of ways.
When we come to I Thessalonians 4, we read about the kind of life that God acclaims as excellent. And that’s what we all want, isn’t it? Don’t we want to stand before Him and hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”? As one of the church elders who must give an account for your soul… (You know that verse in Hebrews 13:17, don’t you? “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account…Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.”); As one of the church leaders who must give an account for your soul, I certainly want all of us to live so well that God will be pleased with what we’ve done with this life He’s given us.
Let’s find what it is that God says is a life well lived as we consider His Word together.
I Thessalonians 4:1-12—Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;
that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not is lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.
So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more,
and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.
We can see three themes running through these twelve verses that help us to get a handle on Paul’s message in this text. Giving attention to these three things will enable us to live a life that excels. The first is, Live in Purity. The second is, Love the Brethren, and the third is, Light the Outsider. If we can trust God to discipline us each day in these three elements, we can live a life that He says is excellent.
First then, when I say, we ought to live in purity, I am paraphrasing what Paul has said in verses 3-6, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not is lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in this matter…”
It appears the Thessalonians lived in a society and culture not much different from ours—one that is sexually charged, lust focused, and far more explicit than we find acceptable. So what is ‘sexual immorality’ and what does that big word ‘sanctification’ mean that appears in verses 3,4, and 7?
In the Scriptures, there are 5 ways we can be involved in sexual immorality, so if we are committed to living a life that excels, to living in purity, we want to avoid all of these possibilities in every situation that they appear as temptations.
The Bible instructs us to avoid lust. Lust is a form of sexual immorality. Lust is a strong desire for things that are not ours. In the context of sex, lust is defined as the sinful desire for having someone who is not ours. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” In our recent study of the Proverbs, we saw many images of the adulterer: an ox going to the slaughter, a deer stepping into a noose, a person on a highway to the grave, a man walking on hot coals and scorching his feet… The sexual immorality of lust puts us in the same art gallery!
A second form of sexual immorality is adultery. Adultery is extramarital sex. It is prohibited in the Ten Commandments; its punishment in the Old Testament was the death penalty. Again, the Proverbs say adultery destroys the soul of the one who is guilty of it (6:32).
Lust and adultery will rob us of a life that excels in the sight of God.
The third robber is incest. Incest is sex with a close relative other than one’s husband or wife. Lev.18:6-18 lists those close relatives, including but not limited to, children, grandchildren, sons- and daughters-in-law, sisters, step-sisters, aunts, uncles, brothers- and sisters-in-law. Again, the Bible says the penalty for incest is death (Lev.20:11).
The fourth thief of purity is homosexuality. This term is defined as sex with a person of the same gender. This form of sexual immorality is called an abomination (Lev.18:22) and perpetrators were subject to the death penalty also (Lev.20:13).
The fifth form of sexual immorality is bestiality, sex with an animal. According to Leviticus 18, both men and women of the nations of Canaan had perverted themselves with this form of defilement.
These five forms of sexual immorality can destroy us. A sword came to the house of David and never left it because of his adultery with Bathsheba. Lust destroyed the ministry of Jimmy Swaggert. Incest has scarred the lives of more people than we want to know about. Impurity robs us of a life that excels.
So, what about that big word, sanctification? Sanctification is a good word, it means holiness. Chuck Swindoll suggests that holiness often wrongly conjures up images of stained-glass windows and hushed chambers of monasteries and cathedrals. Chuck Colson writes, “Holiness is the everyday business of every Christian.”
Paul is writing to these Thessalonians (and thus to us) that the will of God is a life of purity and holiness. If purity is the opposite of the sexual immoralities that we have defined so far, perhaps the question before us now is, “How do we do it?”
Verse 4 offers one clue. Each of us needs to know how to possess his own vessel. Translation? We need to know how our bodies function, what ignites our sex drives, how self-control works, what temptations have proven too strong for us, what situations we must avoid, what kinds of conversations lead to compromise, what kinds of touches are too personal, etc., etc. When we know these things about ourselves, we can make plans to avoid the wrong kinds of circumstances. We can plan to turn down certain invitations. We can move away from contexts that we know we are vulnerable to. We can invite the right kind of friend to ask us the questions of accountability that we all need. We can cultivate the spiritual disciplines of prayer and Bible reading that fortify our hearts and spirits against the wrong kinds of influences.
Then we live life free from anxiety, guilt, STM’s (sexually transmitted diseases), and emotional scars. We live freely with self-respect and confidence and a sense of well-being.
If knowing ourselves is one clue, another key to a life of purity is a healthy respect for consequences. Verse 6 warns us that God is the avenger in “all these things.” The one who is caught up in lustful passion and ends up defrauding his brother will find himself being pursued by an avenger! In this case it will be God Who is intent on exacting justice as the avenger of the Old Testament had the right and obligation to do!
Is there anyone here in his right mind who wants to experience the terror of knowing that God is on our trail, seeking justice for having taken advantage of someone else in this matter of sexual impurity? Is there anyone here in his right mind who wants to live as a fugitive, always looking over his shoulder to see if secret sins of immorality are catching up to him?
So friends, we can live a life that excels by living in purity. When we avoid sexual immorality, we declare that holiness, and the freedom and the blamelessness that come with it, is more important to us that a momentary, cheap thrill that sets God against us in discipline and judgment. God, give us the power to live pure!
A second theme in this passage that helps us to live with excellence is love the brethren. Verses 9-10 develop this thought for us.
“Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more.”
Paul is saying to his friends and to us, “Let your love for one another extend outward beyond the limits of their need!” Love others here in the church family even when they act hateful; love others here in our church body even when they don’t deserve it; love others we know are Christians enough to tell them the truth even when we know they don’t want to hear it; love the brethren enough to confront them when they are headed in the wrong direction; love others in the depths of their failures and embarrassments; love those who have used you and manipulated you for their own purposes.
The apostle John would write of the Lord Jesus as He approached His crucifixion, “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” According to the commentator A. W. Pink, the Lord Jesus loved them out to the edge of His marvelous grace.
No one ever lived badly who loved greatly! A life that excels is a life lived meeting the needs of others out of the power that God provides.
The final theme of this passage that illumines for us a life that excels is the directive to light the outsider. Live in purity, Paul has said. Love the brethren, he adds. And finally, the mentor says in verses 11-12, “and… make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders…”.
All of us know what ambition is, don’t we. Os Guinness, in his book, The Call, tells the story of one young man’s ambition. Andrew Carnegie, a young boy growing up in poverty in Pittsburgh, had happened one day upon his mom, weeping in a moment of discouragement. He sought to console her by assuring her that one day he would be rich, and they would ride in a fine coach driven by four horses. “That would do no good over here,” she replied, “if no one in Dunfermline can see us.” Dunfermline was their home village in eastern Scotland. On July 27, 1881, Carnegie and his mother rode into their hometown at four o’clock in the afternoon in a carriage fit for royalty pulled, by a team of four. The Scottish weaver’s son had risen from a Pittsburgh ‘bobbin boy’ making $1.20 a week to become America’s King of Steel, the industrial Napoleon, one of the world’s richest men. He fulfilled his ambition that day.
The apostle Paul is saying, “Make it your dream, make the force that drives you day after day, make it your desire to shine the light of the Gospel on those yet outside the fold of Christ.” That is an ambition worthy of one who seeks to live a life that excels.
Here’s how to do it. Lead a quiet life. Attend to your own business. Work with your hands so you will not be in need. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it. Many folks will not come to Christ because of a great, county-wide crusade. Many will come to the Savior through our influence in the day-to-day grind of life.
In leading a quiet life, we will be seen to be good neighbors, those who support our families, those who are contributing to the good of the community. We will be seen as free from anxious busyness. One commentator asks us to put a stethoscope to our hearts and see what we might hear. Would we hear a breeze rustling the leaves on a pretty fall day? Or would we hear thunder rumbling in the distance? Or might we hear workmen sawing lumber and hammering nails? Or would we hear the final screaming lap of the Indy 500? Is there panic in our hearts today? That panic will ruin our testimony to those yet outside the faith.
In attending to our own business, we will be seen as those who do their assignments well, who are responsible for the tasks they have taken on. Walter Wangerin paints this picture for us: Imagine a carpenter crafting a fine rocking chair for a wealthy client. Now imagine him also building another rocking chair for his daughter. The difference between the two craftings is HUGE! Both chairs will be done well, and outward appearances may be slight, but the daughter’s chair will have a great deal of love woven into each detail. Paul asks us to be a testimony to those outside the church by attending well to our business, to our responsibilities.
In working with our hands, we will be seen as leading a responsible lifestyle. Laziness discredits the Gospel. Paul will write again to these believers these words (II Thess 3:11-22): “For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such we command… that they work in quietness and eat their own bread.”
When we lead a quiet life, attend well to our business, and work in a responsible manner, those outside the faith will see us as distinctive and attractive. I’ve probably told you too much about our son, a counselor in one of the men’s residence halls at Purdue. He’s not into sexual immorality; he’s a responsible employee of the university. His distinctive lifestyle is attractive to many who have come to know him. Some, mired in the complexities of sexual relationships, have said, “I wish I was like you.”
Conclusion: Chapter Four had begun where chapter three left off. A life of faith will establish one’s heart blameless in holiness. Paul wanted his readers to fully understand what that kind of life would involve. It would be free of sexual immorality, thus pure. It would be full of love for the brethren. And it would be a light to those yet outside the Gospel. That would be a life that excels! That would be a life that God would be pleased with.
Moses…
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
November 14, 1999
Introduction: History buffs among us will recognize the name Simon Bolivar. He lived in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s and came to be known as the liberator of five South American countries. What we know today as Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia owe their independence to the man Bolivar. The turning point in the history of these five countries was the Battle of Boyaca. Bolivar had called his rebel army commanders together on May 23, 1819, in Venezuela. He described a plan that would begin the defeat of Spain’s larger, better-equipped army.
Bolivar and his men would attack the enemy at its weakest point in New Granada (Colombia now)—on the other side of the Andes. The Spanish garrison commander had seen no need to post a large force to watch for guerrillas coming across 12,000 foot high peaks. Bolivar finally convinced 2500 rag-tag rebels to go with him, even though it was the rainy season, and they would have to cross swampy plains just to get to the base of the mountains. A number of the poorly clad and ill-equipped rebels died along the way, but their final entrance into New Granada completely astonished the Spanish army and victory was won.
As Scott Smith tells the story, Bolivar “rightly thought that any event likely to strike the imagination of the Granadinos as a dramatic defeat of Spain would determine a political landslide.” And that is exactly what happened, though there would be 6 more years of battles and campaigns. Simon Bolivar, as a leader of troops, knew that a battle could be lost by something as insignificant as a poorly shoed horse. His attention to detail was legendary. Bolivar would go on to become the leader of each of these five nations at one time or another. Who would dispute that he lived a life in the political world that excelled?
Perhaps the name Scott Fischer rings a bell with you. Scott led an American team up Mount Everest in May of 1996. Eight climbers died in the largest single death toll for any mountain-climbing accident in history. Scott Fischer was one of those who perished that day.
Newsweek called him “one of the strongest (mountain) climbers in the world.” His friend, Kevin Cusack, writing for World magazine (May 9, 1998), remembered a time twenty years earlier when they were preparing for a climb in the Wind River Range of Wyoming. Scott was by far the strongest climber on the team. His workout routine included 3 sets of 50 two-handed pull-ups, 25 one-handed pull-ups, and 15 two-finger pull-ups.
In the world of mountain climbing, Scott Fischer lived a life that excelled.
With the death on November first of 45 year old Walter Payton, we are reminded of a man who wanted to be the best he could be. He wanted to excel in the NFL, and he was willing to pay the price to achieve that goal. He knew that the only way to perform was to prepare and condition himself, and his favorite technique for developing his strength and stamina was to run up a hill. Near his Lake Forest home in Arlington Heights, Ill., he found the perfect site. This hill was 85 yards high and rose at a 45-degree angle. The first time he and some teammates tried it, they could only run it twice. But by the time training camp opened, Mr. Payton and his teammates could run it 25 times. By the time his football career had run its course, over 13 years, he was the best running back to play the game. Walter Payton lived a life in the world of pro-football that excelled.
History as recent as November 1, history as distant as 1819, and much of history in between would acclaim many men and women as individuals who lived lives that excelled in a number of ways.
When we come to I Thessalonians 4, we read about the kind of life that God acclaims as excellent. And that’s what we all want, isn’t it? Don’t we want to stand before Him and hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”? As one of the church elders who must give an account for your soul… (You know that verse in Hebrews 13:17, don’t you? “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account…Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.”); As one of the church leaders who must give an account for your soul, I certainly want all of us to live so well that God will be pleased with what we’ve done with this life He’s given us.
Let’s find what it is that God says is a life well lived as we consider His Word together.
I Thessalonians 4:1-12—Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;
that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not is lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.
So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more,
and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.
We can see three themes running through these twelve verses that help us to get a handle on Paul’s message in this text. Giving attention to these three things will enable us to live a life that excels. The first is, Live in Purity. The second is, Love the Brethren, and the third is, Light the Outsider. If we can trust God to discipline us each day in these three elements, we can live a life that He says is excellent.
First then, when I say, we ought to live in purity, I am paraphrasing what Paul has said in verses 3-6, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not is lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in this matter…”
It appears the Thessalonians lived in a society and culture not much different from ours—one that is sexually charged, lust focused, and far more explicit than we find acceptable. So what is ‘sexual immorality’ and what does that big word ‘sanctification’ mean that appears in verses 3,4, and 7?
In the Scriptures, there are 5 ways we can be involved in sexual immorality, so if we are committed to living a life that excels, to living in purity, we want to avoid all of these possibilities in every situation that they appear as temptations.
The Bible instructs us to avoid lust. Lust is a form of sexual immorality. Lust is a strong desire for things that are not ours. In the context of sex, lust is defined as the sinful desire for having someone who is not ours. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” In our recent study of the Proverbs, we saw many images of the adulterer: an ox going to the slaughter, a deer stepping into a noose, a person on a highway to the grave, a man walking on hot coals and scorching his feet… The sexual immorality of lust puts us in the same art gallery!
A second form of sexual immorality is adultery. Adultery is extramarital sex. It is prohibited in the Ten Commandments; its punishment in the Old Testament was the death penalty. Again, the Proverbs say adultery destroys the soul of the one who is guilty of it (6:32).
Lust and adultery will rob us of a life that excels in the sight of God.
The third robber is incest. Incest is sex with a close relative other than one’s husband or wife. Lev.18:6-18 lists those close relatives, including but not limited to, children, grandchildren, sons- and daughters-in-law, sisters, step-sisters, aunts, uncles, brothers- and sisters-in-law. Again, the Bible says the penalty for incest is death (Lev.20:11).
The fourth thief of purity is homosexuality. This term is defined as sex with a person of the same gender. This form of sexual immorality is called an abomination (Lev.18:22) and perpetrators were subject to the death penalty also (Lev.20:13).
The fifth form of sexual immorality is bestiality, sex with an animal. According to Leviticus 18, both men and women of the nations of Canaan had perverted themselves with this form of defilement.
These five forms of sexual immorality can destroy us. A sword came to the house of David and never left it because of his adultery with Bathsheba. Lust destroyed the ministry of Jimmy Swaggert. Incest has scarred the lives of more people than we want to know about. Impurity robs us of a life that excels.
So, what about that big word, sanctification? Sanctification is a good word, it means holiness. Chuck Swindoll suggests that holiness often wrongly conjures up images of stained-glass windows and hushed chambers of monasteries and cathedrals. Chuck Colson writes, “Holiness is the everyday business of every Christian.”
Paul is writing to these Thessalonians (and thus to us) that the will of God is a life of purity and holiness. If purity is the opposite of the sexual immoralities that we have defined so far, perhaps the question before us now is, “How do we do it?”
Verse 4 offers one clue. Each of us needs to know how to possess his own vessel. Translation? We need to know how our bodies function, what ignites our sex drives, how self-control works, what temptations have proven too strong for us, what situations we must avoid, what kinds of conversations lead to compromise, what kinds of touches are too personal, etc., etc. When we know these things about ourselves, we can make plans to avoid the wrong kinds of circumstances. We can plan to turn down certain invitations. We can move away from contexts that we know we are vulnerable to. We can invite the right kind of friend to ask us the questions of accountability that we all need. We can cultivate the spiritual disciplines of prayer and Bible reading that fortify our hearts and spirits against the wrong kinds of influences.
Then we live life free from anxiety, guilt, STM’s (sexually transmitted diseases), and emotional scars. We live freely with self-respect and confidence and a sense of well-being.
If knowing ourselves is one clue, another key to a life of purity is a healthy respect for consequences. Verse 6 warns us that God is the avenger in “all these things.” The one who is caught up in lustful passion and ends up defrauding his brother will find himself being pursued by an avenger! In this case it will be God Who is intent on exacting justice as the avenger of the Old Testament had the right and obligation to do!
Is there anyone here in his right mind who wants to experience the terror of knowing that God is on our trail, seeking justice for having taken advantage of someone else in this matter of sexual impurity? Is there anyone here in his right mind who wants to live as a fugitive, always looking over his shoulder to see if secret sins of immorality are catching up to him?
So friends, we can live a life that excels by living in purity. When we avoid sexual immorality, we declare that holiness, and the freedom and the blamelessness that come with it, is more important to us that a momentary, cheap thrill that sets God against us in discipline and judgment. God, give us the power to live pure!
A second theme in this passage that helps us to live with excellence is love the brethren. Verses 9-10 develop this thought for us.
“Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more.”
Paul is saying to his friends and to us, “Let your love for one another extend outward beyond the limits of their need!” Love others here in the church family even when they act hateful; love others here in our church body even when they don’t deserve it; love others we know are Christians enough to tell them the truth even when we know they don’t want to hear it; love the brethren enough to confront them when they are headed in the wrong direction; love others in the depths of their failures and embarrassments; love those who have used you and manipulated you for their own purposes.
The apostle John would write of the Lord Jesus as He approached His crucifixion, “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” According to the commentator A. W. Pink, the Lord Jesus loved them out to the edge of His marvelous grace.
No one ever lived badly who loved greatly! A life that excels is a life lived meeting the needs of others out of the power that God provides.
The final theme of this passage that illumines for us a life that excels is the directive to light the outsider. Live in purity, Paul has said. Love the brethren, he adds. And finally, the mentor says in verses 11-12, “and… make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders…”.
All of us know what ambition is, don’t we. Os Guinness, in his book, The Call, tells the story of one young man’s ambition. Andrew Carnegie, a young boy growing up in poverty in Pittsburgh, had happened one day upon his mom, weeping in a moment of discouragement. He sought to console her by assuring her that one day he would be rich, and they would ride in a fine coach driven by four horses. “That would do no good over here,” she replied, “if no one in Dunfermline can see us.” Dunfermline was their home village in eastern Scotland. On July 27, 1881, Carnegie and his mother rode into their hometown at four o’clock in the afternoon in a carriage fit for royalty pulled, by a team of four. The Scottish weaver’s son had risen from a Pittsburgh ‘bobbin boy’ making $1.20 a week to become America’s King of Steel, the industrial Napoleon, one of the world’s richest men. He fulfilled his ambition that day.
The apostle Paul is saying, “Make it your dream, make the force that drives you day after day, make it your desire to shine the light of the Gospel on those yet outside the fold of Christ.” That is an ambition worthy of one who seeks to live a life that excels.
Here’s how to do it. Lead a quiet life. Attend to your own business. Work with your hands so you will not be in need. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it. Many folks will not come to Christ because of a great, county-wide crusade. Many will come to the Savior through our influence in the day-to-day grind of life.
In leading a quiet life, we will be seen to be good neighbors, those who support our families, those who are contributing to the good of the community. We will be seen as free from anxious busyness. One commentator asks us to put a stethoscope to our hearts and see what we might hear. Would we hear a breeze rustling the leaves on a pretty fall day? Or would we hear thunder rumbling in the distance? Or might we hear workmen sawing lumber and hammering nails? Or would we hear the final screaming lap of the Indy 500? Is there panic in our hearts today? That panic will ruin our testimony to those yet outside the faith.
In attending to our own business, we will be seen as those who do their assignments well, who are responsible for the tasks they have taken on. Walter Wangerin paints this picture for us: Imagine a carpenter crafting a fine rocking chair for a wealthy client. Now imagine him also building another rocking chair for his daughter. The difference between the two craftings is HUGE! Both chairs will be done well, and outward appearances may be slight, but the daughter’s chair will have a great deal of love woven into each detail. Paul asks us to be a testimony to those outside the church by attending well to our business, to our responsibilities.
In working with our hands, we will be seen as leading a responsible lifestyle. Laziness discredits the Gospel. Paul will write again to these believers these words (II Thess 3:11-22): “For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such we command… that they work in quietness and eat their own bread.”
When we lead a quiet life, attend well to our business, and work in a responsible manner, those outside the faith will see us as distinctive and attractive. I’ve probably told you too much about our son, a counselor in one of the men’s residence halls at Purdue. He’s not into sexual immorality; he’s a responsible employee of the university. His distinctive lifestyle is attractive to many who have come to know him. Some, mired in the complexities of sexual relationships, have said, “I wish I was like you.”
Conclusion: Chapter Four had begun where chapter three left off. A life of faith will establish one’s heart blameless in holiness. Paul wanted his readers to fully understand what that kind of life would involve. It would be free of sexual immorality, thus pure. It would be full of love for the brethren. And it would be a light to those yet outside the Gospel. That would be a life that excels! That would be a life that God would be pleased with.
Moses…
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
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