Looking ahead

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Transcript:

All right, we’re going to be in 1 Thessalonians this evening. 1 Thessalonians, I misled you this morning, not on purpose, but I told you we were going to be in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. It’s actually 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 where the discussion of Jesus’ return starts.

So we’re going to be in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, the very end of the chapter this evening, starting in verse 13. Give you just a second to turn there. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, starting in verse 13.

It says, prevent those who have fallen asleep. Excuse me. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Verse 17.

Then we who are alive, who are still alive, who are left, will be caught together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.

I love this passage. I love this passage. There’s so much hope in this passage, and yet the passage always makes me just a little bit sad when I read it because of all the memories that come back with it, every graveside service that I’ve ever done that I can remember, we’ve read this passage.

Because it’s a reminder, especially if the person that we’re burying is a believer. It’s a reminder that this is not the end. It’s not the end.

There’s some good theology in here as far as what’s going to come at the end. You call that eschatology, the study of the end times, the study of the ending. There’s a lot of good information about that, but before you even get into those details, it’s just a reminder that this world is not all there is, That when we say goodbye to someone, they’re at the grave.

If they’re a believer in Jesus Christ, and you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, then this is not all there is, and it’s not really goodbye. As a matter of fact, I remember preaching the funeral for my step-grandfather. I never called him that, but that just tells you who he is.

One of my grandfathers died in his 90s after I’d come here. One of my grandfathers died in his 50s when I was five years old. My grandmother remarried many years later.

And we loved him. He didn’t have any grandkids of his own. And he was, for all intents and purposes, our grandfather.

And called him Papa John. Kind of like the pizza place. And I remember talking at his funeral when I preached that service about how I never remember the man ever saying goodbye on the telephone.

Not once in all the years that he was part of our family do I remember him ever saying bye on the telephone, or even when we left the house, left their house or they left our house, any of those, there was never a goodbye, it was always we’ll talk at you later. And I talked about that at the funeral, that for the Christian, what we think of now as saying goodbye here at the graveside isn’t really goodbye, it’s just we’ll talk at you later. Because we know that if we’re in Christ and they’re in Christ then we’re going to see them again.

And so Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica and says I don’t want you to mourn. I don’t want you to grieve. I don’t want you to be overcome by despair like those people who have no hope.

And what is the difference between us and them? That we have hope. And that hope keeps us or should keep us from despair.

I told you a little bit about the church at Thessalonica up to this point. They were moving right along. Paul had invested some time in them and had to leave sooner than he wanted to.

And Paul worried about what was going to happen to this immature church. And I don’t say that to criticize them. These were new believers for the most part, and he hadn’t had as much time to invest in them as he’d wanted to.

And so they were still spiritually immature. And when he had to leave, he worried about what was going to happen to them. Are they going to start falling away from the faith?

Are they going to start acting wild like they’ve been raised in church all these years and they’ve gone off to college for the first time? Are they going to fall prey to the cults? And Paul was glad to see that he had gotten a good report.

He couldn’t get back to them as much as he wanted to. Let me rephrase that. It’s not that he wasn’t able to get back to them at all.

As much as he wanted to get back to them, he couldn’t. He couldn’t make it back there for whatever reason. And so he sent Timothy to check them out.

And he was pleased to find out that good things were still happening in Thessalonica. But there were also some things that concerned Paul. And so Paul very lovingly writes to the church at Thessalonica, to correct some of their misconceptions.

As you had this young church, as you had this group of believers who were not yet spiritually mature, not really fully grounded in the faith, they had begun to fall prey to some false teachers. Now they hadn’t been completely led astray out into left field, and they hadn’t gotten into cult stuff, they hadn’t totally rejected Christianity, but there were some people who had come through taught that the day of the Lord had already come and gone. And so, if you start to believe, wait a minute, Jesus has already returned.

Whether you think of it as the rapture has already happened, or you think of it as the second coming has already happened, if you start to believe that those events have already come and gone, those are already a done deal, and wait a minute, I’m still here, what would be your assumption about where you stand with God? You would start to worry about, did I miss something? Right?

I remember being about Benjamin’s age, probably eight or nine years old, and our pastor preaching on the rapture, and then being there at home one time, and I couldn’t find anybody. Yeah, wondered if I’d been left. Turns out they were at the neighbor’s house.

Apparently they told me they were going to the neighbor’s house and I didn’t hear them. But I was in a panic. I thought, I’ve missed something here.

They were in a panic too. Some of them were in a panic thinking, the day of the Lord has already come and gone and we’re in trouble here. some of them were being taught that they had missed the second coming some of them were being taught that because they were still here that others couldn’t rise they were being taught all sorts of bizarre things about the second coming about the rapture about the resurrections from the dead and so Paul sensing their fear understanding their concerns Paul writes to them to clarify some of these things.

And this is where the whole concern at the church at Thessalonica about finishing well comes into play. Everything that we’ve read up to now, he’s talking to them about how to keep running, how to keep going, how to do well throughout their Christian life. And one of the reasons why they were so concerned about that is because they were preoccupied, and not necessarily in a bad way, But they were preoccupied with the idea of Jesus coming again.

Now their problem was they thought he had and they’d missed it. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be occupied in our minds with Jesus coming again. Sometimes I think even though we believe he could come at any moment, do we really believe he could come at any moment?

Yes, I know, in our minds it’s possible he could come at any moment. But do we think it’s likely? Do we live like we think it’s likely?

We’re getting into some different questions here now, aren’t we? We don’t necessarily live like we think it’s likely, and that’s probably because we don’t really think it’s likely that he’s going to come today. I told you last week about how differently I start to live when I know that in just a few weeks I’ve got my yearly checkup with my doctor.

Now, I have pretty low blood pressure most of the time. But I start trying to cut out salt a little bit more, start trying to cut out sugar a little bit more, cholesterol. You know, I basically don’t eat anything that tastes good.

Try to stop being quite so fat, you know, because I don’t want to have the conversation about having to lose weight or go on all these medications. I know, I know that that appointment with my doctor is coming up and so I start acting a little bit different. If we were convinced in our minds that Jesus is coming back any given time, it would change the way we did things, wouldn’t it?

Hopefully it would change things for the better. And other than a group of people at Thessalonica who thought he’s already come or he’s coming soon, and so let’s just sit around and be lazy and wait for him to come. Let’s sell everything and sponge off of other people and just sit around on the mountaintops waiting for him to come.

Other than those people, and there were some, and Paul deals with them, but other than that small group of people, the church at Thessalonica was running well. They were moving toward finishing well because they believed the finish was coming at any given moment. Or they believed that it had already come, and something’s up, so where do we go from here?

And I told you when I started this series, and I repeated it multiple times through there, we don’t want this idea of finishing well to be the idea that I can see the end up on the horizon. I’ve just been told I have six months left to live. I’ve just decided I’m going to retire in six months.

You know, at that point where whatever chapter of life we’re talking about or life itself, We know what the expiration date is on this chapter or on life itself. Now we start worrying about finishing well. If that’s what we were talking about, I might look toward 2 Timothy and Paul’s letter there.

But I’d rather us be people who know there is an expiration date on whatever it is we’re doing. We know there’s an expiration date on our lives, and we don’t know when it is. We just know it’s coming.

So whether it’s 50 years or it’s five minutes, we’re going to take what time we have left and put it to the best possible use, bringing glory to Jesus Christ and advancing his kingdom. That’s finishing well. Not getting down to the wire and saying, I have this much time left and I know it, so now it’s time to get serious.

Get serious about what time we have left, even if we don’t know how much it is. I was listening to a radio program this afternoon. It was talking about interim pastors.

And the statement was made, well, they’re all interim pastors. Well, that’s true. That’s true because for every one of us, there comes a day when we’re no longer in that pulpit.

And maybe God moves us somewhere else. Maybe we retire. Maybe God calls us home.

But we’re all interim pastors. You know what? That’s the same thing is true in whatever we do.

If you’re a rancher, you’re an interim rancher, that’s what you do until God calls you home and you don’t know when it’s going to be. If you’re teaching Sunday school, you’re an interim Sunday school teacher, there’s an expiration date on that calling. If you’re parenting, there’s going to be a day when God calls you home.

Or God forbid, there’s going to be a day when God calls that child home. We never know. We never know from moment to moment.

I don’t like that thought, that we’re all interim pastors. But it’s true. It’s true.

God puts us where he puts us, both in a specific place and here on earth, for a finite amount of time. And we don’t know how long it is. So finishing well means take that, however much it is, even if you don’t know, and use it the best way you can, because you don’t know how much time you have.

And so for them to finish well, he tells them to look ahead. He tells them to look ahead. In those moments of sadness, when you’re thinking about those who’ve already gone on, realize that this is not the end.

Don’t mourn, don’t grieve as those who have no hope, because we have hope. When you think about your own life, don’t be overcome by despair, because this world is not all there is. There’s more.

And we have hope. The best way for us to finish well is to look ahead. my dad I’ve told you before my dad runs on purpose he runs marathons he just ran the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon again back in April I believe it was after saying he was never going to do it again I think he’s addicted there’s something in his brain that compels him just got to keep running dad doesn’t run to win he considers that he’s won if he finishes the finish line.

My dad’s goal in all of this is to cross the finish line. And he reminds himself continually to cross the finish line. And I think I’ve told you about the one and only time I ran with him to run a 5k.

And I was 22 at the time. And I just remember, you know, wasn’t that long before that, that I used to just run all over the neighborhood being a kid. You could run and never get tired.

So I didn’t really train. And I nearly died. I kept up with the group of Navy guys through the first kilometer.

All right. I staggered the second kilometer. Then I told dad to go on and save himself.

And I crawled for part of the third kilometer. Then I got up and I staggered some more for the fourth kilometer. And then just kind of got winded and walked the fifth kilometer.

And I was the last person to cross the finish line who was not in a wheelchair or a stroller. And I would have quit numerous times. I would have quit numerous times, except for the fact that there were a lot of people who knew I was out doing that 5K with dad and there was no way on God’s earth I was going to go tell those people I didn’t finish.

And I kept thinking there’s a finish line up there and I want to get to it. On top of that they’ve got snacks across the finish line. Okay.

There is a finish line and there is a reward at that finish line. And that kept me going. That and like I said the stubbornness of just I am not going back and telling all these people at church that I didn’t even finish.

And so I finished. Because you’re keeping the end in mind.

If you feel like there’s no end in sight, if you feel like there’s no reward, that this just keeps going on and on, that this suffering, this struggle, this despair, all the horrible things that we are sometimes faced with in this life, if we feel like that just goes on without end, I forgot the word I was trying to think of but if we think that goes on without end it makes us feel hopeless if we think the suffering and the tears and the pain it never ends it makes it harder to go on it makes it harder to run forward it makes it harder to finish well and that’s why he said you’ve got to remember that there’s hope and we can run well because we know there’s a finish line and we know there’s a reward on the other side we run because of the certainty of our reward we can finish well because we run with hope we run this race with hope and it’s not my idea to compare the Christian life to a race that comes from the writer of Hebrews but he tells him in verse 13 here we do not want you to be uninformed brothers and sisters the King James says we would not have you to be ignorant concerning those who are asleep now when he says those who are asleep he’s not talking about taking a nap it’s a euphemism for death you notice we never say so and so he died very rarely do we say that we usually use other words to soften the blow they passed away they went to be with Jesus they entered into the joy of the Lord I like graduated but he says we would not have you to be ignorant about those who are asleep meaning those who have died so that you will grieve so that you will not grieve like those who have no hope.

He says, you need to realize that there’s hope here. There’s a reward that comes. And we can know this with certainty because we know that Jesus rose again.

He says in verse 14, for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again. And Paul told the church at Corinth, if Christ is not raised, then this is all in vain. If Christ is not raised, we’re dead in our sins.

He said, if Christ is not raised, we are of all men most miserable. If Jesus Christ couldn’t raise himself, then what hope is there for us? But folks, there’s hope for us because there’s the certainty that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead.

So how can you say there’s certainty? Aren’t there people that don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead? Well, folks, there are people that don’t believe the earth is round too.

Those people still exist. It doesn’t mean they’re right. And let me tell you, Let me tell you, and hopefully, if you’ve been around here any length of time, you’ve heard how I can get wound up about the subject of the resurrection and the evidence. And I think multiple times here I’ve presented you some cases and evidence.

I am absolutely convinced, not just because it’s what my church teaches, not even just because the Bible says so, although that’s important. I am convinced on the basis of historical and scientific and medical and logical evidence that Jesus Christ died and was buried and rose again from the dead and showed himself to numerous eyewitnesses. I am as convinced of that as any other event in history that I did not see with my own eyes.

Folks, if we believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, it gives us hope for the future. Because it means that we’re serving a Savior who has power, who has mastery over life and death. Death is no match for the Savior who died to save us and rose again.

And if He rose, if He rose, if He could raise Himself, then He can raise us too. It says in verse 14, if we believe that Jesus died and rose again in the same way through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. That if God could raise Jesus, if Jesus could be raised, then he could raise us too.

And not only can he, but he will. He not only can, but he will. In the same way, God, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

They were worried about their friends and their loved ones there at Thessalonica who had already died. He said, wait a minute. You’re putting your faith and your trust in the one who conquered death.

What reason do we have to doubt that if he could conquer death once, that he could do it again, and again, and again, and again, and again for each and every one of us? Those who have fallen asleep, those who are already dead, he said, there’s no problem here. Their death, it’s no match for Jesus Christ. Now, by the way, we also need to understand that when he says they’re asleep, There are groups out there that teach when you die, you just go to sleep until the end.

That’s not what he’s talking about here. Because the Apostle Paul also says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We don’t just go and hang out unconscious until the final day and he raises us again.

Oh, great, now we’re alive again. Now again, this is a euphemism. The body is asleep, but the spirit is very much alive and with our Lord for a foretaste of heaven.

experiencing what’s heaven now until he brings together the new heaven and the new earth. So I just want to make that clear. When he says those who fall asleep, he’s talking about the body, but we’re still very much conscious.

If the spirit, if the soul is already with the Lord, how hard is it for him to raise the body? He made the body in the first place. It’s not even a problem for him, those bodies that have been lost in the sea or destroyed in the fire.

He made them in the first place. What trouble would God have with putting the atoms back together or making something completely new? Which incidentally is what I believe he does.

He raises the body and then he transforms the body into something incorruptible. So if he rose, he can raise us too. And those who have already died are going to be raised as well.

It’s not a problem for those who have already died. He says in verse 15, For we say this to you by a word from the Lord, we who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. Like I said earlier, some translations say, will not prevent those who’ve already fallen asleep.

And the picture I get here when I read this is the idea of we’re all elbowing and shoving, trying to get past one another. I’ve told Charlie, if I ever get to design our dream house, all of the hallways are going to be at least eight feet across. Because we have choke points in our house.

And she laughs when I say choke points. I don’t think she understands what I mean. but there are these things where people get bottlenecked.

And those are always the places that my wife and my children love to stand in the house, especially when I’m trying to get through. And I will end up standing there forever waiting for Charlie to waddle through in between the wall and the bookshelf so that I can try to get to where I need to go. And half the time they do that when I’m carrying something heavy, I’m convinced that either Madeline or Charlie are going to be the cause of my death someday.

All right? and you end up you know what these if you’ve ever been to a sports stadium you understand the idea of these bottlenecks these choke points if you’ve been to Black Friday at Walmart you understand trying to elbow past people I don’t do that anymore I have better sense now but I used to love it when I was younger trying to elbow past and get through only so many people can get through at a time and there’s the idea where if we’re still here walking around and Jesus raises us up. What about them?

They can’t get through because of us. He says you’re not going to prevent them. You’re not going to precede them.

Jesus is going to raise them. The dead in Christ will rise first and then the rest of us will be there to meet Him. So Jesus has got this all figured out.

They’re worried about the logistics of it. What’s that? There you go.

The dead in Christ. The Baptist. I have an aunt who asked me one time at a funeral, a funeral for a Catholic relative. She said, so what, do you think Southern Baptists are the only ones going to heaven? I said, no, but we’re probably going to be the first ones in line for the buffet at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

She laughed out loud, we almost got kicked out of that funeral. Don’t worry about the logistics. And that’s where we get hung up on the timing of this. Now, folks, I believe in a pre-tribulation rapture.

I believe the Bible teaches we will be gathered up with him before the tribulation. I believe in a pre-millennial second coming. I believe that Jesus will return in his second coming, that he will return before the kingdom is set up.

I know there are people who are post-millennial. They think it’s our job to usher in the kingdom of Jesus. here on earth from what we have now to turn this into the kingdom of Jesus, and then he returns in the second coming. I know a lot of smart people who think that.

I don’t think I’m quite cut out to build the millennial kingdom of Jesus. I think we need Jesus to do that, and I believe that the scriptures teach that he’ll return. I have some convictions based on the scripture about the order that he’s going to do some of these things, but I really don’t have to worry about it because he’s going to do it in the order that he sees fit.

There are things that I think the Bible teaches, but if I’m misunderstanding some of those, and he does it in an order that’s different from what I expect, that’s not for me to worry about. Because what he’s saying here, they’re worried about the order of who’s going to go, and are we going to keep them from coming? He says, don’t worry about it.

Don’t worry about it, because you’re not going to, we who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly not proceed, certainly not prevent those who have fallen asleep. Everybody’s going to get to where they need to be. Those who have already died in Christ will be raised as well.

So we run because of the certainty of our reward, and we run for the glory of Jesus. We finish well because we want to see him glorified. We look forward to that day when he’s glorified.

We want to see him glorified here and now. But if you’re like me, you look at the way Jesus is maligned in our world, and we’re saddened by that. There’s a part of us that looks very longingly toward the day that Paul described in Philippians, where every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

We want to see Jesus glorified. And there’s a day when that’s coming. There’s a day when even those who hate him will have no option but to glorify him.

I don’t mean because God puts them in a chokehold and says you’re going to glorify Him. I mean because when they see Him for who He really is, they won’t be able to help themselves but to glorify Him. Verse 16 says, For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice and with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. And the world will glorify Him because He is going to come and He’s going to call the world to attention.

See, part of the fear that this has already happened, and by the way, there are still people today who believe that the events that we know of as the end times, those already happened. Those prophecies came to pass, most or all of them back in the 70s AD. And if you believe they all happened back in the 70s AD, you’re called a full preterist, which sounds like something really bad, but it’s not.

If you believe some of the prophecies came to pass in the 70s AD, you’re a partial preterist. And we talked about those. It’s been a couple years ago, but we talked about all of these different views of the end times. There are people, though, who believe still that this has all happened.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that Jesus returned secretly sometime between 1914, 1918. LaWona, do you remember the exact date? Okay, this is why I write books, because I can’t remember the dates offhand.

I have to put my research in writing. Sometime around 1914, 1918, they believe Jesus kind of secretly returned. That’s a simplistic explanation of it.

But they believe he kind of secretly returned to the earth. The Bible says we will know him, we will see him as he is. The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout.

He will call attention to himself. There will be no question that that’s the King of kings and Lord of lords coming in the clouds of glory. There will be no question about who he is.

He will call the world to attention, and they will see him for who he is, and he’ll be glorified. The angels will declare his glory. It says he will come with the archangel’s voice.

You know, his first coming was announced by the angels who were there to glorify him. As they stood out there, not really standing, but they were in the sky. The heavenly hosts filled the skies over Bethlehem to the shepherds who were out watching their flocks in the hills by night.

And they said, don’t be afraid. We bring you glad tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. And they announced the birth of the Son of God.

They announced His coming. Folks, the angels are going to announce His coming. The angels are going to declare His glory.

I don’t believe there will be anybody who’s not declaring His glory when He’s seen for who He really is. God Himself will confirm the lordship of Jesus Christ because we see in verse 16 that he’ll come with a shout, with the archangel’s voice and with the trumpet of God. The heavens, God himself from his throne is going to confirm the lordship of Jesus Christ. Just like he did at the day of his baptism.

He may not say the exact same words, where he audibly said to the people who were there, this is my beloved son in whom I’m well pleased. Hear him. It may not take that exact form.

it may not take those exact words, but God himself from heaven will confirm signs and wonders and with the glory of Jesus Christ that this is his son, that he’s made Lord of all creation. And Jesus in that day is going to receive what is rightfully his. He’s going to be glorified the way he deserves.

He’s going to receive what is rightfully his. It says in verses 16 and 17, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Why are they rising? because they’re going to be with the Lord who bought them.

Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Now people will say that the word rapture is not in the Bible. It is.

Now you may flip through your concordance and you won’t see the English word rapture anywhere in the Bible. But if I’m remembering the pronunciation of the word correctly, the Latin word is rapazo, maybe a Greek word. I’ll have to look that up.

I heard somebody talking about it this week and thought I would remember it. But when he says in verse 17 here that we will be caught up, the word behind that word caught up, that phrase caught up, is where we get the term rapture, that he will gather us up to himself. The living and the dead will be gathered to him.

Why? Because he paid for us. He paid for us in his own blood.

He paid for us so that we could be a peculiar people set apart to God, so that there would be a people that belonged to him, who loved him, who desired to glorify him and be in his presence and in his fellowship forever. And he’ll come and receive us to himself so that he will receive what is rightfully his, his bride, his people, to love him and glorify him. Folks, we can run because the comfort that we take in knowing that he’s coming again.

We can finish well because we know this world is not all there is. And that’s why he closes this particular chapter by telling them, and so we will always be with the Lord. Not just for a while, not just for a few days, not just until he gets tired of us.

But we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. He tells the church at Thessalonica, Don’t be afraid.

Don’t be worried that this has already passed you by. Don’t be worried that he’s going to forget you. Don’t be worried that you’re going to be left here and that this suffering and struggle is all for naught and this is all there is.

He says, take heart, because he’s coming. This is not all there is. The goodbyes are not goodbyes.

And just like John wrote about in the book of Revelation, that Jesus will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more sorrow, no more pain. The former things have all passed away.

And Paul closes here by saying, therefore, encourage one another with these words. Don’t despair. Don’t lose heart.

Don’t lose hope. And certainly, don’t give up. Now they’re called on to enco