The Final Word: Sermon Based on 1 Thessalonians Chapter 4

There was a popular television program in the 1990s called Early Edition. The premise of this show was that there was this man who received a mysteriously received a newspaper each morning by his front door. And I know that doesn’t sound very strange, but what was unusual about this newspaper was the fact that it was tomorrow’s newspaper!

And that’s a pretty novel idea. I’m sure it’s one that all of us have entertained at one time or another?

Wouldn’t it be nice id we could see the future?

Because the man in the show always knew the future, he felt compelled to try to save people from a tragedy or problem that he had read about in tomorrow’s paper. So if he knew a building was going to burn, he tried to keep people from entering it. Or if someone was going to be hurt by an act of violence or an accident he tried to prevent the encounter from taking place. He wasn’t always completely successful, but he felt compelled to try, and if he was successful, he;d look back down to the paper as see that the headline changes.

Sounds pretty cool….If only we could know about the future, maybe we’d make some changes too.

Well, if you own a Bible, or have access to one, you have an “early edition” of future events.

The Bible indded documents the times that God spoke to his prophets about things to come.

And not just once, but dozens of times, to dozens of His faithful people. So even though Early Edition was simply a pleasant peace of television fantasy, God does let us have warnings and hope about things to come.

As a matter of fact, every single time God is going to bring about some major change, or bring about a judgment, or a salvation, in the bible, He tells us in advance. And usually, way in advance.

Noah knew about the flood, Abraham was told what to do and what would happen by God, and Moses knew the same about the Exodus. Joshua and Joseph both were able to see and know many things. And so was Jonah but he tried to run the other way. Many of the old Testament prophets were able to see the major problems ahead for Israel. And David and Isaiah and others were able to foretell the coming of the Messiah with vivid detail. And Ezekiel, Zechariah, Daniel, John, Paul, Peter and, of course, Jesus himself, and many others saw visions of the end of times.

So the bible is an “early edition” that reveals things to come, and you and I can hold and read and know the truth in these revelations.

Now, these prophets speak of things that are hard sometimes to understand and fully comprehend, and honestly I think this leads many people avoid their prophecies, like they always did throughout history, because the words do seem to point to some very grim realities at times. Some of the prophesies are pretty dark and frightening.

But these prophetic words also point to the most important thing the bible and indeed God himself offers to us.

The prophetic words of the bible are indeed God’s final Word to us, and that final word is Hope.

Again, if you remember the man from the show Early Edition, if he knew a building was going to burn, he tried to keep people from entering it. Or if someone was going to be hurt or die, he try to keep it from taking place. He felt he was given this “heads up” about the future, because he was supposed to save people. And he tried.

Today we read about the same kind of thing. Paul is literally giving a “heads up” to the Thessalonians and to us.

But be warned, if you are perishing, and without Christ, there is nothing promised here in these words for you.

But if you have embraced the life offered by Jesus Christ, this is your future.

1 Thessalonians Chapter 4 [from the NLT – New Living Translation]

1 Finally, dear brothers and sisters,* we urge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to live in a way that pleases God, as we have taught you. You live this way already, and we encourage you to do so even more. 2 For you remember what we taught you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

3 God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. 4 Then each of you will control his own body* and live in holiness and honor-5 not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways. 6 Never harm or cheat a Christian brother in this matter by violating his wife,* for the Lord avenges all such sins, as we have solemnly warned you before. 7 God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives. 8 Therefore, anyone who refuses to live by these rules is not disobeying human teaching but is rejecting God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

9 But we don’t need to write to you about the importance of loving each other,* for God himself has taught you to love one another. 10 Indeed, you already show your love for all the believers* throughout Macedonia. Even so, dear brothers and sisters, we urge you to love them even more.

11 Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. 12 Then people who are not Christians will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others.

13 And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died* so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.

I’m going to end there for the moment by asking…..

Has anyone here ever thought about or contemplated death? Have you ever thought about your own death?

I certainly have.

But for most people, death, even in the best of circumstances, is not easy to discuss.

Even as an academic topic, most of us would rather not talk about death and dying. We feel uncomfortable with it and so we seek to avoid it whenever possible. You may prefer that I don’t talk about it this morning. But I’m going to.

As much as all of us would like to, we can’t avoid the reality that one day our physical bodies will betray us, and will give way, and some day, maybe soon, we will die.

The thought can be rather disturbing, and worrysome.

It can even leave a lot of people afraid and without hope.

A fellow pastor shared a letter from a woman who had served on a crisis intervention team in another state. She told about her very first experience going to a fire started by a four year old playing with matches. His mother and father and little brother made it out safely, but he did not.

She wrote:

I had never been to a large fire before, it was very loud and very hot. The emergency personnel were just arriving and the scene was utter chaos, as most accident scenes are. I made my way to the mother of the family who was sitting, screaming, in the middle of the parking lot. I was holding her while the police and firemen and nearby workers and neighbors desperately tried to find a way into the inferno. I was holding on to her when she realized that the activity had stopped, the fire hoses were pouring into the building, but no one was attempting any longer to enter it. (It had been determined) There was no hope.

Sadly, for a lot of people, that is the answer. When death comes to get us, it comes to us. And it’s all over. To them, regardless of our screaming and gnashing of teeth, there is no hope.

And to them, since death is the end, the only thing to do is try to avoid it at all costs.

There have been many billionaires made in our country alone in what has been refered to as the “death avoidance” business.

One commentator said “America is the only country in the world where people think death is optional.”

Now, I don’t know if it’s only America, but it is true. We are obsessed with diet and exercise, and pills and procedures, and programs and fountains of youth in an futile attempt to deny the unavoidable.

But since for many there is no hope after death, , we do everything we can in life to stretch it out, and prolong it, no matter cost.

But, you know what, the day still comes.

Some will die peacefully, others in fiery explosions, still others in hospital beds, and some will die totally unexpectedly, cut down by a stroke, or an aneurism or heart attack.

And even for those of us in Christ, that part is still frightening, isn’t it?

Our singular last moment on earth will come and we don’t know when or how?

And the bible tells us there’s nothing wrong with being upset and frightened in our pain and suffering. Our passage from this life to the next can be unpleasant and difficult.

We don’t want to die. And we fight for life, we cling to it. We’re supposed to cling to it.

But then one day, it’s over. Like it or not. Hebrews in Chapter 9 reminds us that “it is appointed unto man once to die”.

It is appointed that we die, to this body, by God himself.

It’s been said like this, ” You may miss many appointments in your life but this is one appointment you will not miss .”

It’s gonna happen. One day it’s all over.

But man has always wondered… is physical death the final Word? Or is there any hope beyond that?

And the answer is most emphatically “Yes!”.

In what has been called the most comforting passage in all the Bible, Paul writes “Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep (or those who have died in the body) , or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope”

Bottom line, final word, the bible tells us that those who have trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior, when their physical bodies die, go immediately into the presence of the Lord.

As it says in 2 Corinthians 5: when they are “away from the body” and “at home with the Lord”.

For believers, there is no other place we go. We immediately leave our physical bodies and are united with Christ is heaven.

And Paul was really looking forward to that. He expressed his great desire to depart from his earthly body and to be in heaven. Cause in his mind, dying would be “gain” because it would usher him into the personal presence of Jesus Christ.

Jesus promised that, of course, to the thief on the cross: “Today you will be with me in paradise”. Not maybe, not someday, today.

And for believers, that is the abundant hope.

You’ll notice, to the thief dying of the cross next to him, Jesus didn’t give him a long list of things he needed to do first.

Just believe. Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. By your faith, “Today you will be with me in paradise”

But some will say, doesn’t the bible say believe and be baptized and you shall be saved? It does. But to understand the truth of Christ’s baptism, it important to examine this thief.

Some would say clearly, he didn’t get baptized, right? He was on a cross, and there was no water, no ceremony. But yet Jesus still tells him “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

And since it was a promise by Jesus, we know it was true. The moment he died, that day, he was with Jesus in paradise.

Now, I’m not going to spend very much time on it today, because it’s really the topic of whole other sermon.

But when the thief confessed his sin and accepted Christ as his Savior on the cross, he was baptized, and we know this to be true, because true baptism is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and it’s something that God does. Not something we do. Not something the thief needed to do. It was something Jesus did for Him when he trusted Him.

We know this to be true because it a promise of God and God always keeps his Word.

This is certainly good news for those who trust Christ. When they do they are immediately baptized in his Holy Spirit and have eternal hope, and it can never be taken away from them.

That’s Good News. But there’s also Bad News. The world is also filled with the perishing. Those who have nothing to look forward to. The lost.

And Paul contrasts these two kinds of people: those who grieve without hope and those who grieve with hope.

And I hope that was something that you noticed. Both groups grieve.

There is nothing wrong with grief. Nothing wrong being sad about someone dying, and missing them. It is a natural, normal and perfectly appropriate response to loss.

It’s something I’ve talked about a little bit lately with people; some of the realities of grief.

I think a lot of people think we grieve the past, but we don’t really do that.

We still have the past, like we always did. Even when the person was alive, we had the memories of the past, and we couldn’t relive them. Those things have happened, and those things are over. At best we could fondly, or maybe not so fondly, look back.

Rather, in truth, we grieve the present and the future. It is very sad and very disturbing, rightfully, that as we still continue along in our physical bodies, that we don’t have our loved one with us…….today…and we won’t have them with us tomorrow or in the future.

This is very upsetting, and it was designed by God to be that way. It’s why we cling together so closely and care for each other when we’re alive. We know that losing each other would be so painful.

So we should accept that even as believers we will grieve. But we also know that our grief is for only ourselves. Because we have abundant hope and confidence that our loved one who has died, has gone immediately into the presence of Christ. They are doing fine. All is well with them. If they were sick or suffering, they are not doing so anymore. They are alive with Christ at peace. Right now.

Jesus did not say, “Someday you might be with me in paradise.” He said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” So we know that is where they are. Those who die in Christ, go to be with Him immediately.

Then our text ends then with a wondrous picture of abundant hope to Christ-followers that are still living. It says nothing to those who are perishing, but for those who are living in Him, we read now what many have come to call the “rapture”.

When Christ returns this is the great and abundant hope of those who have trusted Him:

15 We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died* will rise from their graves. 17 Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever.

I’m not going to take much time to unpack those last verses. They really speak for themselves in many ways, but we will unpack them closer on another day.

But I do hope that you will leave today with this eternally important truth.

You will die. But those who do not have Jesus, grieve, even in this life , as those without hope.

And that God’s final Word.

Yet those who trust Christ, and accept him as their personal Savior, will meet Him, face to face. It’s a promise of God.

Amen

©2011 Timothy Henry


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