1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

So it's fitting this morning that we're talking about this idea of encouragement because a lot of people don't really know how to encourage someone. When you lose a spouse, when you have something hard happen, a lot of people don't really know what to say. We, a lot of times give bad answers or we give platitudes and we're like, it's gonna be okay. But how do you know that? You don't.

If that's not rooting anything, you don't really know that. Or they say, good job. Okay, but why is it a good job? And there's no specifics, and there's not really, like, there's nothing of substance. We're just saying things kind of just the same.

And we have to assume, right, that people are doing this with a good heart. We want to encourage, we want to be helpful, but there's not really a tied reason to it.

We just don't really oftentimes know how to be helpful. A lot of times we've never really been encouraged.

And when that's coupled with some wrong views about where somebody's hope comes from, that can lead to sputtering at best and spiraling at worst. This is what Paul had in mind when he's writing to the church at Thessalonica, this idea of. He wanted to deeply encourage them because every passage of Scripture has an original purpose. Why is this in our Bibles? Paul is trying to deeply encourage the church that he's writing to at this time and then us today.

He wanted to encourage believers then with these words, and they're encouraged to do, to encourage one another. So our big idea this morning is something to be applied. It's something to do. We are supposed to encourage one another with the hope of Christ's return, encourage one another with the hope of Christ's return. Two ways the text gives us to do that.

One is to encourage one another with the hope of Christ's return. How do we do that? By pointing to Christ's resurrection. Another way we do that is by pointing to the fact that we will be raised, pointing to Christ's resurrection, and pointing to how we will be raised. These are ways that we can and should and will encourage one another, knowing that Jesus is returning.

This is where we're heading this morning. Our passage is 1 Thessalonians 4, 13:18. It's on page 1047, the Pew Bibles. Would you turn there with me first? Thessalonians 4, 13, 18, 1047, the Pew Bibles.

God's Word Here says, we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, let's just circle that. That's just a Bible's euphemistic way of saying, those who have died, those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope. For 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. 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 fallen asleep.

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 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. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.

This is the word of the Lord. So your big idea? Encourage one another with the hope of Christ's return. One way we see the text give us to do that is encourage one another with this hope of Christ's return by pointing to Christ's resurrection. That sub point, that application point is kind of a mouthful.

Maybe it's helpful to phrase it like this. We can say Christ will return because Christ has been raised. How can we encourage somebody knowing that Christ is going to return? Well, just got to point to the fact that he was raised. He.

He was raised in the first place. There's no greater hope that can be found anywhere than knowing that our Savior is no longer in the grave. Because if Jesus stayed dead, if you could go find a grave or the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, he's just another guy. He's just another dead guy. You don't have to take anything.

He says that seriously. Maybe there's some good life principles in there, but you don't have to worship him. He's not worthy of honor, he's not worthy of praise because he's just another dead guy. But he did not stay in the grave and he promised to return. And Paul is writing here to bring deep encouragement to people because we notice in verse 13, we notice here that he says, we don't want you to be uninformed.

And again, remembering that we have to have the purpose. Why is he writing this? Well, it's clear that they're distraught. It's clear that they're bothered by something. It's clear that they're in a position that we as believers shouldn't make a habit of being in.

They're mourning and they're grieving and they're hoping, like those who don't know Christ. If at any point in our Christian life we are completely indistinguishable from the unbelieving world, that's a problem of not only is it a problem for us, but it's also a problem because we have hope. We have no reason to grieve. I mean, yes, things are sad, maybe so not another phrase, no reason. But things are sad.

Things are hard. But we do not grieve. We do not mourn like those who don't have hope. Friends, we know that Frank Guzzo is in the presence of his Lord. That is a much different funeral to go to than somebody who you're not sure or, you know, they're not a believer.

We have a reason to hope and hope in a certain Jesus. It seems that the church then was struggling with grief that mirrored those who don't have hope. And that's an awful position like we said to be in because our hope is tied to the resurrection of Jesus when he rose from the grave. And friends, that's just about as close to a verifiable historical fact as we can get. He defeated sin forever, and so those who trust in him will not be put to shame.

We've talked about this before. There's a difference in these kinds of hopes. The way that we hope in hope and promises of God is different than how we can hope in anything else. It's different than hoping that mom will agree to stop for pizza on the way home after church today. And it's different than hoping that Lodi football we're hoping that Lodi football wins date this year.

Totally different hopes. Those aren't bad things to hope happens, but at the same time, those are circumstantial. They're ifs, they're maybes. We'll see. And we all know that's mom for it's not going to happen.

But our hope in Jesus is a when we look forward to when he will return, we look forward to his coming. We look forward to him making good on his promises. Because every promise of God either has happened or will happen. He is good on his word.

It's a guarantee. Think back to what we were talking about earlier. Why do we struggle to bring people good encouragement? Because a lot of times we don't know how to do it. We don't know how to actually encourage people.

We don't know how to bring real hope. This is it. This is real hope. I don't know how much more bluntly to say it. This is what we're looking for.

When hard happens, when wrong things come about, this is genuine hope. There's no better hope than this, and it's going to happen.

Maybe it's helpful to think about it this way. We could rephrase it to say, we don't want you to think that those who have died be raised from the dead, because if they died in Christ, if they died as followers of Jesus, they will be raised from the dead too, one day. This is a sure, certain thing. This should change how we offer people hope. This is a guarantee.

We don't offer the circumstantial maybe, or empty platitudes not tied to anything. This is secure, rock solid, because God himself is rock solid. So next time a brother and sister in the faith is having a hard day, we have the absolute privilege of encouraging them. Hey, this isn't how things will be forever.

We can remind them that one day we will be brought into the full presence of God because Christ has been raised and he secured our raising too. Why can we look forward to Christ's return? Because he's been raised. We will see him.

We can remind him. We can remind our friends that for those whose sin's been washed away by the blood of the Lamb, we have real hope. We can be genuinely encouraged. And so what does this look like? Like boots on the ground.

What kind of conversation? What's one of the worst conversations you could have with somebody? Well, they could say, I have a terminal disease or my spouse just died, or I could have insert your nightmare scenario. And then afterwards, right, friends, there's a lot of showing up is so important. A lot of ministering to people is just sitting there and being with them, just making it known that I care about you and I just want to sit in this with you.

So after we wait our time, after we ask questions, after we listen, one beautiful thing we can do is point people to the fact that for the believer, death can only make us better. Death can only make the believer better. If that's not hope, if that's not encouragement, I don't really know what is.

Or maybe if somebody's just chronically misunderstood, we can point them to the fact that because Christ has been raised and because he's coming back, things that are wrong, things that are sad will come untrue. And also, that's not how things will be forever.

We have hope in a resurrection where everything wrong will be made right. This can be and is secure because of Christ's resurrection. God so deeply wants us to be encouraged that he did something about it. No other religion offers that where God actually did something about it. Every other religion says, try harder, do better.

But God interjected himself in the story. He sent his Son to live, die and rise again. So that we can have hope. We can be sure, we can be encouraged. Brothers and sisters, encourage one another with the hope of Christ's return by pointing to Christ's resurrection.

Another way to do this is by pointing to our being raised. We shift our attention to verses 15 through 18. This is where we're going to spend the majority of the rest of our time because we can encourage one another by not only pointing to Christ's resurrection, but by pointing to the fact that his resurrection guarantees ours. Because Christ has been raised, we will be raised one day. And this is a wonderful truth.

We can kind of read it as 13 and 14. Secure the promises of 15 through 18, because 13 and 14 are true. Here, 15 through 18 are going to happen. We've seen the total certainty that Christ has been raised from the dead. And this is absolutely wonderful.

And it's absolutely essential to the Christian faith. Without it, like we said, we don't have a leg to stand on. Paul says if Christ is not raised, we are not only still in our sin, but we are also to be pitied more than anybody.

But why? Why can we be encouraged or how can we be encouraged about Christ's return by looking at our own being raised? Well, I think the first thing we need to consider this is a promise of God. Look with me at verse 15. Shall we say this to you by what?

By a word from the Lord.

He's given the credentials here. And even if someone's not skeptical about a truth claim, it's good to just assert why something's true. This is a word from the Lord. This is from God. And we look at God's promises are all yes and amen and in Jesus.

But one wonderful thing about what's true about God's word is it's going to happen. Think about this in terms of, like, guarantees or seals. If I were to put it. If I were to make a seal and said, this is Hunter Newton approved, it's going to happen. I mean, to those of you who know me, that might mean something.

But if the Lodi police chief, I used to know his name, but I. They just switch. So that's also. That seal is going to mean something different. Versus President, United States, so on and so forth.

It's tied to who's giving the word. I used to buy a lot of Eddie Bauer clothing, and Eddie Bauer is now bankrupt. And so their lifetime warranty doesn't mean much anymore.

But everything that God promises will happen is going to happen. Every promise he makes either has come true or will come true. God is saying, hey, don't miss us. This is the second time in just three verses that he's making a certainty, a guarantee claim. He says, hey, look, look, listen, listen.

When you're tempted to be doubtful, when you're tempted to be anxious, when you're tempted to think there's no way this is still true, he says, I'm promising it, I'm guaranteeing it. You're going to be okay. I'll make sure it happens.

This biblical hope is certain, friends. He's backing it up again. He's giving us such a gift because Christ's resurrection is real, certain hope. And so too is ours, because it's a promise of God given through his apostle. We also see here, too, that all those who are in Christ are going to be included.

It doesn't stop in verse 15. It says, everybody, everyone. Not just those who give enough, not just those who work hard enough, not just those who come from the right family or do this or that. No, those who are in Christ, those who profess faith in Jesus will be raised everyone.

And there's a weird line in here that might just feel strange to us. He says, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. Right? So that's where it comes back to. Every point, every passage of Scripture is written with an original purpose.

And so it's likely here that they were kind of wondering and doubting, like they were wondering, having the question of, does this apply to everybody? What about those who have died? And maybe every point of theology is practical. Well, they think you have a spouse, grandparent, brother, sister. Quite literally, brothers and sisters in the faith are thinking, well, does this mean they're going to miss out on the resurrection?

And Paul says, no, maybe they'll rise first, but we're not going to have. It's not going to be a hierarchy of sorts. He's saying, everybody's going to be raised. If you're in Christ, you're included. It's not an if, but it's a when.

No if, ands or buts, it's a when, when. This is going to.

First Corinthians, 15:51. Paul puts it this way. He says, listen, I am Telling you a mystery, we will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed. Which communicates something really beautiful about our being raised with him. One day all who are in Christ will be raised in Christ.

There's no hierarchy, there's no this or that, no it's everyone. This applies just as much to a street beggar as much as it applies to a 9 year old child or an Elkhar first shift employee or the CEO of a place such as Epic Health Systems or even slacks, jams and jellies. If any one of them or anyone else are found in Christ, they will be raised. No other religion offers that, friends. No other religion can offer that.

Every other religion. It's kind of dangling of yeah, I hope you're good enough. I hope that you. I hope that you worked hard enough. I hope you haven't brought too much shame to your family.

But friends, we have a Savior. We have a God who hanging on the cross, dying a death that he didn't deserve. Didn't say I got you 98% of the way there. I came to take care of most of your shame. No, no.

He says it is finished.

It's finished. Does that mean that we can just loaf off and sin all about? No, of course. Should we continue to sin so that grace may abound? By no means.

Absolutely not. Paul says in Romans 6, but he says it's finished, it's done. You get in on this, you cannot out sin the cross of Jesus Christ. You cannot. And once you're adopted into the family of God, children don't get kicked out of the incidental being naughty from time to time.

We are secure, we will be raised because of Christ's resurrection.

He says you could never do or be enough. And that's the wonder of the gospel, friends. We can't add to it. And for those of us who trust in Christ, this means everybody, absolutely everyone.

This is something real to bring encouragement to others with, to bring encouragement to ourselves knowing that if we're in Christ, we will be raised. In other words, if we repent and trust in Jesus, this is us. This is us. And it's important to remember that it's not just to walk down the aisle one time, profess faith. Yes, that's important.

That's part of it. You don't have to walk the aisle, but you do have to repent and follow Jesus. But that word repentance is always used ongoing. Turning to and trusting in Jesus. Turning to and trusting in Jesus.

Because those who are in Christ, they will be raised. And when Our friend has started to doubt their salvation. We can be quick to point them and say, no, no, no, it was never about you. It was never about how good you were. It was never in your works.

Because your hope and your faith is not in your works. It's in Christ. He's the object of our faith. And for those of us maybe I'm speaking to the firstborns in particular in the room, we sometimes struggle with thinking that God's patience with us is wearing thin. He's gonna let us into heaven, but only because he has to.

That's just not true because Colossians 3 says that we are hidden in Christ. And so now when God the Father looks at us, yes, of course he still knows who we are, but he sees the perfect work of Jesus. And we know that we will be raised because we are in Christ.

How can we be encouraged about Christ's return by pointing to our being raised with him. We should revel in the fact and point each other to the fact that all who are in Christ will be raised. We keep reading here we see that we'll meet the Lord to be with him forever. How is that for good news?

Verses 16 through 18 have been the topic of much debate throughout the course of church history. And we're going to address that. We're going to address maybe what's some of the debated topics here. But I'm just going. Let me offer four things before we get there.

That's kind of caveat because ultimately these are not the main point. Eschatological like detail is not the main point. Let me just offer four things. We're going to get to the controversial part and after that we'll get to the practical outworkings of it. So let me just say four things before we address the controversy.

1. The main purpose of these verses, what Paul is trying to accomplish here is. Is not to. His main purpose in these verses is not to give details on how the end times are going to go. That's just not the main purpose why he's writing here.

We can see that from the text. If he wanted to give us, it's going to happen like this. Isn't this. He would have. But his main point, as he states in his own words, is to encourage.

So that's the main point here. 2. Details of end times theology are very rarely clear. There's a very good selling book in 1988 called 88 Reasons why the Rapture Will Happen in 1988, and we're still waiting. The details and the timeline are not clear.

There are aspects, like we're going to point out, that are wonderfully clear. They're absolutely essential to our faith. Three, I'm likely not going to give this as much attention to detail as you would like, because again, it's not the main point. And four, I might even say something that you disagree with or that you've always grown up believing. And that's okay because there's a certain level of disagreement that's well within the bounds of orthodox Christianity, well within the bounds of our statement of faith here.

So let's just jump in. Let's address some things that all Christians agree on, and then we'll get to the disagreements. First, all Christians believe that we will be raised with Christ. Every Orthodox. And Orthodox doesn't mean Eastern Orthodox.

It means right belief. Christians will be raised with Christ. We also know that Jesus himself will return. It's not going to be a vision. It's not going to be a hologram or some sort of spirit.

It will be Jesus himself. We see this also in second part of Acts 1:11 says this same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven. All believers too know that once we're raised, we'll be with God forever. There's more to the essentials, but these are just, you know, the essential essentials, the things that we see most clearly from the text here. And so where the largest difference comes in how Christians understand.

Some Christians would say that this passage is speaking to what is, what would be known like as an event called the Rapture. That's not a biblical word. It's a word that's just kind of capturing what's going on. And it will be that all believers will be raised and taken with Christ and be removed from the Great Tribulation. And people will kind of wonder what's going on.

And then some believers would say, no, no, this is talking more about. It's referring to a common practice at the time, like when a victorious general was coming to a city, everyone from the city would go out to meet the general and continue the victory conquest with him. And those who hold to that position also wouldn't use the term Rapture either. And also think that some elements of the tribulation have already begun, like the destruction of the temple. Dr. Gene L. Green, writing for the Pillar New Testament Commentary, I think he's helpful here.

He says the custom that forms the background of the previous verse, that going out to meet a visiting dignitary implies that the delegation that goes out will return with the one who comes. Since no other explanation is offered of the events after the meeting, we may assume that the Thessalonians would have understood the Lord would continue his perousium. That just means second coming until he arrived at the final destination of the earth or city. But if you're. If you checked out for that, check back in for this.

But the concern of the teachers was not to explain all the details of Christian eschatology. That just means end times theology, but rather to console members of the Church in their moment of agony as the final verse once again clarifies. So again, these are kind of two of the end times positions. Those are the bare bones. There's more nuance to it.

I would line up more with the latter. I don't think the text is insisting on. I just don't frankly think the text is insisting on the thing known as a rapture. I think it's relatively new in terms of church history. And also too, I don't think the text insists that we're going to be avoiding this tribulation.

I think there's a lot of warnings to it. Again, we can agree on that. We can. We can agree, we can disagree. I don't really care to argue with people about this.

If you want to discuss it, that's fine. But let's try to keep the main thing here. The main thing, and I think that Paul here is writing to encourage, not to give specific details. And let's read those details again. Let's focus on what this passage was meant to do.

Let's just read 16 and 17 again.

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. 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. And so we will always be with the Lord.

Friends, there is so much good news here for the believers. There, this is the first thing. You'll see the Lord. It will be himself. It will be personal.

We will see the Lord, and there will be no doubt that it's him. We will see God.

There should be no words for that. We will see God. We'll get to see him. And we'll have no doubt that it's Him.

And it keeps getting better. It says, and we'll be caught up and we'll be in his presence. That's it. That's the end game. That's what we've been longing for our whole life to know God and be known by him and to be in his presence.

The first question and answer of the Westminster Confession of Faith or Westminster Catechism. What's the chief end of man? To know God and enjoy him forever. That's it. That's what we've been looking for.

So every other good thing is a shadow of a glimpse of.

I don't. I can't imagine what that's going to be like. Somebody should write a song like that.

There's just no words. It's absolutely astounding. If you've ever had somebody be near to you, if you've had a close friend, family, spouse, whatever it is, you know how great it is to be with them. And now amplify that times a million. And that number is far too small to how great it's going to be to be in the presence of the Lord.

Someday, friends, we will be in the presence of God. And this will make everything we endured on earth feel like a light, momentary affliction. That's not to minimize suffering, that's not to minimize pain. But in the grand scheme of eternity, it's just a blip.

All of the stressed out nights where we just don't know how we're going to face tomorrow, they will be of no concern. Why? Why? Because we can take courage knowing that Christ's resurrection, when he returns, guarantees ours. We'll be in the presence of the Lord.

As followers of Jesus, we're commanded to encourage one another with this hope of Christ's return, this real hope that brings genuine encouragement. One way we've seen that is the fact that Christ's resurrection, right, Christ's resurrection, it brings real hope. And because he was raised, we know that he's coming back. Because Christ is no longer in the grave, we can have hope. And this is the same hope, not the same as how we hope for anything else to happen, but it's a when, not an if.

And we should point back to this truth. When we've had the worst day, an emotional roller coaster, even a lifetime of losses because Christ has indeed been raised, we can encourage one another with this truth. Say no, no, no. Christ will come back because he's been raised. There's real hope there because his resurrection guarantees ours.

What a glorious joy that will be to be raised with him, to know him, to meet him in the air. This is the day we're longing for. And so what? So what? Why does this matter?

Why is this good news? Why should we care? Why should we do like what Paul says, encourage one another with these words. How can we do that? Friends, I'm going to say something that should be hopefully somewhat obvious by this point.

This is the only thing that's actually encouraging. Yes, it's great to say nice words. It's great to offer helpful critiques. It's nice to say helpful things to people. But this is what we're looking for.

This is the encouragement of all encouragements. And I can tell you nobody's ever been suffering from over encouragement. This is what we want.

When we sit and stir and have a gnawing angst that is just completely unsolvable, we just feel discontent and we don't know why. When no amount of food, money or job success or even the perfect family can fix it.

There's only one source of actual encouragement, one place of real hope, one person who can satisfy the longings that we don't know how to satisfy anywhere else. And his name is Jesus.

For those of us who are found in Him. The good news is we can look forward to this, right? It's not an if. It's a when. That's the day that we're looking forward to.

For those of us who are married and have a wonderful spouse. As great as our wedding day was small, small, small, small picture of what that day will be like, of what it will be like to be united to Christ. A day where we'll be incapable and feeling anything but incredibly encouraged, and that it's only going to grow to greater and greater degrees and we'll experience days that are unequivocally glorious, that will only become more and more so.

Brothers and sisters, this is good news. This is what we can look forward to. This is how we can actually encourage each other.

Jesus is coming back. We do not hope as the world hopes. We do not grieve as the world grieves. We hope, we grieve, looking forward to when Christ returns. And that is wonderfully good news.

And if you don't know Christ, this can be yours too. This can be yours. It's open to anybody. Anybody can get in on this. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, this can be for you too.

I'm going to pray here before we get ready to respond to God in song. But just consider, how should this affect how we then live? It's a good thing to be in the habit of. If we hear God's word proclaimed, ask the Spirit, how then should we respond? How can we encourage one another.

How can we bring actual encouragement to our spaces? Whether it's friends, neighbors, but especially in the church, we should be in the habit of being the most encouraging people because we offer the only real encouragement. If you'd like to pray with someone for encouragement this morning or just to know more about this Jesus, you can either find myself or prayer team member in the back after church. We would love to help you. We'd love to point you to this real source of encouragement.

I'm going to pray and give you the chance to do just that. God, you are good, gracious, wonderful and kind.

Oh, and God, we look forward to that day when our faith will be made sight when we will be nothing but encouraged. And so let us encourage each other with this wonderful hope with this wonderful news as we look forward to that day that should help us make everything look different. God, we can hardly just wait. We ask come Lord Jesus, we want this to happen right now. But God, help us to wait in the meantime and encourage one another with this hope as we look forward to that day.

It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please stand in.