Sunday 1st December 2024. Last Sunday of Trinity.
Pastor Lawrence McCatty explains 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11.
Be encouraged, God has prepared you to meet Him
Be encouraged, God has prepared you to meet Him
Be encouraged, God has prepared you to meet Him
I’d been working in the US for a couple of months and returned to my office after a morning of meetings in Washington DC to find a scribbled note on my desk, it read:
“Jesus was in the building this morning but you weren’t at your desk”
Wow! So this is how it ends. No nuclear war or armageddon, no bright lights or clap of thunder. You certainly came like a thief in the night (or morning in this case) and I just wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t good enough. No second chance, no warning.
While I was contemplating my lost and sorry state, a colleague from the next office wandered by to say “Jesus Hernandez from Atlanta was in the area and came by to see you but you weren’t in, so he said he’d call you tomorrow”
Hay-zeus. Jesus. I hadn’t realised that Hay-zeus was how ‘Jesus’ was pronounced in Spanish. To say I was relieved is an understatement.
Our sermon text today is taken from Paul’s letter to the church at Thessalonica and was written to encourage new believers who were being persecuted and to reassure them about Jesus’ second coming.
And we draw encouragement and reassurance from this letter today.
Are you ready for Christ’s return?
It answers the question we all have:
Am I ready for Christ’s return? Are you ready for Christ’s return?
Let’s first look at vv2-3:
For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
How can we be encouraged by this?
Like a thief in the night.
Peter also uses this idiom in 2 Peter 3:10
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief
And Jesus tells us in Matt 24:43-44
But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
And again in Rev 3:3
If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.
What a terrifying picture.
While we take a well deserved rest from a hard day’s work, when we’re least expecting it, Christ will come again to judge the world.
Look at v6 in this context:
So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.
Will I be awake? Will I be ready? Will you be ready?
That great day of Christ’s coming that we’ve been told about all our Christian lives has finally come, but when we least expect it.
Are we prepared?
Have we remembered to do all the things we do to receive an important guest
Is our hair OK? Have I put on my make-up? Will this shirt work with these trousers? Is the house presentable? Do I have coffee? Biscuits? Food?
We are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
So why does it seem like we just won’t be prepared?
And to make the situation worse this isn’t just any ordinary guest, it’s
- the Lamb of God
- the saviour of the world
- God’s only begotten Son
the one who Revelation tells us “has the keys of Death and Hades” and that
“every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea” will say
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever!”
Did I lock the back-door, did I turn the alarm on, did I shut the kitchen window?
Will I get away with that small sin last week, yesterday, this morning?
Is it sinful to even think that?
On these terms then, we ask ourselves the question:
Am I ready for Christ’s return? The honest response will always be a resounding NO.
Be encouraged, God has prepared you to meet Him
BUT, dear children of God – Don’t be afraid,
Be encouraged, God has prepared you to meet Him
We don’t need to know the time that Christ will come, as Paul tells the Thessalonians in the opening verse v1:
Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you
Why not? Surely if Christ let us know his ETA we would make sure we’re ready. Wouldn’t that be the nice and proper thing to do?
NO … because, we’re not like the other, unsaved people, we are God’s people v. 3:
While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
We don’t live in ignorance and hopelessness, we have the Gospel, the assurance in vv4-5that we:
… are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.
We are God’s children of the light and He chose YOU as His child.
The place of wailing and gnashing teeth is not or us. The place where people are separated from God forever. God’s wrath does not fall on us, for we are saved through Jesus Christ.
We see this reassurance in vv. 9-10:
For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.
God has prepared you to meet Him
We can sleep soundly in the knowledge that God has kept His promises and paid the price for our sin through His Son, our heavenly brother.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians 4:2-6, he says:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus
So even while we were in ignorance, in darkness, spiritually asleep, Christ suffered and died for us.
He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven to show where we will one day be seated with him. And on that day God will see us adorned in Christ’s shining robes that he has prepared for us.
Be encouraged, God has prepared you
And if you need further reassurance. God has done even more,
He has given us faith, look at v8:
But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
We have the hope, the knowledge, that we have been saved. That we are His children and, it is the unbelievers who are in darkness.
Be awake and sober
So does that mean we can sit back, secure in the knowledge that God has done it all and there’s nothing left for us to do?
Look more closely at v. 6-8
So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
Keep awake
We know this doesn’t mean physically, but that we need to remain alert to false teaching and heresy. Beware and be aware of false teachers.
Peter 2:2:
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them
Be sober
Again this doesn’t mean physically, the picture Paul is drawing here is one of stark contrasts.
Those that are of the night and the darkness, that are spiritually asleep is the very opposite of sober alertness: they are asleep in the darkness of their sins, they are like people under the influence of strong drink, drowsy, stupefied, unable to understand the dangers around them in the darkness of night.
In 1 Peter 5:8 we see …
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
So how do we remain awake and sober?
By putting on
the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation
Faith grows when we read God’s Word, so daily strengthen the faith God has given you through His Word.
Be encouraged, God has prepared you to meet Him
Be encouraged, God has prepared you for salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And do as v11 tells us
Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
Love and encourage each other
as loving brothers and sisters in Christ
Daily share His Word to grow each other’s faith.
Go to Bible Studies, talk to others about Him and share His Word, share the Gospel so that God can prepare you
… for that glorious wedding day when Christ returns.
For as God promises us in the book of Revelation that we will stand before our Lord crying out:
“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”Be encouraged, God has prepared you to meet Him