1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. 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 labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you 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. 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. 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. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week, I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, song, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Epistle reading for Sunday, November 19, is from First Thessalonians chapter five. Now concerning the times and seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. 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 suddenly destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you 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. So 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. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation to our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with Him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. Here is the reading. So last week, we took a look at First Thessalonians chapter four where St. Paul reminds them not to grieve as others do, who have no hope. But that Jesus will return, raise the dead in Christ first, and then catch all of us up in our perfect bodies to be with Christ forever. Now, he goes on to talk about this again, about the coming of Christ. And he says that there is no need to write to them about the times or seasons of it. He says the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Now many people look at the Bible and they say there are all sorts of seasons and signs and all sorts of things that can tell us when Jesus is coming, like Jesus Himself gives us predictions the sun will darkness and wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and floods and all sorts of things like that, and the gospel preached to all nations. Now, we who read that part of the Bible know that all of those signs have been fulfilled since the beginning of the since the early years of the church, when the apostles went out, they preach to all nations, there have been wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and floods and all those things ever since the day Jesus ascended. And so we know he could come any moment. Perhaps before I finished recording this podcast would not be great, I certainly would love it, he would come at any moment, like a thief in the night says while people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape. The idea is that there's something that's going to happen and nobody knows when. And when you don't know when something is going to happen, you know, you need to be prepared at all times. Here in California, the government tells us that we need to have an earthquake kit, because you never know when the big ones going to come. And the earthquake kit is supposed to have all sorts of things in it too. So you can survive for a few days or a week or so without any need for outside assistance. That's not something that you can get after the earthquake happens. It needs to be ready before and it might not seem like you need it. In fact, it can seem like a waste of time until the day the quake happens. And then all of a sudden you really, really need it. So it is when Jesus comes we it may seem silly to wait for something that may is so far in the future or may not you know who knows. But when He returns, you will either have faith or not. And there'll be no no more time to go back and get it when he's there in the sky. So he says, But you are not in darkness brothers for that day to surprise you like a thief. He uses the image of people who belong to the light and people who long belong to the darkness. The darkness are the ones who are sleeping and not ready for Jesus's return, who are drinking too much and so are no longer sober. who belong to the acts and evils of this world. And the ones who are in the light are the ones who stay awake, who are sober, who are dressed and ready for action, when the day that Jesus comes, we belong to the day, Christians who believe in Jesus Christ. And so we put on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of the hope of salvation. We know that God has not destined us for wrath, because we trust in Jesus Christ. And He comes to us to give us His grace and His mercy to fill us and make us ready through His Word and Sacraments. And so we we continue to gather together as a church to make ourselves ready for that day. And that's what St. Paul closes with. He says, Therefore, encourage one another, and build one another up just as you are doing. I think this is especially wonderful to to point to the Thessalonians, who experienced persecution So very quickly, so very early in their life as Christians, St. Paul was only there for three Sabbath's before the persecutors drove him out. And this very young, very early church experienced persecution immediately when they couldn't find Paul. They ended up going after Jason and others. And so this is especially important for them as they are early in their faith journey, facing persecution and saying, stay firm, be ready, be sober, God is coming. You can do it is the same for us. While we don't have that level of persecution, we do still need to remind ourselves to be ready. Jesus is coming. That's it for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai