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.
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. As we close in on the end of the church here, we're focusing in on the subject of Christ's return, the end of time, and the day that he will appear in the clouds with power and might. Last week, we took a look at First Thessalonians chapter four. And we talked about the rapture, how First Thessalonians chapter four points not to a secret return of Jesus Christ, to whisk away all of Christians. But Jesus appearing on the clouds with power and might, with the voice of an angel, a cry of command and the trumpet of God, and every I will see Him He will then raise all the dead in Christ, to new life, and take us who are alive to be with him. This is the promise that we have in our Savior, Jesus Christ, resurrection from the dead on the day he returns, to give us life with Him forever. Our passage today moves, similar themes to that, pointing out the end to the Thessalonians. Something you should know about the Thessalonian church, the people of Thessalonica, is that they became Christians, when Paul and his fellow missionaries came to them along a missionary journey through that region. But their time there was cut very short, Paul was only there three sabots before a crowd arose and started persecuting them. And Paul and the fellows had to get out of dodge pretty quick. Not satisfied, the crowd went to the Thessalonian church, and captured a guy named Jason, and some others, persecuted them, find them. Things were pretty bad. Now, I want you to think about this. What would it be like, if you are a brand new Christian, you've gone to church, maybe one, maybe two, maybe three times and heard about Jesus. And then all of a sudden persecution come, and your pastor has to leave. And so what St. Paul is doing is he's both encouraging them, and teaching them about what to expect. Because these Thessalonians are just baby Christians, needing guidance and hope in the midst of this kind of persecution. And that's what we see here. He begins by reminding them about the end. Concerning the time and seasons, he says, Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. Or you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. So what he's saying is, you Thessalonians do not need to watch for the signs. There is no season upcoming that's appointed that you can figure out it will come like a thief in the night. Now you might say, wait a second pastor, didn't Jesus give us signs of the end? Absolutely, he did. Let's take a look at that. In Mark chapter 13. Jesus says, Watch out that no one deceives you many will come in My name claiming I am He and will deceive many. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed, Such things must happen. But the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom there will be earthquakes in various places and famines. These are the beginning of the birth payments. So Jesus does give us signs. But they all happened the same time that Jesus ascended into heaven. Everything he predicted was fulfilled in the first century. Since that day, when have there not been wars and rumors of wars? When have nations not risen against nation, earthquakes, famines and floods. What Jesus is saying is not we can give you the roadmap to the return. But when you see these things, know that I am coming. He also says this. No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven. nor the Son, but only the Father, be on guard Be alert, you do not know when that time will come. That's exactly what St. Paul is saying. We do not know when Jesus will return. But we do know is that he is coming. He is coming with power and might, he is coming to raise us from the dead and give us eternal life and reunite all who have died in Christ with us to be with Him forever. St. Paul uses two metaphors here, the thief in the Knights. And a little bit later. He 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. For me, I think a good one for here in California is the earthquake kit. I had to I had to figure out what an earthquake kit was when I came to California because I don't know if you know this, Chicago doesn't have earthquakes. We are not waiting for the big one to happen and have California slide into the Pacific Ocean. So I went online and checked out what California says about earthquake preparedness. They say you have to have a whole bunch of stuff. But the basic thing is they want everyone to have enough supplies for you to have at minimum three days of food and water. Ideally, as much as two weeks. A lot, right. But the reason is, because if the bigger earthquake does happen, we probably won't slide into the Pacific but the internet might go down. Electricity might be gone. The water to your house may turn poisonous. Food might be gone. And you may have to survive for a few days or even a few weeks before health comes. That's kind of scary, right? Of course, most of us if you're like me, I go Nah, I'll do that next week. Or Whoa, that's a lot of stuff to have centered around my house. A lot of storage space, or that's a lot of money, especially as we're heading into November and December. I don't want to add that to my credit card bill. Put it off. We don't have it. You know what's hard to do after the big earthquake comes. Go online to Amazon and have them ship you one in time to get it. So you can eat the next day, right? That's the thing. You always need to have the earthquake kit there before you use it. And I think that's what St. Paul is trying to tell us about the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. Right now our God is offering an open invitation of grace to all who turn to him in repentance. All who believe in Jesus Christ will be welcomed into the family will be raised from the dead sins forgiven given eternal life. But the door of grace will not always be open. There will come a day when we see him in the clouds with power and might and then that door will shut the offer will no longer be out there. Only those who are in Christ at that moment will be saved. Others may turn up and look at him and see see him coming. But it will not be a joyful moment will be a moment of fear and destruction. Now for us, we can be ready for that day. Look forward to that day even say Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Because we know who our Savior we know that He has given us His grace. Because we have been baptized. We have our sins forgiven. We eat and drink his body and his blood. But we know that there will be a time when that invitation ends. And we need to be ready for the Thessalonians that might have been a comfort for them. You know, they're sitting around baby Christians brand new to the faith and all of a sudden their friends and neighbors rise up against them, beat them, throw them in jail and extract money out of them. And they might think Yeah, God is gonna come and
make things right. But I bet that's not how you feel about it. When you think about your friends, and your neighbors, the end of the offer of grace actually might make you pretty sad. As it does me. We have to remember, they need to be ready to God's extending to them just as he does to you the offered of eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ. That causes us the desire to tell them because that offer will not be open forever. St. Paul then moves on to a different kind of metaphor. It begins with the thief in the night and labor pains you have to be ready, be watchful. And so he says, What does that mean, for now. 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. Those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, have been 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. He calls them children of light. And the promise of this is that he does not say strive to be children of light, work hard to be children of light. He says, You are children of life. And it's a reminder that the same is true for you. God has made you children of light, by choosing you through Jesus Christ. We belong to Christ, which means we belong to the light. And St. Paul says, act like it live as children of blood. And it's the dark world with all of its things that are just trying to distract us from that. Just recently, I watched a clip from a great movie from my childhood Aladdin. You know that 119 92 What I love about streaming is that people still get my 30 year old movie references. It's pretty great, right? Even the kids. So in the beginning of Aladdin, Jafar is trying to find the Cave of Wonders. And he needs to find one guy who can get in there he finds Aladdin, and he sends him in. So the Cave of Wonders comes up. It's a giant Panther head, and it tells him touch only the lamp. So Aladdin goes in, it comes down and the cave opens up, and there is gold everywhere. piles and piles of coins and treasure chests and cups and goblets and all these amazing pieces of treasure. And Aladdin has to make sure his monkey doesn't grab any of it abou he listens to the Cave of Wonders. You know, I suppose if a giant Panther head comes up out of the sand and tells you to do something, you're gonna listen right? They finally waves his way through the gold till he gets to this tall pedestal where there's the lamp, he climbs up and he grabs the lamp, and meanwhile, his monkey a Boo is mesmerized by this gem, this Ruby. And when a boo finally gets to it, it all melts and turns into fire. And they have to escape the cave as fast as they can. Aladdin stayed focus on the one thing he needed. The one thing that wasn't a distraction. The one thing that truly had value, everything else looked really good. The gold, the gems, the treasure, but it led to destruction. And I think that's what it is like, as children of light in a dark world. That we have one thing to focus on our Savior Jesus Christ and His return. And the world wants to distract us with all sorts of things. It wants to distract us with the good things, holy things, wonderful things. But it wants us To put them first above him out of order. We have to remember that nothing is more important than the life in Christ, His salvation, the gifts he gives, as we gather together and hear His word and keep each other laser focused on the day he will return. Because we know it's coming and it will come like a thief in the night. All of a sudden we will be out doing whatever and then he will appear and then it will be too late. We must stay focused, stay ready, gathering around Christ in His Word and His sacraments to ensure that when that day comes, we can turn to Him and rejoice and be glad in the salvation he is bringing. In Jesus name, Amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai