Comfort in Jesus' Return

Well, you meet me in your Bibles at 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans 1 and 2 Corinthians. Keep going, keep going. Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Be careful, there's a 2 Thessalonians chapter 4. You want 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. If you're using your Pew Bibles, you will find that on page 1050. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, beginning at verse 13.

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you, by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words."

One of the Most difficult things I didn't really anticipate when I became a pastor, but also one of the most biggest blessings of my life in becoming a pastor was how many funerals I'd have to go to. How many times I'd have to face death face to face. How many times I would have to go to a graveside and look at a coffin or look at a corpse or grieve with a family. This past year was awfully hard with that. There was a period in one month where there was over five different funerals to have to go to, four of which I preached at and a few of those for family members, dear family members who are with the Lord. And as I was wrestling with this in this period where it just seemed like funeral after funeral after funeral after funeral, somebody asked me, they said, that must be really hard. And I said, yeah, it is really hard.

But the Gospel's never been more real to me than it has been this month. Because when you go to five funerals in a month, see five dead people being put into graves in a month, you realize that's where we're all going to be. That there's hope in Christ. And so I was, as we go through this passage, this passage is a passage about death, but it's also a passage about comfort. and how we should be comforted in the face of death by Jesus's coming again. There's a small obituary that I read that I thought, this is one of the best obituaries I've ever read. I don't know this lady, but it was a good obituary.

She said, my daddy, Herman, went to be with the Lord on Tuesday to thank you for all your love and support after he suffered these two strokes. He was cheerful after major surgery, but then experienced a second stroke and fell into a coma. Afterwards, he rested peacefully and was under superb care of the hospital in Virginia before he passed.

The world is much dimmer now without him. Please continue to hold our family in your hearts and your prayers. Did you hear the hope, but also the sorrow? My daddy's with the Lord now. But the world is dimmer without Him. The first thing we look at here as we encourage one another with the hope of Jesus' resurrection, is that we are those who grieve with hope. We are those who grieve with hope. Look with me at verse 13. But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.

Now, when it uses the language of falling asleep, this is widely understood in the entire world. Somebody falls asleep for the last time, they're dead. And it's hard to say these things, right? What's the common thing people will say today? When it hurts so bad to say that someone is dead, what do we say?

They went to be with the Lord. Or they passed away. Or they went to glory. We'll use any euphemism possible to escape. The reality of death, and even here it's dealt with in a sensitive way. Those who have fallen asleep, Paul uses this pastoral way of understanding that there are people in the first century church in Thessalonica, their loved ones, and they've died. They've fallen asleep, but he doesn't want them to be ignorant. He wants them to grieve with hope. Now, I do have to address something here.

Our RP testimony specifically says that we reject an idea of what's called soul sleep. People take a verse like this and they read a whole bunch into it, and they say, oh, when people die, they just go into the ground and they're sleeping. But that's not what Jesus thought. Right?

When the guy is right next to Him, when the thief is on the cross right next to Him, and Jesus is there, He says, remember me in your kingdom, and what does Jesus say to him? Today you will be with me in paradise. He didn't say, today you're going to die, they're going to bury you. It's probably not going to be in a good cemetery, but they'll bury you. And when you wake up, someday when I come back, you're going to be with me. No, no. Today you will be with me in paradise.

This was Paul's understanding in Philippians chapter 4, when he's saying, I don't know if I'm in jail here, but if I should stay alive, it's good for you, right? I can minister to you, I can care for you all. But for me to die is better, because I'll be with Christ. I remember one of those funerals I did this past fall, when there was a burial up at the Morning Sun Cemetery, I read at the at the internment service, Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 37.

What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death? The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory, and their bodies, being still united to Christ, rest in their graves until the resurrection. We don't believe in soul sleep. Your soul does immediately pass into glory. There's no purgatory, there's no place of the underworld where souls are just kind of in limbo until Jesus returns.

Brothers and sisters, for those in the cemetery right next door here, who died in Christ, they are with Christ. They are there with Him immediately. And this poor widow, as she was grieving, the death of her husband, she just kept saying, it says immediately goes to glory. Not later, God finished the good work He had started and He immediately went to glory. This comfort in our souls that even though we might sleep, our souls do immediately pass into glory. See, we do not grieve. We don't grieve as the world grieves. But should Christians grieve? That's a live question, right? Does this passage mean that we shouldn't grieve?

Somebody dies, and so we just put on our smiley face and say, well, they're with Jesus now. Some Christians treat it that way. I don't know, maybe they're probably more holy and spiritual than I am, and that's fine, but I haven't navigated those waters. Because death has a sting. Because in our souls, in our hearts, when somebody dies, we know it shouldn't be that way. See, death isn't, yeah, death is going to happen to all of us, but death isn't natural. Death isn't what was supposed to happen. Death is what happened as a result of sin. And so we should be able to say in our souls, my husband should be with me. My sister should be with me. My wife should be with me. My children should be with me. This shouldn't happen. And you're right. You're right. Jesus knew this was so. Do you remember when Jesus' friend died? Do you remember what Jesus did when Lazarus was put into that grave? And when he walked up and he went to that tomb for the first time? Shortest verse in the Bible. Jesus wept.

Because death is real. Pain is real. But see the difference is the world grieves in this way where they don't know what happens after death. No certainty, no promises, I don't know, maybe they're in a good place, I hope they're in a good place. Maybe they got reincarnated into something else, and the world will go one way or another when they get to this fork in the road, when somebody dies with grief. Either they will be consumed by it, and they'll have all sorts of superstitious practices that come with it, and they'll just continue to grieve, and it will consume their souls, and instead of just being the light, a little bit dimmer, they can get swallowed up in the darkness of grief and depression.

Or on the other hand, you have others of those who are not in Christ. What do they do? They just want to ignore it altogether. Just have a party. Just remember the good things. Don't talk about the reality of death. Don't talk about judgment. Don't talk about sin. Just throw a party and forget about it. But that's not what the Scriptures give us. We grieve with hope. We grieve with hope because point two, we have Jesus as our historical hope. We have Jesus as our historical hope. Look with me at verse 14.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. If we believe what? That Jesus died and rose again. If you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ suffered the full wrath of God, that He took the condemnation of all of us upon Himself, He bore the guilt of sin, He took the wrath so bad that on the cross He would cry out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?

As He feels the weight of His Father's wrath being poured out in the cup of His own body. If we believe that Jesus actually died that death, and that when the Marys walked to His tomb, and they saw it empty and that was real, then we have hope. Because every time we go out here into the cemetery, every time we look into a hole in the ground and we see a casket being lowered, we know that Jesus was also put into a tomb. And He didn't stay there. And if he got up out of that tomb, I will also get up out of that tomb if I believe in Christ.

Because God's judgment has been paid. And life has been given. This is why the scriptures say that Jesus is the firstborn of the resurrection. That Jesus died for our sins, but was raised for our justification. If the tomb in Jerusalem is empty, then our sins are no more.

We grieve with hope, because we have a historical real Jesus who truly did die upon that cross, was truly buried, and was truly risen again on the third day. If this is your hope in a historical Jesus, that the gospel accounts of what Jesus is and has done is true, then we grieve with hope that death isn't the end. that nothing can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. So Jesus is my historical hope. We grieve with that hope and we comfort one another. Thirdly, we comfort one another with Jesus is returning. Take comfort that Jesus is returning. Look at me at verses 15 through 17.

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord may by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord." A few things, this note here, as we comfort each other with the resurrection and the return of Christ, is that the dead in Christ rise first. That's what verse 15 says, the dead in Christ rise first. For this we say to you, by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.

Have you ever been to Disneyland or Disney World before? When I was in high school I went to Disneyland and I don't really like amusement parks. Amusement parks you pay lots of money to stand in lines. Not my idea of fun. And in the hot California sun in the middle of the summer, last thing I want to do is pay overpriced for a $5 little bottle of water to stand in a line.

And then they came up with this amazing invention. You can pay for a fast pass. It was like this prototype first thing they did. You could pay $5 when you walked into the park and you would be able to go and scan this little card they gave you and you got to go to the front of the line.

Brothers and sisters, those who are in Christ Jesus have a fast pass. We're the ones who, when Jesus comes back, if we're alive, we have to wait for them first. They get to the front of the line. They're the ones who rise first. They're the ones whose bodies are raised first.

And you have to imagine, as the church is wrestling with this, this has only been a couple decades since Jesus died. And as they sit there, you can imagine the people, somebody in the church, maybe their brother, maybe their mother, maybe their husband, or their child heard the gospel and they responded with hope, and they're sitting there hearing, Jesus is going to return, Jesus is coming back, someday Jesus is going to return, and you're sitting there going, yes, yes, yes, and then they die.

And they don't have the whole Bible yet. What's going to happen to mom? She believed in Jesus, but she didn't last until he came back. What happened to them? Where are they? What's going to happen to them? Where's my mother? Where's my son? You can imagine the comfort that this verse would wash over their souls. You're going to see them rise again. If you're still alive when Jesus comes back, you're going to see them come up again.

Now, I was talking to someone about this recently, and this person, she was like, you mean they're going to, like, dead bodies are going to come up? And I was like, yeah. And she was like, wow. And I was like, yeah. Imagine how the people felt when Jesus died. It says that the dead rose from their graves. Imagine how people thought when they saw Lazarus walk out of the tomb. Whoa! What happened here? This dude was dead! These people were in their graves, and now they've come up out of the grave?

How does this happen? I can't give you the metaphysics on how this happens, but I believe it happens. Because the Scriptures say it. Notice again, what it says in verse 15. Where is this word coming from? Is it just Paul, a dude? What does verse 15 say? Whose authority is behind this promise? For this we say to you by the word of the Lord." Jesus Christ himself is the one who gives us promise. The dead in Christ will rise first.

This ain't going to be a secret event, just letting you know. This isn't going to be something that's hidden off and nobody knows about, right? When Jesus Christ comes again to judge the living and the dead, and the resurrection happens, this isn't going to be some secret private thing that people don't know about. Some people say that, but try to reconcile that with what verse 16 says.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with a trumpet of God, The lion, brothers and sisters, is going to roar. The angel, the messenger of God Himself, is going to shout. The trumpet is going to be blown. Jesus Christ, the King of kings, the Lord of lords has come. Go read the book of Revelation.

There's no way you can think that this is a secret thing hidden off somewhere else. People would try to deceive people in the early church that somehow this has already happened and nobody knew it. No, when this happens, everybody will know it. When Jesus comes back, it's going to be a public affair. Not a secret thing.

This is the Day of the Lord. I'll give you a few scripture references. We're running out of time. You can write these down and look at them in the afternoon if you want. Joel chapter 2, we read. Zephaniah chapter 1, Isaiah 27, Zechariah 9. I'll say those again. Joel chapter 2, Zephaniah 1, Isaiah 27, Zechariah 9. Or just get online onto a Bible concordance and look up the phrase, Day of the Lord.

God's going to come back again. Jesus Christ is going to return again. And after the dead are raised, it's the living's turn next. After the dead are raised, the living are next. Subpoint C. Look with me at verse 16. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. And then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord." And I need to pause here real quick and just warn you, there is a lot of A lot of people like this verse.

1 Thessalonians 4.17.

It even has a whole term in it, even though the term is not found here. The rapture. And you can go, and there's like a 13 volume or 76 volume, I don't know how many novels there are, of the Left Behind series. And they are great, but just remember they're in the fiction aisle for a reason. It's Christian fiction. And I don't agree with a lot of what this says, but neither do we need to react complete opposite of that, right? We don't let the pendulum swing to the other side.

And so this week as I was wrestling, I just let you know I came out of a background that held to kind of this loose dispensationalism. If you wonder what that is, go look it up on Google sometime or we can talk later. But I grew up in kind of this milieu of premillennial dispensationalism.

And so when I came to this passage, I was scratching my head and I said, You know, I'm just going to go and I'm going to go read all, as many of the ancient fathers as I can who reference this passage. And so I just read and I read and I read all the breaks at Synod I had. I just sat there and I was reading, or when things were boring at Synod, that does happen. I was just reading and reading and reading, trying to wrestle in my brain, okay, before anybody ever called this the rapture, what did the church believe?

And every single commentary, every single sermon, every single time I read anything about this passage, all they said was, those alive are going to be caught up in the air with Christ at the judgment. There wasn't a big, huge theology. I was looking for this huge explanation to a very simple question.

Because in dispensationalist theology, this is a huge issue. When is this going to happen? And when are the tribulations? And all this stuff. And here, it's very simple. When Jesus Christ comes back, those who are alive and their identities in Christ are going to go up. And you might say, whoa, hold on. What do you mean? Well, it happened to Jesus. Acts chapter 1. Acts chapter 1. Let's go ahead and turn there real quick. Just keep your finger in 1 Thessalonians and Acts chapter 1. Verse 9.

Now when he, this is Jesus, when Jesus had spoken these things while they were watching, he was taken up. And a cloud revealed him, or received him, out of their sight. And while they looked up steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who said also, Men of Galilee, Why do you stand up gazing into heaven? This same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven, He will also come down in like manner as you saw Him go up into heaven.

This is a question I have to ask you. Some of you, if I ask, do you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord? Yeah, I believe Jesus Christ is Lord. He's the master of the universe. He's my savior. He's my sovereign. Great. Next question from Romans chapter 10.

Do you believe God raised Him from the dead? Do you believe that He didn't just die and didn't just stay in the grave, but do you believe that God did the supernatural, miraculous thing of raising His only begotten Son out of the tomb? And here I'm going to press that a little bit further. Do you believe that He actually ascended up into heaven? Physical body, right? Put your finger here, put your hand here, eat food, ghosts don't do that. Do you believe that Jesus' body ascended up into heaven and the clouds received Him?

This is the hope we have. Because if He went up and was received into the clouds, and exactly what 1 Thessalonians tells us shouldn't be too hard for us to believe, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Yeah, this is hard. I can't sell this to you. You either believe that this is the word of the Lord and it's true, you believe these things actually happen to Jesus and it gives you hope in your soul, or just walk away.

Because if Jesus Christ didn't raise from the dead, we are above all most men to be pitied. Jesus Christ is going to come back. He is going to judge. And those who are in Christ will go with Him. This is the hope that we have. And the point of this passage is comfort. Right? The point of this passage is not that we might go, Oh, Jesus Christ is going to return, and He's going to judge, and that's true. The point of this passage is not, Jesus Christ is going to return, so you better make sure you're on your best behavior, and Jesus uses that point, so it's true. But here, for Christians, those who find their identity in Jesus Christ, who believe in the resurrection, who believe in the death of Jesus Christ, is comfort. Because what's the next verse say?

We will be with Him forever. And with us, we shall always be with the Lord. So many people want heaven because they want the streets of gold. So many people think that they want heaven because they want no more pain, no more sorrow, no more tears. But our object of hope is Jesus Christ Himself. Notice here, it doesn't give heaven as our hope. Notice here, it doesn't give the streets of gold as our hope.

Who is the thing that rejoices our hearts, that makes us have comfort, that gives us any sense of peace in the face of death? That we'll be with Jesus forever. This is the Word of the Lord. This is God Himself. is saying that when Jesus Christ comes back, there will be the resurrection of the living and the dead, and we will live with Christ forever. This is why the joy of the Lord is our strength. Not joy that comes from the Lord, but joy that is in the Lord.

Do you rejoice in Jesus Christ? Do you want to be with Jesus forever? Is He your historical hope? Is He your object of faith? Is He the one in which you would sell all your earthly goods and go and be persecuted for? Is He the one that there are brothers and sisters who are literally sitting in jail cells this morning that they would not turn their backs upon Jesus because Jesus is their Lord and Savior?

Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith. This is who we want to be with forever. This is where comfort comes from. So lastly, if this is your hope, comfort each other with this hope of Jesus' coming. Comfort one another with Jesus' coming. The final verse of this chapter, verse 18. Therefore, comfort one another with these words. Weep with those who weep. Lament with those who lament. Mourn with those who mourn. Cry with those whose souls are in the depths of despair as their loved ones die. And when the time is right, don't be Job's friends. Encourage them with these words.

Closing Prayer

Death couldn't keep Jesus. Death won't conquer your loved one either. They're with Christ. And someday Christ is coming back. You'll see Him again. My daddy, Herman, went to be with the Lord on Tuesday. Thank you for your love and support. The world is much dimmer now without him. Please continue to hold our families in your hearts and prayers. Encourage each other with the hope that there's life in the Lord, even though the world might be dimmer without our brothers and sisters with us. Let's pray. Oh Father, thank you for the hope we have in Jesus. Thank you. for the balm that your Holy Spirit places upon our soul, knowing that you will come again, and that you will wipe every tear from our eye, and you will let us look upon the face of our Savior, and with great joy enjoy you forever.