Going Deeper - 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11

The Hope of the Resurrection

The major theme of this letter is the second coming of Jesus Christ. Every chapter contains at least one reference.

13 And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope.

For everything we read, we assume that it’s based off Timothy’s report back to Paul. All the rejoicing has been Timothy’s good report, and Paul is stoked. But as any good leader would Paul might have said “are they struggling in any area Timothy?” and Timothy says, "yeah, they don’t seem to realise the great hope of the resurrection quite yet".

They also didn't comprehend that it didn’t just extend to those who were living – that the second coming of Christ wasn’t just for them – good thing, because 2000 years later, a whole lot of believers have passed! They fully believed that Jesus could come back at any time. Which, He can.There was the faith component – why would I get a job? Jesus could come back today! There frame of reference was Him coming in their lifetime.

Paul uses the phrase: "those who have fallen asleep"; a common pagan and Jewish thought, but particularly relevant for Christians.

This next passage gets read at so many funerals!

If you have been to a funeral of a believer, and the funeral of someone who does not believe, you will notice the difference. As a child, we went to the funeral of our nearest neighbour, Mr Lelievre. He lived 5 kms away. There was celebration! There was singing, there were tears, but there was HOPE. There was a call for anybody who did have this hope to be able to experience it. This is my greatest hope. I am PUMPED – I am devastated to lose people, but this is my great hope. No matter how loved anyone on this earth has felt, if they have died "in Christ" they now know more loved than they ever have. It’s not just hope of a resurrection, it’s hope of resurrection to LIFE.

14 For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.

Paul puts it in another way in another letter: he says that Jesus is the firstborn of all who will rise again. Death and the grave is once and for all conquered! Paul doesn’t say Jesus went to sleep; he says he DIED. He conquered death because He is no longer dead. Death did not win. Christ didn’t fall asleep for us; He died for us.

15 We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died.

We won't find these words coming out of Jesus' mouth in anything we read. It is not quoted in the gospels, but John said not everything was written down, so this could be a heretofore uncaptured remark. Acts 20:35 it is more blessed to give than receive – where? Where did he say that? But these people were quoting what they heard, to people who could deny it if it was untrue.

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. 17 Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet

There’s this idea of a welcome, a reunion, prodigal father… and where will we be with him? Back down to earth to rule? Corinthians suggests so. Imma just wait and see.

the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. 18 So encourage each other with these words.

My Lachie had a dream when he was 14 years old. In the dream, he was standing at the beach in Port Macquarie with a bunch of other teenagers. Also of a sudden there was a loud crack that rumbled across the sky, unlike anything he'd heard before, followed by a stillness. Then a shaft of light and a silhouette appeared on the headland. Lachie thought to himself "IT'S HAPPENING!". He turned to his mate Zac and they looked at each other in excitement. Lachie said to Zac "IT'S HAPPENING!", and knew that Jesus had come back. When he looked back, he saw people along the beach, as far as you could see, and even in his own excitement, he could tell that not everyone felt the same.

So? That's just a dream. It evoked so much as Lach was telling it to us when we picked him up from footy camp in the car. We were so excited. It actually took me until he specifically said to have my hope realised, that he was talking about Jesus' return!

In reality, we don't know what this will look like. The above reading without the excited hope and enthusiastic expectancy could be like a showing of the un-dead. A Pirates of the Caribbean situation. How about people who were cremated? How about those who died as a child? These are questions that our natural world brains find hard to fathom. 1 Corinthians 15:52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

5:1 Now concerning how and when all this will happen, dear brothers and sisters, we don’t really need to write you. 2 For you know quite well that the day of the Lord’s return will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night.

My dear friend who grew up in Rwanda was doing an art therapy session with me and some other friends. After we’d drawn a house, a tree, and a person, the facilitator asked “do people come over at night?” She looked askance and said indignantly “are they thieves?” in her experience, only thieves come at night! I have tried to explain that being allowed to leave the house unlocked during the day is biblical, but Daz will have none of it.

3 When people are saying, “Everything is peaceful and secure,” then disaster (disaster being separation from God) will fall on them as suddenly as a pregnant woman’s labour pains begin. And there will be no escape.

I used to lie in bed when I was a teenager living the party life, and say to God “I know you’re coming back tonight”. I figured if I knew, He couldn’t do it. Leith Samuel writes: if there is one thing you can be certain about the timing of the Lord’s return it is this, that we cannot be certain of the timing.

4 But you aren’t in the dark about these things, dear brothers and sisters, and you won’t be surprised when the day of the Lord comes like a thief. 5 For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night. 6 So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. 7 Night is the time when people sleep and drinkers get drunk. 8 But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation.

The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armour of right living. Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarrelling and jealousy. Romans 13:12-13

9 For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us.

Wondering where God’s up to in all this – that’s where He is up to. It’s all his initiative. Who did He pour His anger out on? Salvation is from as well as to.

10 Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. 11 So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.

Timothy told me. Keep going friends. Keep doing it.