During family devotions at dinner, I usually read the
sermon passage that's going to be preached and I teach on it
briefly. I mean like 60 seconds.
My kids are all under 6 and I need to keep their attention.
Then right before we sing, I'll ask them, do you have any
questions? This week, the kids set a new
record for questions after family devotions.
Questions regarding this sermon passage.
Specifically, a lot of questions about death.
What is death? What does it look like when
someone dies? What happens when we die?
Why do people die? When will we die?
For my kids, death remains opaque.
It's abstract off in the distance, but I know that death
will eventually show its face. For generations before us, death
was concrete. It was experience lived a shadow
over your life ever looming. Just a few generations ago, the
average life expectancy was the late 30s.
Without modern medicine, you never knew what would happen
when someone you loved caught a cold.
For example, the Puritan Thomas Boston buried six children
before they reached their 2nd birthday.
John Owen, another Puritan, outlived every single one of his
eleven children and also his first wife, meaning Owen buried
nearly every person he loved. How do you face the death of of
a loved one? What can you do with all your
grief in the face of death? Is there any hope?
Friends, today we're considering a letter the Apostle Paul wrote
to Christians wrestling with these very questions.
If you're a Christian because Jesus died and rose again, you
have hope. Not some opiate of the masses as
Karl Marx famously accused religion of being, but real
objective hope in the face of death.
Because Christ, who rose from the dead will return, and when
he does, he will evict death and all his friends.
Turn your Bible to 1st Thessalonians.
If you don't have a Bible, just raise your hand.
There's some Bibles back there. There's a friend ready to bring
you a Bible right now. Just raise your hand.
We've been studying the letter the Apostle Paul wrote to the
Church of Thessalonica just 20 years or so after Christ rose
from the dead. They were a one year old church
plant that Paul planted in a Pagan city and they were
struggling. Why were they struggling, you
might wonder? They were persecuted by the
world. They were tempted by Satan, and
in chapter 4, we'll see they also faced the last enemy,
death. In chapter 4, we learn that
death took the lives of believers in Thessalonica.
They needed to know that the gospel has something to say to
those burdened with grief. Look at chapter 4, verses 13 to
18. Listen as I read God's word.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about
those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who
have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, Even so, through Jesus God will bring
with him those who have fallen asleep.
For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who
are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not
precede those who have fallen asleep.
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry
of command, with the voice of an Archangel, and with the sound of
the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise
first. Then we who are alive, who are
left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet
the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with
the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another
with these words. Now there are some more complex
parts of this passage if you get into the details, but overall
this passage is very simple. It's like a sandwich.
It begins. Look at verse 13 with Paul's
pastoral concern. Paul does not want the
Thessalonians to be uninformed about those who are asleep, the
Christians, the members of their church who had died.
He does not want the Thessalonians to grieve without
hope. And the passage ends.
Look at verse 18 with Paul's pastoral exhortation.
He wants the Thessalonians to do something with this word.
He says, therefore, encourage one another with these words.
In other words, Paul wants them to help one another.
Hope in the face of death. Hope in what?
Look at the middle. The meat of the sandwich.
Verses 14 to 17. Hope in Christ in the face of
death, the grounds of their hope, the reason for their
encouragement. Verse 14 Jesus died and rose
again. Verses 15 to 17 Jesus will
return. Paul shows the Thessalonians how
the gospel transforms our grief. Here's the main point of the
passage. One sentence.
In the face of death, help one another grieve with hope.
In the face of death, help one another.
Grieve with hope. Here's where we're going.
It's four points .1 Grieve with hope.
That's verse 13. Grieve with hope .2 Hope in
Christ's death and resurrection. Verse 14.3 Hope in Christ's
return, verses 15 to 17. And finally, .4 Help one another
hope. Verse 18.1, verse 13.
Grieve with hope. Look at verse 13 again.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about
those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who
have no hope. Paul states two concerns in
verse 13. He doesn't want the
Thessalonians to be ignorant. He doesn't want them to be
hopeless. He doesn't want them to be
ignorant about those who are asleep.
Sleep is one way the scripture talks about death.
It's a fitting picture because sleep implies an awakening.
Daniel 12/2 says those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall
awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting
contempt. Physical death is temporary.
Death is always followed by resurrection, some to eternal
life, some to eternal judgment, And so cemeteries are rightfully
called dormitories of the dead. You went to bed last night.
Maybe you nodded off as you read a book.
Then your alarm went off. Or the kids came in and you
awoke this morning from hopefully a good night's sleep.
In the same way, when you die after they've buried you in the
ground, perhaps even after you've returned to the dust
itself, you will eventually awaken.
Sleep is an especially sweet picture of the believer's death.
That's who Paul's talking about in verse 13.
Specifically, those who are asleep is referring to
Christians. Sometimes Hannah and I debate
about who gets to wake up our daughter from her nap.
If she's still asleep, we might say, I'll go wake her up.
Or the other one might say, no, no, no, I'll go this time
because it's so sweet. We walk in, we rub her back.
We say, hey, it's time to wake up.
We're going to see in verses 15 to 17 that Christ himself will
wake each believer up from their sleep.
Paul does not want them to be ignorant.
Paul also doesn't want them to grieve as others do who have no
hope. These ideas are connected.
If they're ignorant about those who are asleep, they'll be
hopeless. In other words, they'll grieve
without hope. Notice the distinction Paul
makes verse 13. He doesn't say don't grieve.
He doesn't say mature Christians.
They don't grieve, he says. Don't grieve as others do.
Paul distinguishes between worldly grief and godly grief,
between grief without hope and grief mingled with hope.
Worldly grief is grief without hope.
The world offers many cures for grief.
One strategy is avoidance. Just ignore death, deny it.
Move cities, going a long vacation, Bury yourself in work,
find a new hobby. This is nothing new.
Blaise Pascal, writing 400 years ago, said being unable to cure
death, men have decided in order to be happy not to think about
such things, just ignore it. Another strategy, perhaps more
common, is wishful thinking. Some non Christians face the
death of their loved ones with great confidence.
They say things like I, I like to think that they're in a
better place. Well, if there's a God, then
surely he knows they're a good person.
But friends, if that's you, these are just fantasies.
They're fiction. Some harden their hearts in the
face of death. They refuse to mourn the loss of
someone they love. They suppress their grief.
Ignore it. But to suppress grief is
inhuman. It's unnatural.
The human heart cannot remain unaffected in the face of death.
Still others let their grief consume them.
Their grief destroys them. They become untethered to
reality itself, frozen in time, unable to move.
Every worldly cure for grief can distract for a time, but can
never cleanse the wound. They can never fully heal.
They can offer no hope. If you're not a Christian, you
should be able to see a difference between the world and
the church at our funerals. Godly grief is mingled with
hope. Christianity, and only
Christianity, offers true comfort in the face of death.
Grief is the right response to death.
Remember Jesus at Lazarus's tomb?
He wept. He wept because he loved his
friend. He wept because he hated death.
Christ's tears instruct us Christians of our duty to
grieve. When we lose a beloved member of
our church to death, we must grieve.
Grief is hard work. Grief doesn't hurry.
Grief doesn't keep to our timelines.
Grief doesn't schedule appointments on our calendar.
But grief is the only way to face death.
We grieve because death is not the way things are supposed to
be. We grieve because death is a
result of sin. We grieve because death is the
last enemy. In the face of death, we grieve,
but we grieve with hope. Friend, what's your hope in
today? Hope is confident expectation
about the future. But hope as you know, it's
something that can so easily slip through our fingers or
evaporate like mist before our eyes.
It can crumble before us. A longing for marriage can end
during engagement. A student plans to pass an exam,
but the results arrive in the future they've worked so hard
for disappears. An athlete trains twice a day
for years to make the team, but just one twist of the body and
their season ends in injury. Is there a hope in the face of
death that can never be shaken? Paul's answer in the next verses
is that there is there is only 1.2.
Verse 14 Hope in Christ, death and resurrection.
Hope in Christ, death and resurrection.
Look at verse 14. For since we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, Even so, through Jesus God will bring
with him those who have fallen asleep.
Paul affirms the historical and the theological reality at the
very heart of our faith. We believe that Jesus died and
rose again. If you ask Paul, Paul, what is
our hope in life and death? Paul would say Christ alone.
In other words, Paul tethers the Thessalonians, hope, and ours to
the Gospel. God created us to live with him
forever. He formed us from the dust of
the ground and he breathed the breath of life into us.
Our first parents, Adam and Eve, were forbidden only one tree in
the garden. Everything else was theirs to
work and to keep. They were told that the day they
ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that day they
would surely die. Death at that time was abstract,
an idea, not an experience. Then Satan whispered to Eve that
first lie in the garden, you will not surely die.
Adam and Eve sinned. They ate.
They brought death into the world.
The wages of sin is death. Because of our sin, we deserve
to die. Not just a physical death, but
eternal death. Death with its sting, death with
its hell, death with God's wrath.
Forever. If you're not a Christian, what
hope do you have? Should you die today?
What comfort do you have should this day be your last?
Imagine with me, friend, that your life from here on out goes
exactly how you've planned, which I'm assuming is good.
You live out your wildest dreams.
You land that job, start that family, build that home, enjoy
those vacations, retire early. Then what?
Death will take it all. Death will leave you with
nothing. Death will bring you face to
face with the Creator. After death, then comes
judgement. You are living your days with a
death sentence that you cannot escape.
And This is why Jesus Christ came.
Jesus Christ came to pay the wages of sin by dying on the
cross, bearing God's wrath. Jesus died and as Paul says,
rose again. He defeated death.
He satisfied God's wrath. He offers forgiveness of sins to
all who would trust in him. If you're not a Christian
without Christ, you can only face death without hope.
But if by faith you've trusted in Christ, if you believe in
your heart that Jesus died and rose again, if you turn from
your sin, if you have Christ, you can also believe with
confidence that death will not be the end, that you too, as
Christ did, will rise from the grave.
Brothers and sisters, if you believe that Jesus died and rose
again, look what great hope you have in verse 14.
Even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have
fallen asleep. In other words, as Jesus rose
again, so you will rise again. The resurrection is the model.
Jesus did it. The resurrection is the means
because he's done it. Though you die, you shall live.
But some may wonder, still a good question.
What happens when a believer dies?
What will happen the moment after you believer?
close your eyes and breathe your last breath before the
resurrection. In the final judgement, those
who die enter what is called the intermediate state.
Their souls separate from their bodies and their souls are
conscious, and they go to either heaven or Hades.
Those apart from Christ go to judgement in Hades.
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus tells of a
man who died and went to Hades, where he was tormented in
flames, awaiting final judgement.
But those in Christ go to be with Christ in heaven.
Jesus assured the thief on the cross.
Today you will be with me in paradise.
The intermediate state for the believer is incredibly good.
Paul says it's better to be away from the body and at home with
the Lord. That's what happens, believer,
when you die in Christ. Have you trusted Christ?
If you have, then just as God did not abandon Jesus to death
but raise him to life, so too will God raise you with him.
But when .3 verses 15 to 17. Hope in Christ's return.
Just a heads up, friends, this
point is the longest. There's a lot in here.
There's still more hope to be found in Christ.
In verses 15 to 17, Paul encourages the Thessalonians
with Christ's return. These are verses of comfort, but
some find them confusing. There's a couple of knots here
that I need to attempt to untie before we get to the comfort.
So if you know the saying, don't miss the forest for the trees,
we're going to look at the trees first.
Then we will zoom back and we'll see the forest.
I'm going to spend a little time here because, like Paul, I don't
want you to be uninformed. That's the goal.
One knot is verse 15 Paul declares what he's received.
Verse 15 he says a word from the Lord.
Some think this refers to a private prophetic word that Paul
received from Jesus. But that phrase, a word from the
Lord in the New Testament, never refers to God speaking through a
prophet. So more likely, I think Paul
appeals to Jesus's words, which we can find in Matthew 24 where
Jesus teaches on the second coming.
In fact, if you read Matthew 2429 to 51, then read First
Thessalonians four and five, you will find obvious parallels.
There's another knot in verse 15.
Some think that when Paul refers to we who are alive, who are
left until the coming of the Lord, not proceeding, those who
have fallen a seat. Some take this to mean that Paul
thought mistakenly that he would be alive when the Lord returned.
But just a few verses later, chapter 5, Paul says the day of
the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
In other words, Paul saying I don't know when the day of the
Lord will come. It seems weird if he's saying
first he thinks he'll be there and then just two verses later
saying not sure when it's going to happen.
I think the reason Paul identifies with living believers
in verse 15 is because he was alive.
It's as simple as that. Which brings us to verse 16.
After Jesus died and rose again, he ascended to heaven to sit at
the right hand of the Father on the last day.
As Jesus ascended, so will he descend from heaven.
And Paul describes the sound. Look at verse 16.
A cry of command, the voice of an Archangel, the sound of the
trumpet of God. Somebody asked me earlier this
week, are these three sounds? Are they 1 sound?
What's going on here? Well, we need to understand Old
Testament imagery here. One in Joel 21-A prophet
announces the day of the Lord. If you remember back to the book
of Exodus, Exodus 1919, the trumpet signals God's presence
coming down to Sinai. If you go back all the way to
creation, God spoke and creation came to be.
If you Fast forward to the New Testament at Lazarus's tomb,
Jesus cried out and Lazarus rose.
All that to say, I'm not sure if the sounds are literal or
figurative. I do know that Paul is painting
a picture of the Second coming with the Old Testament as his
brush. What is ruled out, however, is
any notion of a secret coming. Christ's coming will reverberate
with loud noise. The living and the dead will
hear Christ's voice and obey. Verse 16.
The dead in Christ will rise first.
Keep in mind, the Thessalonians were worried about what would
happen to Christians who died before Christ's coming.
Their loved ones, Paul assures them, are not forgotten.
They are the 1st order of business.
The dead in Christ will rise first.
Now the biggest, not this one's in verse 17, then we who are
alive, who are left will be caught up together with them in
the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And so we will always be with the Lord.
So what's happening here? You might be wondering where is
Christ coming down? Is this over New York City?
Is it in Hong Kong or Jerusalem? Where is this happening?
I mean, I think this this can confuse us easily, especially if
we miss again the Old Testament allusions.
Paul echoes Daniel's vision in Chapter 7, where suddenly one,
like a son of man, was coming with the clouds of heaven.
After the dead are raised, the living believers will be
raptured. That is caught up, That's the
phrase together with the believing dead in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air. This rapture, if you call it
that, happens at the second Coming, not after.
And Paul doesn't tell us which direction the believers go after
they travel to meet Jesus in the air.
But I think a good case can be made here that the Saints
snatched in the air, returned to the earth to triumph with Christ
in the new creation. One, Paul says they will meet
the Lord in the air. The Greek word for meet here
Paul, uses two other times. It's used in the New Testament
and it refers to groups going out to greet someone in order to
welcome that person back to the group starting point.
So that's how the words used in the New Testament also
supporting this Greek literature at the time.
This same word meet is often used to describe citizens of a
city going out to meet and arriving dignitary and then
escorting like his entourage, that person back into the city.
So it seems to summarize all of that, that when Christ descends
from heaven, the Saints on earth meet him in the air.
Then Christ with his Saints brings heaven to earth in the
new creation. That was a lot.
The hope for God's people has always been not to escape earth
for heaven, but that heaven and earth would become one and that
hope becomes reality in Christ's return.
Christ the King of Heaven returns to reign on earth.
If you have questions about that, come find me at the back
door after the service. Would love to talk to you more,
hopefully with some things clarified.
I want you to see how strong our hope is when it's hope tethered
to Christ's return. Here's a few comforts for you.
First, comfort. When Christ returns, He comes
himself. What an important detail in
verse 16. Look at verse 16.
The Lord himself will descend. Friends, how precious are these
Saints to Christ? How dear are they to Him?
Christ bought every Christian with his blood.
He will not send an intermediary.
He comes himself. What a sweet reunion awaits when
we behold our Savior face to face.
Second, comfort. When a believer dies, they die
in Christ. Paul calls them verse 16, the
dead in Christ. With that little phrase in
Christ, Paul draws upon the glorious doctrine of our union
with Christ. All the blessings of our
salvation are wrapped up in those two words in Christ.
When you believe in Christ, you are united to Christ by faith.
Your union with Christ has a beginning.
It has no end. Every other union can end.
A tornado can RIP through and tear your house from its
foundation. A divorce can separate you from
your spouse. Death separates the soul from
the body. But nothing can separate a
believer from Christ. That is why Paul says in Romans
14-8, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lords.
This is why the Puritan Thomas Brooks preached A sermon titled
A Believer's Last Day, His Best day.
The believing dead are dead in Christ.
Third, comfort. When Christ returns, our reunion
lasts forever. Verse 17 is really the whole
point of the passage. Do not miss verse 17.
So we will always be with the Lord.
The reason you can grieve with hope when a believer dies is
because they will be with the Lord and you will be with the
Lord, and together you will always be with the Lord.
When I was a kid, my parents accidentally left me in the
garage after they came home from the grocery store.
I was asleep, quiet as a mouse. I woke up pitch black.
I could just see the little, you know, the red garage door light,
and apparently I screamed or eventually they realized they
came out to get me. As a parent myself, I now
understand how that's possible. I get it.
Christ, our Good Shepherd will leave no sheep unaccounted for.
No believer will be left behind. Every believer will be safe with
the Lord. This is the comfort of the
gospel. Yes, for the forgiveness of
sins. Yes, justification by faith
alone. Yes, God's wrath satisfied.
Yes, a glorified body. Yes, reunion with loved ones.
But those treasures are ultimately about perfect
fellowship with God himself. When Christ returns, you and
your believing loved ones will embrace, and you will together
embrace Christ. We will always be with the Lord.
Friends, in a passage like this, do not miss the forest for the
trees. Christ's return, Christ's
resurrection, death defeated, reunion with Christ and His
bride forever in the face of death.
Believer, you have hope. And now your job, believer, is
to help one another. Hope .4 Finally verse 18 help
one another. Hope verse 18 is so simple.
Therefore, Paul says encourage one another with these words.
Paul does not want the Thessalonians to stop at being
comforted. They are to take the comfort
from this letter and to share it with their brothers and sisters
in the face of death. God's word of comfort must
reverberate in their congregation as they speak it
back and forth to one another. Now, as you know, in the face of
death, there are countless ways to help, like just being
present, bringing someone a meal, mowing their lawn or
walking their dog, or helping with school runs, or just
listening, sending a text message.
The list goes on. Paul's focus here in these
verses is on taking the word of God, these words and helping one
another hope in our hour of death.
There's many ways we can do this, but here's three.
First, be encouraged by these words.
Be encouraged by these words. If you're in need of hope and
comfort today, let these words comfort you.
This is the medicine you need. If you aren't facing a tragedy
today, don't wait until tragedy strikes to be comforted by these
truths. When suffering washes over us,
sometimes we need to learn to cover our mouths, like Job, lest
we curse God in our pain. Other times, we need to learn to
lament our sorrows and refuse to stop lamenting until our laments
turn to praise. If you find yourself today in
the valley of the shadow of death, it is because the Lord
has LED you there. But believer, it's not your
final destination. It's just one stop along the
journey. You and your believing loved one
are heading to heaven. Place your hope in heaven while
you're still on earth. Let it be said of you, as it was
said of the Puritan Richard Sibbs.
Heaven was in him before he was in heaven.
Will you be someone who is open to Christ's comfort?
Will you be someone who gathers every crumb of comfort that
spills from Christ's death and resurrection and return?
And will you store them up as more precious than gold itself?
Be encouraged by these words. Second, study these words when
it comes to eschatology, the study of the last things many of
us can be like when you're in a friend's kitchen, somebody walks
in, you're with a bunch of people.
They say, hey, do you know where the trash can is?
You, you know they have a trash can.
Surely they do. You don't know it's not your
kitchen. That can be many of us when it
comes to the last things. Do not let it be said of you
that you're ignorant of God's glorious Master Plan for the
end. Study Christ, death,
resurrection, and return. Explore the scriptures teaching
about heaven and hell and the new creation.
Devote yourself once again to studying Scripture regularly.
In the book Scribes and Scripture, Peter Gurry and John
Meade tell the story of a girl, Mary Jones, and her search for a
Bible. She became a Christian at 8
years old. She wanted a Bible in her own
language, which was in Welsh. But at that time, in the early
19th century, Bibles were expensive.
And they were rare. The only access Mary had to a
Bible was a relative who lived a few miles away.
So Mary saved up for six years to buy a Bible.
And when it came time to buy a Bible, the only person she knew
selling one was 25 miles away. Mary walked those 25 miles
barefoot to buy that Bible. Believer, how precious is God's
Word in the Scriptures? You have the entire storehouse
of divine comfort, the entire medicine cabinet of comfort
filled with every divine consolation.
Your duty, members of Trinity Baptist Church, is to your
brothers and sisters. You need to study the Scriptures
so that you can offer them Christ's words of comfort in
their hour of need. Third, speak these words to one
another in God's family. We speak.
We speak to God, we speak to one another.
We speak God's Word to one another.
When troubles and trials come, do not stay silent.
Speak words of comfort. God is the God of comfort.
He is a fountain of comfort. Every true word of comfort that
you speak overflows from God's Word itself and God in His
infinite wisdom, with his infinite resources, with his
boundless provision, with his unending generosity, the God who
can use anything and everything to comfort his people, in his
wisdom and in his compassion, He has chosen to offer suffering
Saints his words through his people.
In other words, God's given us each other for comfort.
Speak these words to one another.
But as you know, it's not just what you say, it's how you say
it. Speak the truth in love.
Weep with those who weep. Christian, your eyes are not
your own. There's an art to speaking
gospel truths that stir up comfort.
Often those who've suffered the most know how to comfort best.
But with practice, your love can become more skillful.
Say something when death visits this church.
When a member loses a loved one, speak to them.
If you don't know what to say, pray for them.
Pray a Psalm. Pray a Psalm like Psalm 23.
Hide that in your heart so it's ready to be deployed for
comfort. Memorize Psalm 46.
The Lord is our refuge and strength.
Offer someone a prayer of comfort.
Prayer rightly acknowledges to those suffering that only God
can truly comfort them. And when you speak, do not speak
as if you fully understand, even if you've gone through something
similar. Every person's grief is their
own. As the proverb says, the heart
knows its own bitterness. Parents, speak to your kids.
Speak to your kids about death and resurrection and Christ's
return. Speak honestly.
Use concrete language. The world is broken.
Your kids will experience sorrows that you cannot shield
them from. Kids, you need to know that
Christ has defeated death by His own death.
You need to know that only God can take the wrong in this world
and make it right. Encourage one another with these
words. Imagine with me a Church that
cares for suffering Saints and helps the grieving hope in the
face of death. A church that builds one another
up and surrounds one another with comfort.
A church marked by compassion and humility and mutual care.
Pray for that kind of church here.
When my kids asked me a million questions about death during
family devotions this week, my answer to many of those
questions was, I don't know. I don't know when we'll die.
I don't know what death will feel like.
There's much we don't know. But we know this, that just as
our bodies are lowered into the ground, so they will be raised
on the last day in glory. We know that in the face of
death, we have hope. Let's pray,
Lord, We pray for us who bear so many sorrows, who face the death
of our loved ones. Help us to grieve, Lord, as
those who hope in Christ death and resurrection and return and
that sweet reunion we'll have with those Saints and with our
Savior. We pray in Jesus name on that.