As you’re being seated, please turn in your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, and that’s found on page 987 in our pew Bibles; 987. We’ll be studying verses 13 to 18 this evening. Before we hear God’s Word, let us go to Him in prayer.
Father, we’re just sung about the King of Glory and here in the land of the dying we hear His word from the land of the living, the land of glory. Would something of that glory rest upon our souls this evening as we hear Your Word. Open our eyes to behold wondrous things from Your Law. This is our prayer and we make it in the name of Him who was dead but behold, is alive forevermore, even Jesus our Lord. Amen.
1 Thessalonians chapter 4, beginning at verse 13. This is 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.”
The grass withers, the flowers fall, but the Word of our God shall stand forever and ever.
Donald Grey Barnhouse who was the pastor of the historic Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia for some thirty-three years, lost his first wife to cancer. And as he was driving home from her funeral with his four young children in the back seat, racked with grief, he was struggling to say some words of comfort to them. And he was in silence and had no idea what to say when a large moving truck passed their car in downtown, casting its huge shadow over their vehicle as it roared by. And then instantly, Barnhouse who was a master of illustrations, knew he had an illustration to tell his children. He said to them, “Children would you rather be run over by a truck or by its shadow?” The children said, “Well of course dad, we’d much rather be run over by the shadow. That can’t hurt us at all.” Barnhouse replied, “Did you know that two thousand years ago the truck of death ran over the Lord Jesus in order that only its shadow might run over us?”
See, like Barnhouse and his children, we all have questions about death and the grief that death brings in its wake. These questions are not new. They have been asked by every generation of human beings since the fall. In fact, the Thessalonian believers here tonight had a question for Paul. They’d written to him, they’d asked him these questions, he’s in this part of the letter where he’s applying the Gospel to them, and he turns to this matter of, “What happens to our loved ones when they die?” That’s what he’s answering this week. Now as we’ve been looking through this series we’ve been talking about life in the last days, life between the comings of Jesus, His first and His second coming. And the core of this book really is here in the latter part of chapter 4 in the verses we’re studying tonight and verses 1 through 11 which we’ll study, Lord willing, next week. It’s about the second coming of Jesus. And Paul has taught us in this application section beginning in chapter 4 verse 1, about our chastity – how to live between the comings of Christ and how to honor God with our bodies. And then last week he told us about how we do charity – how we love one another well with our work.
And tonight, he turns to, “What does it mean to die in the Lord now that Christ has come, is risen, and is coming again?” That’s the focus of this section and the main point, the main thought Paul has here tonight is this – Paul teaches us that we have a certain hope when facing death and grief because of the resurrection and return of Jesus our Lord. We have a certain hope when facing death and grief because of the resurrection and return of Jesus Christ our Lord. And we’ll look at this text under three headings. In the first place in verse 13 – why we need certain hope. Why we need certain hope. In verses 14 through 17 – the center of our certain hope. The center of our certain hope. And then in verse 18 – what we do with our certain hope.
- Why we Need Certain Hope
First of all then – why we need certain hope. Look at verse 13. “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.” The age-old question, “What happens when we die?” that’s what Paul’s talking about. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, “falling asleep” is simply shorthand for dying. Paul’s writing to a culture, to a church that comes out of a culture rather of Greek speculation and most of the philosophies floating and rattling around Thessalonica at that day were variations on the themes of Plato and Aristotle, both of whom either taught that physical existence ceases at death or some kind of reincarnation. There are all manner of speculations about what happens after we die.
Is our day any different? This week I was just reading Professor Alex Rosenberg at Duke University, the chairman of the Philosophy of Science Department. He’s written a little book called, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions, in which he calls us, in very unflattering terms, he says, “Human beings are like meat robots.” Right off the bat when he starts his book, he says we’re nothing but physical entities and so he says, “Here’s the question! What happens when we die?” Here’s his answer! To bring you a lot of hope and comfort this evening; he said, “Science teaches us that when we die everything pretty much goes on the same as before, except for you.” That’s one option today! The other option, maybe not in the ivory towers of academia but the one that makes its way around our streets and in our workplaces is this philosophy which so many subscribe to – “You only go around once, so eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die and who knows what happens after that.”
Paul’s writing to such a similar culture as ours, isn’t he? You see, Paul, like the rest of the Scriptures here, under the inspiration of the Spirit, teaches us something that’s diametrically opposed to either the ivory tower speculations of Professor Rosenberg or the man on the street’s common sense knowledge. He says, “No, life continues after death.” And so he now does something in this verse to comfort the believers right off the bat. This passage begins and ends with comfort. He says, “We don’t want you to be uninformed.” Why? Because they were grieving the loss of their loved ones. Grief transcends time, space, and culture, doesn’t it? Every culture has mourning rituals. Every culture has a cultural memory of grief. And so as Paul gets ready to unfold some of the most extensive teaching on the second coming in the entire New Testament, notice what he does with it. What is his first concern? Is it so that prophecy gurus and prophecy experts have some more fodder for the grist for their mills of speculations about when Jesus comes back? No, that’s not what Paul’s writing about. His first and foremost concern here, as he’s going to tell them about the second coming, is pastor. For Paul, there’s no disconnect between theology and practice. You see, for Paul, every bit of correct theology (and make no mistake, the apostle is passionate, passionate about correct theology) but it’s always connected to life, and he does that right here. He says, “I want to tell you about the second coming, and to do that, I want to do it for this reason, so that you won’t grieve as others do that don’t have no hope.”
There’s a Biblical Way to Grieve
What is he telling us? There’s a Biblical way to grieve! He says there is a right and a wrong way to grieve. Biblical grief, let me submit this definition to you, is grief that is viewed through the lens of resurrection hope. Biblical grief is grief that is viewed through the lens of resurrection hope. That’s what he’s doing in this section! Viewing grief this way, according to Paul the pastor apostle, viewing grief this way doesn’t make it any easier, doesn’t lessen its sting, doesn’t mean that it heals any faster or hurts any less; it simply means that grief does not drive us to despair because in the midst of our grief, the light of resurrection hope is always shining in the darkness. That’s how Paul looks at life! That’s what he’s wanting these believers to share in with him. So that’s why we need certain hope – because we grieve, because death is real, because for all of the writings and bluster of somebody like Professor Rosenberg, he too will have to go to a deathbed one day and all the degrees, and all the money and everything else that people accumulate for ourselves as fallen human beings on this planet will amount to nothing at that point. Grief is real and death is real!
- The Center of Our Certain Hope
And then Paul goes on in verse 14 to point us to the center of our certain hope. Notice how he begins there; “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 says that this teaching on the resurrection is the basis for everything that follows after this. “For,” that’s that little connective word here; he’s drawing a conclusion. And then he’s going to draw more conclusions from this conclusion, and he’s going to say to us that through Christ believers will be resurrected. Now we’ve got to go with the apostle here! He’s not simply saying that the resurrection of believers is going to happen. The center of Paul’s teaching on resurrection is this; our resurrection and Christ’s resurrection are not two separate events; they are two episodes of the same event. That’s why he will write to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 15, that Christ’s resurrection is the first fruits. Those of you who have been in farming know what first fruits is. It’s an indication of what the harvest is going to be like. And Paul says, “Do you want an indication of what the resurrection harvest is going to be like? Look at the one who started it.” For Paul, Christ’s resurrection two thousand years ago is our resurrection. And it may be separated by time and space, but we are simply waiting for the fulfillment episode. The “to be continued” is coming! Episode 1 is over; Episode 2 is coming of the same series, same event. And for Paul, there is no hope apart from resurrection. The center of Paul’s hope is resurrection hope. That’s what he wants them and us to grasp, and so he unfolds some basics of the resurrection here.
Basics of the Resurrection
Notice what he says. “We declare to you by,” verse 15, “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.” One resurrection, one people, one hope, one second coming of Jesus, no pre-tribulation rapture, no post-tribulation rapture, no mid-tribulation rapture. The next event in history, my friends, is not a rapture followed by seven years in a rebuilt temple. The next event in history is the coming of Jesus, and the “to be continued” being continued of His resurrection.
And Paul says, very simply, “When we’re here, those who are alive” – and he’s going to go on in the next section and say, “I don’t know when it’s going to be. You have no need,” he tells the Thessalonians, “to know about times and seasons for you know it will come like a thief in the night.” Paul is not concerned to give us times and seasons, nor was Jesus. He’s simply saying, “Be ready,” because when it happens, and he has to go back to the Old Testament to ransack language of what it’s like when God comes down. The sound of a trumpet like we see at the feasts of Israel, or before that on Sinai, the trumpet blast that comes with such audacity, such volume that you can’t even think. It’s going to be like that! And at that moment, everything is going to be transformed. The dead in Christ will rise and those of us who are alive, who have that privilege to be alive, will be instantly transformed with bodies that will never die.
Christians will Live Eternally
And all of this happens “through Jesus,” Paul says. Why does he put that little phrase in there? Because he wants to make sure you understand that none of this happens apart from Christ, that because of Jesus, death is never the end. Death may interrupt our lives, but it cannot separate us eternally from God. Because of Christ, through Christ, death never gets the final word. We will live eternally! Those who have gone before us are alive in Him, Paul says, awaiting that resurrection. Jesus will come the way we saw Him go. Isn’t that what the book of Acts told us, chapter 1 verse 9? “Why are you standing here, men of Israel? He will come the same way you saw Him go, on the clouds.” Clouds in the Old Testament signified the swiftness of God’s coming, to judge and to bless, and that’s what’s going to happen when Jesus returns – judgment and blessing for those who are His. And the present reality will disappear and the invisible realm which surrounds us now, it’s around us right now, and we’re so caught up in what we can see, taste, touch, smell and hear, and it’s a wonderful world that way. God made us to be creatures of sense. But if we think that’s all there is, we’re missing the greater reality to come that’s all around us right now, that when Jesus returns we’ll burst forth and the land of the living will replace this, the land of the dying. That’s what Paul is saying! When He returns, the veil will be taken away and we’ll see reality for what it’s always been. There won’t be any more fall!
Paul’s Goal for Resurrection
And that’s Paul’s goal here. Remember, this section is governed by what came before. He’s passionately concerned about missions and evangelism. And that’s the goal of missions and evangelism, isn’t it? Worship terminating in eternity! Worship that begins now because of what Jesus has done, and His certain and sudden return at any moment, that’s connected to missions for Paul in this letter. He wants all of us to see, as he says there in verse 17, that we will always be with the Lord, so that we realize the whole point of missions is to have those who are not with the Lord now to be with the Lord now so that we will all always be with the Lord together, forever, worshiping the one whom we’re with. That’s what Paul wants them to see! It’s all because of Jesus. Thus, according to Paul here, there’s one people of God who will enjoy one resurrection with one goal – worship forever in the presence of Him who was resurrected so that we would have the certain hope of resurrection.
- What we do With Our Certain Hope
What do we do with that certain hope? Verse 18 – “Therefore, on the basis of this, go write books about when Jesus’ return will be. Therefore, go set dates.” I love this verse because Paul was a pastor. He was a theologian of the first rank, but he’s got hurting people who were grieving and he says an amazing, divine “therefore” right here. “Therefore encourage,” or better translated, “comfort one another with these words.” The Greek word here is the same word Jesus uses in John 14 to tell us about the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament it’s the same word used in Isaiah 40:1 when the Gospel breaks forth in that Old Testament book, “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God.” Comfort one another with these words. And the goal of Paul’s teaching on the second coming is so that we would know that one day we’re going to be reunited with those who’ve died in the Lord. That, if they died in Christ, we’re going to see them again and there’s not going to be any more tears. You won’t need a shovel in heaven to dig a grave. There won’t be any more mortuaries because there’s only going to be life, and life eternal. And Paul says, “Do this together! Grief is never meant to be solitary! Comfort one another with these words! Take what I’m saying to you, Thessalonians,” Paul says, “about the certainty of Christ’s resurrection, about the certainty of our union with Him forever and ever, and comfort one another with these words.”
Grief is a Community Effort
As we comfort one another, we do grieve together, and then Paul says there, “with these words.” Have you noticed this through this letter? He did it there again in verse 15. “This we declare to you by a word from the Lord.” Paul’s so conscious of the fact that he’s not writing his own thoughts. This is not a guy who sat around in the desert for a number of years in the ancient near east and went, “I’ve got some really good thoughts about what happens after death!” He said, “This is God’s Word and so it’s certain,” more certain than the pews you’re sitting on tonight. Comfort one another with these words, with this teaching. Use God’s Word to grieve Biblically! Let the truth of God’s Word inform you at every point. That’s what Paul says! That’s how we view and do grief through the lens of resurrection hope. We have to speak the truth as it is in God’s Word to one another, so grief is a community effort. It’s a community effort that speaks God’s Word to one another.
The Greif of Christ
Two things to say by way of application. This passage teaches us so much, first of all, about Christ and our grief. How did Isaiah describe Him? “He was a Man of Sorrows, acquainted with…” what? Grief! Grief! We read about a Savior who goes to a tomb of a friend and weeps! He loved His friend. He’s not a God aloof, out there somewhere who feels nothing. He weeps; He grieves. A grieving Savior is a great comfort to grieving people because only a grieving Savior can bring light to the seeming endless darkness of grief. I was talking to a dear friend about this, this week, and he said something that stuck with me. He said, “There’s a sense in which the grief of losing a loved one never ends.” Some of you are sitting right there tonight. And the reality of that, the reality of that grief that never seems to end should never drive us to despair; it should drive us further into the arms of the one who knows what it is to grieve and who has promised a day when He Himself by His mighty resurrection power will end grief, and in the meantime has said, “I will walk with you through the grief no matter how long it takes.” Jesus does not have a timetable for your grief. He’s never going to give up on it. He’ll be with you as long as it takes. The Savior who knows our grief so well bore our grief on the cross precisely so that grief would not have the last word. That’s why He was a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. The empty tomb is the last word on grief, my friends. That’s what Jesus shows us about our grief.
The Death of Christ
What about Christ and your death? That’s a hard thing for a pastor to talk about – death. We’re around it a lot; you’d think it’d get easier. It doesn’t! Deaths never get easier, do they? Death is unnatural. All of us are going to die! If we had a picture around all of us right now, there’s clocks over each one of our heads that are never counting up, they’re only counting down, until the day we all must face death. And you see, the two most powerful words, it’s been said by a theologian I was reading recently, the two most powerful words we can say to somebody are, “Me too.” In other words, “I get it. I understand it.” My friends, do you realize that Jesus is the only God in history who, when you come to die, can say to you, “Me too”? He’s the only God in history who knows what it’s like to die! If you’ve lost a loved one He can say to you, “Me too.” When you and I are scared of death, and be honest tonight, I’m scared to die! I know the promises. I love Psalm 23. I’m scared. But I know that I am united to the one who also was scared in a Garden. “Father, if it’s your will, let this cup pass from me.” Christ knows what it’s like to be afraid of death and He knows what it’s like to beat it. Grief of the loss of one that we love hurts so deeply because death seems so final, doesn’t it? No more laughter, no more hearing that person’s voice, no more feeling his or her touch, but the one coming back, the one described here tonight, assures us that death is not final. We’ll always be with Him, never ending. It’s never final! That’s Paul’s point here.
And our confession reminds us, in the last chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith it reminds us that when we die our bodies remain united to Christ. The best is yet to come! We’ll be raised with bodies that never die and therefore, according to Jesus, death is an interlude, not the last act of the great drama of human history. It is a shadow we pass through to life. You see, when the curtain of resurrection rises on this glorious new reality Paul describes here where there’s no more goodbyes, there’s no more little caskets, there’s no more throwing dirt on the grave of somebody you love. When that happens, for the final act, it’s everlasting life, no more death, ushered in by the return of the resurrected one who, as He told us Himself – aren’t you fascinated by how He first identifies Himself to John in the book of Revelation? “I am He who was dead, but behold, I am alive forevermore.”
The most profound book I read this week in studying for this wasn’t written by a theologian and it wasn’t even a theological book. It was a children’s book. My wife said she found out about it and said, “You’ve got to order this book.” And it came in and she was reading it to Anna and when she got done both of us were near tears. It’s a book written by an author by the name of Anne Riley. It’s called The Voyage to the Star Kingdom. She wrote it for friends of hers who had two daughters who were afflicted with what is called Battens Disease, a rare neurological disease which will take these young ladies’ lives between the ages of 8 and 10 years old. So Anne Riley wrote this book to tell the girls story about passing from death to life to see the Star King, the Lord Himself. In one particularly moving scene when the Lord’s messengers, pictured in the book as angelfish, come to carry the two little girls away, the ones who are left behind ask, “Why aren’t we all going right now?” And Anne Riley writes beautifully that the Star King has His own ways. He calls some before He calls others. And then she describes about the girls’ passing into death. Riley writes, “The boat drew closer to the shadow. The other angelfish continued to zip through it, back and forth, in and out. “Will we fly through it too?” asked the youngest daughter. “Yes,” said the angelfish. “The shadow can seem frightening but you must remember that you are children of the Star King. You are strong enough to face the shadow because He has given you His strength.” Suddenly the girls felt stronger than ever before. “We must call out the King’s name as we pass through,” said the angelfish. “It will weaken the shadow even more.” And as the boat pierced the shadow, the angelfish flipped her tail wildly and the girls shouted with her, “I come in the name of the Star King, the prince of darkness has no power over me!”
And the best part about this children’s story, what hit me so much this week, is that it’s a true story. When we pass through the shadow as children of the true Star King, the shadow will have lost its power because He’s been raised from the dead and He’s coming back and death and Satan are defeated forever. And therefore, let us grieve with hope, because we belong to the Star King who’s coming back and we’ll be with Him forever. Let’s pray.
Father, help us. Help us to grasp the reality of the return of Jesus that makes our lives here bright with hope. Strength for today; bright hope for tomorrow. Help us Lord, to love Christ, to view our grief through the lens of resurrection hope this week, to live in light of His return. We pray in Jesus’ mighty name, amen.