Daylight, The Saving Time Series

Daylight, The Saving Time

I Thessalonians 5:5-11

1. Some people have it all wrong.

2. A man flew into Chicago & hired a taxi to take him downtown. As he was riding along they came to a red light & the driver went right on through the red light.

The man said, "Hey, the light was red. You’re supposed to stop." The driver said, "Yeah, I know, but my brother does it all the time."

Soon they came to a second red light & again he went right straight through. The passenger said, "You’re going to get us killed. That light was red. Why didn’t you stop?"

The driver said, "Don’t worry about it. My brother does it all the time."

Then they came to a green light & he stopped. The man said, "The light is green. Now is the time to go. Why don’t you go on through?"

The driver answered, "I know it’s green. But you never know when my brother may be coming through." [source: sermoncenrtal]

3. Have you ever felt like everyone in the world was crazy except for you and I, and you are not so sure about me?

4. With issues like gay marriage or the commonplace problem of illicit drugs, sometimes we have to scratch our heads and ask, "How did we get here?"

5. That is a complex question, and I do not have a simple answer. But I have a partial answer. Some of the incompatibility and tensions we face in daily life can be traced to conflict between two kingdoms, the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. We know about this, but we do we do with it?

Main Idea: Those of us who are in Christ have great privileges, like a heads-up knowledge of end time events; nonetheless, with great privilege comes great responsibility.

TS -------------> > God has certain expectations of us.

The first expectation God has for us is to:

I. BECOME Who We ARE (5-8)

God anticipates, demands, and commands that we buckle down and get serious about our Christianity; He wants us to put it into action.

A. Who we are IN CHRIST (5)

I Peter 2:9, " But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."

1. Sons of LIGHT and DAY

• You are all sons of the light and sons of the day

• Not a 2-tiered Christianity: spiritual and compromised

2. No longer in the age of NIGHT and Darkness

• We do not belong to the night

? ever find yourself somewhere you did not belong? A party that headed south? Maybe you have a lost family, and you want to and are there for them, but you know that you don’t fit in…

? it is not that we do venture into the Kingdom of night, but we do so as aliens

3. Already living in the Age to COME

I John 2:8 "Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining."

Hebrews 6:4-6a "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance…"

B. Who we are to become in DAILY LIFE (6-8)

1. UNLIKE others (6a)

? let us not be like others, who are asleep

? Who are these sleepers? -- unbelievers, but we have the potential to be like them!

? Some of us escape the tension of living among the Kingdom of Darkness by adopting the mentality of the natives. We dress like them, even if it is immodest. We follow the fads and we keep up with the Joneses; we let society set the agenda and we embrace it without thinking about it. We are spiritually sluggish.

2. AWAKE (6b-7a)

• I can think of a half dozen Christian people I would like to go to, sneak up on, and shout "wake up" right in their ear. The sad thing is that sometimes one of those persons is myself!

• In Romans 13:11, Paul deals with this same theme: "The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature."