1 Thes. 5:1-11
Having a baby—Not surprised.
Been preparing for awhile—vitamins, books, nursery, bag packed.
Even though we didn’t know the day nor the hour, we knew the day was coming and we were living our lives looking forward to that day.
In our Scripture this morning, we are instructed that looking forward ton the Lord’s return should be a similar sort of thing. Paul tells us that we should “be” a certain way as we await the Lord’s coming.
We’re going to look at five “be’s”
1. Be Informed
4But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. 5You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.
Brothers and sisters, I truly hope that as members or attenders of this church—or even as visitors of this church that we will never fail to teach you this simple truth.
Jesus is coming, Be ready.
As a church we have that responsibility. As parents we have the responsibility to teach our children that Jesus is coming unexpectedly and therefore we should live our lives in a manner consistent with that understanding.
As individual believers, we have a responsibility to understand this key concept of the Christian message. In the Assemblies of God we talk about the four cardinal doctrines of the church, Salvation, Holy Spirit, Healing and The Lord’s Return.
This is not just a minor issue in Chritianity but one of the major truths of the Bible, therefore we should study and understand it.
Secondly knowing the day is coming we should:
2. Be Alert
6So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled. 7For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.
3While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
On September 11 2001, America was a nation saying “peace and safety.” But in retrospect, it has become clear that we should have understood as clearly as a pregnant woman understands that D-day will come, that a terrorist attack was looming. As has been said many times since that day, On September 11 the terrorists had been at war with us for a very long time, we simply had not been at war with them.
In fact the preoccupation with hindsight has been much in the news lately as the 911 commission has delved deeply into the simple truth that any idiot can see now—“we should’ve seen it coming.”
As we look forward to the day of the Lord’s return, let us not be caught off guard. Let us, as Jesus instructed, watch and pray. let us discern the signs that His coming is near.
Let us not be lulled into a false sense of having “plenty of time.”
Peter warned of those ‘mockers” who would say “everything continues as it always has” deliberately forgetting that the people of Noah’s time had a similar sense of security. Paul and Peter believed that the Lord’s return was near even in their time. So there is no event that must happen before the Lord can fulfill His promise.
Let us be alert and let us…
3. Be Prepared
8But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. 9For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 10He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.
This week Kathleen was at Camp, I was home with Aaron and Anna. Who can guess what I was doing on Friday morning as Kathleen came home? Preparing for her return. But I had the benefit of knowing the day and the hour.
Verse 2 tells us that the Lord will come like a Thief. How do you prepare for a thief? You install the locks right now and then you keep them locked.
Of course the Lord’s return is unlike a their in that for those who have prepared it is a happy occasion But we must be prepared for that to be true. For those unprepared, it will be a terrible time, because it means their opportunity for preparation has expired.
So how exactly can we be prepared? That’s the really good news. The Scripture we just read tells us that we may have the hope of salvation, that God doesn’t intend for us to suffer God’s judgment, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. And that He died for us so that we may live together with him.
Christ has made the preparations for us! We could never prepare ourselves, because we could not pay for our own sins, so Jesus paid the price for us dying on the cross for us—in our place. The Bible word for this is grace—it means that Jesus gave us a gift we don’t deserve.
Nelson Mandela taught the world a lesson in grace when, after emerging from prison after twenty-seven years and being elected president of South Africa, he appointed Archbishop Desmond Tutu to head an official government panel called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The rules were simple: if a white policeman or army officer voluntarily faced his accusers, confessed his crime, and fully acknowledged his guilt, he could not be tried and punished for that crime. Hard-liners grumbled about the obvious injustice of letting criminals go free, but Mandela insisted that the country needed healing even more than it needed justice.
At one hearing, a policeman named van de Broek recounted an incident when he and other officers shot an eighteen-year-old boy and burned the body, turning it on the fire like a piece of barbecue meat in order to destroy the evidence. Eight years later van de Broek returned to the same house and seized the boy’s father. The wife was forced to watch as policemen bound her husband on a woodpile, poured gasoline over his body, and ignited it.
The courtroom grew hushed as the elderly woman who had lost first her son and then her husband was given a chance to respond.
“What do you want from Mr. van de Broek?” the judge asked. She said she wanted van de Broek to go to the place where they burned her husband’s body and gather up the dust so she could give him a decent burial. His head down, the policeman nodded agreement.
Then she added a further request, “Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him.
And I would like Mr. van deBroek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too. I would like to embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real.”
Spontaneously, some in the courtroom began singing “Amazing Grace” as the elderly woman made her way to the witness stand, but van de Broek did not hear the hymn. He had fainted, overwhelmed.
Justice was not done in South Africa that day. Something beyond justice took place. The name for it is grace—rather than seeking justice for sin, an old woman absorbed the hurt and returned instead forgiveness.
Jesus absorbed the hurt for you. He offers you forgiveness if you will come to him. If you will trust that his sacrifice pays for your sin. If you will turn from an old way of living to trust in and follow Him.
If you have done that then there’s one other thing you can be as you look for his return. You can…
4. Be Excited
11Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
Here is a theme we saw two weeks ago, and which in fact is woven throughout these two books we are studying: For those who have trusted in Jesus, news of his return is an encouraging word something to be excited about. The beginning which never has an end.
A rural housewife, Fay Inchfawn, who lived a generation ago, wrote these lines on her need and expectancy of God’s presence which speak to us of the more sophisticated frustrations of our modern day:
Sometimes, when everything goes wrong;
When days are short and nights are long,
When wash day brings so dull a sky,
That not a single thing will dry.
When friends deplore my faded youth,
And when the baby cuts a tooth
While John, the baby last but one,
Clings round my skirts till day is done;
And fat, good-natured Jane is glum
And butcher’s man forgets to come.
Sometimes I say, on days like these
I get a sudden gleam of bliss.
Not on some sunny day of ease
He’ll come...but on a day like this.
Friends let me encourage you this morning—He’ll come on a day like this.
As you look for his coming..
Be Informed
Be Alert
Be Prepared
Be Excited
If you can’t be excited because you’re not prepared, I encourage you to trust in Jesus today.
