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1 Thessalonians · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  Well, if you guys are open to 1 Thessalonians 5, our text this morning will be verses 1 to 11. Allow me to read it. We'll pray and begin. Beginning in verse 1. It says, Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
• 0:30
  But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night. Those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love.
• 0:54
  and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. Lord, we do ask that you would bless the reading and hearing and preaching of your word. We ask, Lord, that we would conform our lives to it. God, open our ears to hear your truth, make our hearts submissive to it.
• 1:24
  We're so grateful for this body. Lord, we're thankful for Highland. Thankful for this family. Thankful, Lord, that we can be united under the blood of Jesus. And it's in his name we pray. Amen. Amen. I love the book of 1 Thessalonians because it describes people like us. People who are broken and imperfect, incomplete. People who sin. People who fail. People with trappings.
• 1:49
  and vices. People who are tired of pretending like their lives and their marriages and their jobs and their families are perfect all the time. It describes real people with real problems who need the real gospel. And last week we studied the retrieval of Christ's people, the rapture. I challenge us not to get bogged down in the intricacies of end-time events, but rather to be encouraged with the thought that Christ will not forsake his people.
• 2:18
  That those who have already died in Christ will arise. That those who are yet alive will ascend. And the full church for the first time in history will be gathered together. Christ will call to his church, arise my beautiful one and come away. And the archangel will shout, here comes the bride. And we will be with Christ in the fullness of glorified fellowship forever. Can I get an amen? This morning we answer the question, what will happen when mankind is judged?
• 2:48
  What will happen when both believers and unbelievers stand in the Lord's presence and give an account for their deeds done on earth? Scripture says that the day will come when we stand before the Lord's judgment throne. It says that not every day will be like it is today. And it challenges believers who the text will call, and as we've seen, children of light. It challenges children of light to live today in light of that day. I have a picture to show you. This is Allegra.
• 3:21
  There she is. This is Allegra standing last week in Tanzania. She was in Tanzania supporting her friend who was standing to her right, Joanna Krieger. Joanna Krieger, for the last three years, has been living in Tanzania as a New Tribes missionary there. She has lived the last three years in Dar es Salaam, which is the capital city of Tanzania, in order to learn Swahili, which she has done. You can imagine how difficult that would be to learn.
• 3:48
  Joanna asked Allegra to come over to support her, to help her this last week. Some changes in her ministry that have to happen in the next several years. And so Allegra went over there for the sole purpose of encouraging Joanna for a week on field, on the field. Tanzania is a difficult place to be, especially for a single young woman. Very difficult country, closed to the gospel. In fact, has many little nations within that political nation of Tanzania. There are many tribes.
• 4:17
  people groups within that nation who do not yet have the gospel, do not yet have God's word in their own language. And that is the mission and goal of New Tribes Missions, to get the gospel to be preached where it has not yet been preached. And so Allegra went over there to support Joanna. Hallie and I, during this last week, were texting her in order to support her and don't give up and don't be discouraged. And I know it's a hard place to be. It is a difficult, difficult, difficult.
• 4:43
  country to minister in. And so you're there to support her. We'll support you. We love you. And we cannot wait for you to come back. We tried to sustain her through text messaging until she could come back home. She came back home a couple of days ago and there she is. I asked her one day, any highlights, any things that you got to do that were fun? And she texted back one day and she said, today I got to eat at Chick-fil-A. And I said, I didn't know.
• 5:08
  that Chick-fil-A had made it to Tanzania. I didn't know that. Now, when you close your eyes and you picture Chick-fil-A for just a minute, and you're imagining for a moment 104th and Federal right over there, and there's Chris Jordan inside the drive-thru window, right? And there's Carolina, right? And she's in there, and she's giving you your French fries and your Chick-fil-A nuggets and all that stuff, right? Whatever you picture in your head is not the place she ate. She said, I got to eat at Chick-fil-A, and then she sent me this picture.
• 5:43
  She said, they hand you a black trash bag full of potato chips and chicken on top. They hand that to you. And I said, oh, wow, that is not what I pictured. And then she said, so I went around kind of the back and I got to see the kitchen and she sent me this picture. There's the kitchen. A guy standing there in front of a bubbling cauldron of witch's brew is what it looks like to me.
• 6:06
  Right, Hallie's been talking to me about her desire to renovate our kitchen. I showed her that picture of their kitchen and I said, that I think we could do, right? I said, Hallie, they even have the concrete countertops that you want. You know, we could do that. There it is. If you just for a moment close your eyes and imagine the ideal Christian man or woman, the perfect one, the perfect Christ follower, what they look like.
• 6:36
  what they speak like, how they act, how they treat their spouse, how they treat their co-workers, the hospitality and sacrificial living that they embody, how they treat their kids. When you imagine the perfect Christ follower and then imagine yourself standing next to them, do you measure up? Or is there this vast difference, this chasm difference, as there is in my own life?
• 7:11
  where I imagine the perfect man following Christ, and I try to become that man, and I just realize over and over and over how short I fall. Do you imagine that kind of difference? I ate at Chick-fil-A today. Well, that had nothing to do with Chick-fil-A. Listen, they're serving chicken, but that ain't Chick-fil-A. And that's how I feel about my own Christian walk sometimes. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm serving chicken. You know, like, it's coming out.
• 7:41
  But man, it ain't Chick-fil-A. We asked this question a couple of months ago. The Holy Spirit of God, the actual Holy Spirit of God, dwells in each of us, as Scripture says, that in Christ, His Spirit comes and lives in us and begins to refine us and transform us from the inside out. Then shouldn't it be easy to discover who are believers and who aren't? Shouldn't the difference between the two just be...
• 8:11
  A veritable gulf that you would look at a man or woman and say, that is absolutely a believer because of how distinctly they live. I've heard this phrase before, and honestly, I've heard it before. It's confusing to me. I've heard people say, he's such a nice guy. He'd make a great Christian. You ever heard anybody say something like that? He's such a nice guy. He'd make a great Christian. That phrase makes no sense to me. An equally nonsensical statement, in my opinion, is this one.
• 8:42
  wait, she's a Christian, but she's so crabby. It makes no sense that if we are in Christ, we would actually, we should actually begin to live and look like him. Isn't that what the Bible says? Shouldn't genuine believers stand out like sore thumbs? The lifestyle that Christ lived, the language that he used, the sacrifices that he made, the kindness and grace that he exhibited. He was a man that said yes to God.
• 9:14
  Every time. And it made him, I'm going to call him the most obvious man on the planet. He was just obvious. There was no guessing about where he stood, about what he believed. And in the same way, children of light are the people who say yes to God. Yes to God. We should stick out like a sore thumb. We should be the most obvious people on the planet. So what does our text this morning say about us? Modern day children of light.
• 9:41
  And how should that change the way that we live? If you guys are taking notes, I have a few points. The first one is this. Children of light are informed by the scriptures. They are informed by the scriptures. If you look back at verse one, it says, now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you for you yourselves are fully aware. I like that phrase. You are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
• 10:08
  While people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape. You have no need of further writing, he says, because you are fully aware. Such a vast wealth of knowledge was available to first century saints through the Old Testament writings and through the teachings of the apostles that Paul had nothing to add. They were an informed church.
• 10:36
  They read the scriptures, they studied the scriptures, they had done their homework, and so the Lord had blessed them with knowledge. They were not, as many churches are today, an ignorant congregation. People ask me on occasion how I have come to know the Word of God like I do. The answer is pretty simple. I study it. I teach it. I desire it. I really do. I study what the Lord has given, and then I ask Him for more.
• 11:07
  I do my homework and then I ask for extra credit. I finish everything on my plate and then I ask him for more. Lord, I want to know more. Give me more. I've been in full-time church ministry for 16 years. I teach, and I was trying to figure this out with Hallie yesterday. I think I teach an average of three times per week. In the last 16 years, I probably teach an average of three times a week. I think it may even be more than that. I don't know. But three times a week, I think it's pretty safe to say.
• 11:36
  That means that I've taught somewhere around 2,400 sermons. Can you imagine that? You'd think I'd be better at it. Honestly, that's the conclusion I drew. I didn't know that it was that many. 2,400 sermons. I thought, man, you'd think I'd be a lot better at doing this. You'd think at this point, not only that I would preach them better, but that I would live them better. Because if I've preached 2,400 and...
• 12:07
  I studied five to ten hours per sermon for its delivery. Man, you're talking about tens of thousands of hours invested in God's Word, asking the Lord for wisdom. You'd think that the battles that go on in my own heart and mind wouldn't even be there anymore. Honestly, when I drew that conclusion, it didn't make me feel proud. It made me feel ashamed. I was brought under conviction.
• 12:32
  Here I've been sitting under this book for years and years and tens of thousands of hours and yet I'm still struggling with some of the basic things that Jesus told me to put to death. The basic stuff. I'm surprised at times how little believers who have known the Lord for so long understand so little about his word. And I don't mean this to be a kick in the pants unless that's what we need. The Thessalonian church were baby Christians.
• 13:03
  Do you remember saying that a few months ago? Baby Christians, less than a year old, these people brand new in the faith. And yet they studied, they devoted themselves to God's word and the Lord blessed them with understanding. And you would say, well, understanding about what? Verse one gives two specific things that they had come to figure out. They had discerned from their own study of God's word, two things, and they both come in verse one. It says now concerning the times, do you guys see that? The times and the seasons.
• 13:31
  They're like, okay, so they were good at reading clocks and they knew that when the leaves turned yellow, fall was coming, right? I mean, that's not what this is referring to. Times refers to the time periods involved in God's dealings with humanity. Hebrews 1, verse 1 says that God has spoken at various times and in various ways. What theologians would call dispensations.
• 14:03
  And that's what Paul is referring to here, the dispensations of God's working in and among his people. God does not always deal with people the same way every time. Although God is unchanging in his nature and his character, he deals with people differently throughout different genres or ages in history, right? We know that that's true. For instance, if you live during Old Testament times,
• 14:30
  A faithful man or woman would have brought a lamb to be sacrificed in worship to God, right? That's how you did it. That was your act of worship. But today, if you were to sacrifice a lamb today, that would be a curse. It would be blasphemous, right? Because you'd be saying the sacrifice of Christ was not enough.
• 14:53
  We've now got to add to it. We need one more blood offering, right, for our sin. Jesus did not die once for all for all of the sin of humanity. You'd be declaring that Jesus wasn't good enough. It'd be blasphemous. So at different times in history, God deals with us in certain ways. There was a time when the Lord required worship on Saturday because that was the creation day on which he rested. But today the church celebrates on Sundays.
• 15:21
  In honor of the day that Christ rose from the dead, right? Different times, different ways. Now, a dispensationalist is one who recognizes that God deals differently with people in different ages. The simplest understanding of that, one that we all know, whether we know that this is what we know or not, is that God dealt differently in the Old Testament times than in the New Testament times.
• 15:44
  Things changed when Jesus came. Old Testament believers were held to different expectations, although always saved by grace through faith. Everybody throughout history saved by grace through faith, but the expectations and dealings of God were different with Old Testament saints than New Testament saints, us. And that will change again one day when Christ comes back to establish his kingdom. All of that will change again. The expectations will change again. These are what our text this morning calls...
• 16:13
  The times. Now what about the seasons? The seasons is the Greek word kairos. It refers to the features and signs that mark the end of this age and the ushering in of the next. In other words, it is the setting of the stage for the coming of Christ to establish His kingdom. Things like the rise of the Antichrist, the Great Tribulation, the binding and loosing of Satan, the characteristics of the end times.
• 16:42
  are the seasons now imagine these baby christians at thessalonica had discovered these truths by themselves simply by devoting themselves to the scriptures they had figured out dispensationalism which books are still being written about today
• 17:01
  doctoral dissertations are still being written on dispensationalism today. They had figured out dispensationalism and they had figured out the signs of the coming of Christ at the end of the age. Can you imagine? These men and women, although babies in Christ, had devoted themselves to the scriptures to the point that they were beginning to figure some things out. And what I love is their understanding of these inevitable, this inevitable judgment of Christ caused them to remain alert.
• 17:31
  Even when others, verse 3 says, were proclaiming peace and security. So let me just ask a couple of questions. How is your devotion to the Scriptures? Are your devotions actually devoted? We'll say something like, well, it's time to have devos. And by that, oftentimes what we mean is two minutes. Two minutes in the Scriptures or in some Scripture help book.
• 18:00
  that is intended to give us some kind of little tidbit of theology that will get us through our day. And I don't want to rip on those. Those are fine. There's nothing wrong with using devotional books or anything else. But theology was not meant to be broken down into two-minute sound bites. That's not what it was intended to be. It was actually meant to change our way of thinking. It was meant to change the way we live our lives. And that's what this church had done. That's what they're commended for. And here's another question. This church,
• 18:31
  had through their study of the Scriptures realized that Christ would one day return to judge the earth. And it caused them to live differently. They lived their present in light of their future. Do we live in the reality of the coming judgment? Now we praise God that in Christ we will be judged and found righteous. Amen? Because of the blood of Jesus. But there will be a day when Jesus comes to judge the earth. And are we living today in light of that day?
• 19:02
  These Christians, these children of light were informed by the scriptures. But notice also, children of light live in contrast to children of darkness. Children of light live in contrast to children of darkness. We pick up in verse four. He says, but you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do. Let us keep awake and be sober.
• 19:31
  For those who sleep, sleep at night and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober. He says it again, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. There is a marked difference between the character and conduct of believers when they are contrasted with the world.
• 19:52
  Their character will change. They will become, it says, children of light, children of God. We become children of God when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus was the light of the world. Upon belief, the Spirit of Christ comes into us and dwells in us, and we become part of that light. Jesus says in Matthew 5, verse 14, you are the light of the world. Let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
• 20:19
  Our character will change, but also our conduct will change. You notice in verse 6, he says, let us not sleep. Let us keep awake and be sober. Let us not sleep. Let us be sober. Verse 8 says the same thing. Let us be sober. Now you'll remember from last week, those who had fallen asleep from last week were those who had died. He says back in verse 13 of chapter 4, we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep.
• 20:49
  that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. Those who were asleep had died in the Lord. And now he uses that same analogy, describing those who will have become alive in Christ, follow this, describing those who have become alive in Christ, but are still acting as those who are dead. He says, it doesn't make any sense. Why would you do that?
• 21:16
  Why would you become alive in Christ and then continue to act like the world, which is passing away? That doesn't make any sense. Why are you alive but acting like you're dead? Let us not sleep. Why would we act like the dead world? But instead, let us be sober. Now, in the context, the author is saying, I think that those Christians who have been made alive in Christ, who are now awake and aware in Christ, who have the light of Jesus dwelling in them, who have crossed over from death to life,
• 21:45
  and yet do not live in light of that reality, he says, must be drunk. It's the only explanation I can give. Do you see what he says? For us to be in the light and yet act like we're walking in the darkness, he said, the only explanation I can give is that you're drunk. Let us live sober and not asleep. Children of light live in contrast to children of darkness. Last, children of light are destined for salvation. Children of light are destined.
• 22:16
  for salvation. And this is my favorite part of the text this morning. My favorite part, we pick up in verse 9. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with Him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. Destiny is a funny word. We may say an accomplished man was destined for greatness.
• 22:49
  We would say that we and our spouses were destined for each other. When we use the word destiny, we use it for something we hope will come true, but in reality could turn out much differently. Now this word from verse 9, destined, in Scripture is very different. When this says believers are destined for salvation, it refers to something that is absolutely sure and cannot change.
• 23:18
  Every believer has been saved, this says, from the wrath of God and saved unto salvation. And this should provide us with absolute security to stand even on judgment day.
• 23:35
  How in the world can you end with verse 11? I was joking with the worship team this morning. We're meeting in my office early this morning to pray. And I said, this morning's message, we're talking about the day of the Lord, the coming judgment, the day that Jesus comes back and judges the whole earth, the day that everyone will stand before him and give an account for the deeds that they've done. This is not good news, right? I mean, this is one of those passages that's tough to preach.
• 24:04
  How do you end with verse 11? Therefore, encourage one another. Build one another up. How is this? I was joking with him and I said, don't worry. It's a good news judgment passage. Feel encouraged. Jesus is coming back. He's going to wreck it. What are you talking about? How do you encourage one another? Here's the beautiful thing that if you are in Christ, then you will stand even in judgment. You can be encouraged. God does not want you to be insecure or unstable. I know that's what it causes in most people.
• 24:35
  who don't know Christ are not sure of his grace. It causes insecurity, intimidation, and fear, but not for the believer. We look forward to that day. He shows us that the destiny of every single one of his kids, you and I, is eternal life. And so we need not wonder about our future. We can live in the freedom that Jesus Christ, verse 10 says, who died for us, so that whether we're awake or asleep, we might live.
• 25:05
  with him, that what we are destined for is eternity. We are children of light. We are the people who say yes to God. And this will cause us to stick out like sore thumbs. But I think in the best possible way, our character and our conduct should leave no question who we are and who we serve. Our destiny is salvation from the wrath of God and to eternity. And let us be a church who lives today in light of that day. Amen.
• 25:36
  Amen. Lord, we are grateful for Your Word. Again, thankful, Lord, for the security that it provides. God, may our character and conduct match. Match Your Son. May we not have that great disparity between the two Chick-fil-A's. God, that maybe we're serving chicken, but man, we ain't doing it right. God, I pray that we would align ourselves with Your Word. We thank You.
• 26:05
  for coming back. We look forward to that day, even in judgment. We know that we will stand because of the work of Christ and His power and not our own. And it's in His name we pray. Amen.