Tonight, we turn in the scriptures to the book of 1 Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, and that's found on page 1257 in your pew Bibles. I'm going to be reading through from verse 13 of chapter 4 through 5 verse 11. Let's give our attention tonight to the word of the Lord. 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 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 concerning the times and 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 upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape 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, and 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, 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 sleep, we might live with him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. Tonight is really a follow-up to this morning's message where we saw from Isaiah chapter 40 the Lord's desire and his intention to comfort his people. The Lord wanted to do that. He said to the angelic hosts fulfilled already we saw as we looked at Christ's coming and in the person of John the Baptist. Comfort, comfort my people. Prepare the way for the Lord. When you understand the Lord's desire to comfort his people when he has told us like he did this morning that he has covered our sins and that the warfare is over and that there's peace with him and that we can enjoy him in that. That is the most liberating and freeing gospel message that God himself is the one announcing to us comfort. He desires to take away all of your distresses because of sin. He desires to shield you so that you're not even anxious. He desires to help you in your deepest distresses. Tell Jerusalem, tell them, her sins I cover, her warfare is over, and I am committed to shepherd her. I am committed to shepherd her and deal carefully and tenderly with her, the people and their young, their children. That's my commitment. One of you walked up to me this morning and said, oh, pastor, what a God we have. I love him. I was really taken by that. Such simple, responding faith. I love him. As you all know, the sad reality is that comfort seems to come and go. It's all, sometimes for us, very circumstance-driven. In the great passage of Philippians chapter 4, you remember the apostle had to deal with this, and he told them to not be anxious over anything. Clearly, it was a great problem of what Lloyd-Jones called years ago the tyranny of the circumstance. The tyranny of the circumstance, when circumstances are outside of our control, which they all are, and things happen that are beyond our control, and they assault us. And you know all the gospel comfort that you once had seemed to quickly go away. And we quickly can spiral down into distress and worry, questioning even the goodness of the Lord. even though our whole lives the Lord has been committed to speak comfort to you, our whole lives the Lord has been committed to have messengers rise up, announce on hilltops comfort to you. That is exactly the struggle that began to happen in Thessalonica as they had lost sight of that comfort. Some very tragic things had begun to plague them in this church. And they seem to have lost gospel comfort. and i stood back from this passage and i thought well what is the lord's remedy to that what did the lord do for them the preaching of the gospel didn't stop surely the pastors got up and they kept preaching comfort because that was the mission from the lord wasn't it that the lord wants us to do that twice in our text tonight there is a grand imperative that dominates the section. Did you catch it? A grand imperative that God sees as a responsibility of you and for you as Christians in looking at brothers and sisters who are distressed. I want everyone to look at verse 18. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. And then look down at verse 11. therefore encourage one another and edify or build up one another just as you are doing now the word can mean encourage but most of the other translations use the word comfort and i believe that should be maintained not only for context purposes but because the history of that word but because of what we looked at this morning from isaiah that word meant a lot to our lord the word means that comfort comfort so hear it in that language therefore comfort one another with these words therefore comfort each other that's the driving imperative of this chapter that's the driving responsibility that the lord has in this chapter so put it together if you put together this morning and tonight already you're thinking well the comfort that we enjoy from the lord that the lord continues to speak to us that god from his eternal counsel wanted us to have he wanted constantly to have that burden lifted the distresses and the hardships because of what his son came to do but he understands and he knows that that comfort can become very clouded when distressing things come upon us in life and how does the lord remedy that? How does the Lord fix that? He wants you, his people, to understand that you have a great responsibility. That as you continually are ministered comfort from his messengers, To think of the responsibility that you have to go and comfort your brethren in their struggles like you've been comforted from him. To speak and advance the same comfort. That's the way God maintains the comfort in the life of his people. This is an integral way that he does that. And 1 Thessalonians is a book that's calling us to that. That's why these two imperatives just shine in this text. So there are three ways tonight, as I study this, that I see how we can do this. The first is we comfort one another about our hope. The second, we comfort one another concerning the day of judgment. And third, we comfort one another by reminding our brothers and sisters who they are. I love these three things that are highlighted in this text tonight. in chapter 4 the apostle addresses concerns that had developed in the church in Thessalonica in verses 13 through 18 what we find is that there was a real struggle over what issue death death it's interesting in Isaiah that that was the very reality the voice was to make clear they're all dying they're all when the breath blows they die and the lord in that context then went on to announce comfort himself that was the whole model of isaiah chapter 40 well here's what happened in the church in thessalonica some of the members of the church had died and it was in the face of death and the losing of loved ones that all of their hope had now become clouded. This was something they were freshly experiencing as Christians in this announcement of the gospel that Jesus had defeated death. And all the apostles were so earnest in teaching that Jesus had triumphed over death and the anticipation of the return of Christ. This whole book's about the return of Christ that is coming is at hand. Well, what specifically was going on was. False teachers were in the region and even in the church telling people, spreading the idea that Christ had already come and they had missed it. A kind of preterism, if you want to know. This caused a lot of distress. This caused a lot of heartache. And the question then, what about grandma who died? What about our loved ones who died? So you have a front in this particular section, a real struggle with death. Now, was it unclear to them? The apostles were very clear about the resurrection. Jesus was very clear in his teachings about the resurrection. You'll remember when Lazarus had gotten sick and the Lord let his life transpire. Remember what happened Jesus was playing when Martha and Mary had come and they're just overwhelmed with grief Lord if you'd have been here our brother would not have died I know that whatever you ask from God God will give to you Jesus said to her your brother will rise again wow Martha says well I know he'll rise again in the resurrection on the last day oh it was clear she had a thorough going what we call eschatology she understood it Jesus said I am the resurrection in the life whoever believes in me though he dies yet he shall live and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die do you believe this one of the great struggles for your brethren is death I was at the library the other day and I was in the dollar section of the library and I found a book that I had heard about for so many years and I just had never seen a copy and it was for a buck so I purchased it it was Nicholas Wolterstorff's book on the death of his son Lament for a son I picked it up I was curious about it I opened it up and this is what I read The call came at 3.30 on a Sunday afternoon A bright sunny day Mr. Wolterstorff? Yes Is this Eric's father? Yes Mr. Wolterstorff, I must give you some bad news Yes Eric has been climbing in the mountains and he has had an accident. Yes. Eric has had a serious accident. Yes. Mr. Wolterstorff, I must tell you, Eric's dead. Mr. Wolterstorff, are you there? He writes, we took him for granted. Perhaps we all take each other for granted. The routines of daily life distract us. He was a gift of 25 years when the gift was finally snatched away I realized how great it was then I could not tell him. How can I be thankful in his gone-ness for what he was? I find I am but the pain of the no more outweighs the gratitude of the once was. Will it always be so? I didn't know how much I loved him until he was gone. Is love like that? Gone from the face of the earth? Mr. Wolterstorff, I have bad news now I was troubled by many of the conclusions in that book but I did find this and it illustrated a point for me in light of the sermon I was working on here is God on the mountaintop this morning saying publish good news publish it give everyone glad tidings give my people glad tidings make sure they understand. When the sun's up, it's easy to theoretically believe these things. But what about when your belief is tested and it collides with dark reality? It's at this moment Christians fall apart. It's at this moment Christians can really fall apart. And when the dark cloud comes so unexpectedly often, it has the effect of drowning out all the comfort of 20 years of sermons doesn't it well if you've been through it you'll say yes and you may even have yawned this morning through that i don't really see how that really spoke to me you could have done that but when stuff like this happens oh man you're faced with what you believe in a real way all of a sudden and it shakes you up and people have even had major slips people have even had major theological shifts in the midst of things like this feeling that there's no answer and deluded as they go off alone led them to open theism and all sorts of different things why am i going through this well it's that moment your confession matters doesn't it a lot it's that moment what you believe matters a lot um we have to hold on to something we have to have a lifeline at times like this. And this is what God's telling us tonight. This is what God's explaining for us. I want my people comforted. But I want it done through you. All of you stand there and say, I don't know what to say when these things happen. I don't either, by the way. But the simple truth of your confession, Stan, the truth of what we've always believed at that moment is going to matter more to that person than you ever know and would realize. And Paul here does that for them as an example. Their loved ones are dying and he comforts them and he says, listen, I don't want you, brethren, and then he's going to say, this is how you do it. This is the words you can even use. I don't want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep. That was a metaphor for death in those days. It meant that they had died. And he says, I don't want you to be in darkness about this. If we believe, if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, here's the truth. God will bring these saints back. They're not lost. It's not the end. Here's what's going to happen. Christ is going to descend on the clouds of heaven. He's going to come down. And there's going to be a shout. It's going to be glorious. The voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God. And guess what? Those very loved ones whom you put in the box and put six feet under are getting up. And he's going to bring their souls and they're going to reunite. And they're going to have brand new resurrected bodies. And then we who are alive, we're going to all be changed in a moment. In the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, that the dead in Christ are going to rise. And then we're going to all go up in the air and we're going to forever be with the Lord. What did He just do? He comforted them with the hope of the future. It would be an awful thing if there were no hope for the future. It's that kind of comfort. that gets us through. It's that kind of comfort of you to one another that is there in that same faith, believing these things, that is the greatest help. I think it's sad that so much of this sad world doesn't have that. Darcy was just telling me of a woman who she was by the other day, and she was expressing to Darcy that her brother died, And Darcy says, I'm so sorry to hear that. What happened? Well, he killed himself. That was it. The person had no perspective through it whatsoever. Comfort one another with these words. Comfort. There are a lot of people who need comfort because the clouds have covered the mountaintops where God is announcing it. You know how many times I've preached and people sometimes just can't hear it. And you're the conduits at times. You're the ones to go to the widow and the widower. It's not just the domini. You're the ones. You're the ones to go and to talk to them and encourage them and help them. Comfort them. You feel it? I've done this for you your whole life. Go to them. Go to my loved ones. Do this for them. That's the first thing. What's the second? The second encouragement and comfort had to do with the second coming. In verse 1 of chapter 5, he breaks into another aspect of the comfort they needed. Concerning the times and seasons, brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. 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 upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape. You know, I read that, and I think that's scary. Don't you? To some degree? I mean, we're really morbidly obsessed with the question of the when in Christianity. And what emotion is fueled when I go through God's people? Here's the strangest thing. What emotion is fueled in God's people when I talk about the day of judgment? Fear. I don't get it. The world doesn't fear it, but for some strange reason, Christians do. I preached a sermon on Revelation last Sunday, and I had so many of you come up to me and say, Revelation, we never realized it in the course of our life. It's so comforting. Well, how sad that the end of the world has been treated and so misunderstood this way. you know what you need to know. Isn't it so interesting what Paul says here? Look what he says to comfort them. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you. Wow. This is not going to scare you. Paul was heavily leaning on Jesus' teachings and probably interacting with Mark 13, but of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the sun, but only the Father. Take heed, watch and pray, for you do not know when the time is. It's like a man going to a far country who left his house and gave authority to his servants and to each his work and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster in the morning, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping and what i say to you i say to all watch that could be scary if i'm not watching sure but listen to paul's explanation of the intention of our lord's teaching here he's explaining this don't worry about the times and the hours and when it's going to occur you don't need to worry about those things you know perfectly what you need to know that's so comforting isn't it you know what you need to know what do you know Well, verse 12, you know perfectly the day of the Lord comes like a thief. You know when a thief comes, he doesn't ring the doorbell. And it's going to be sudden. You say, well, that's what I'm terrified about. And what does Paul say? Hey, but you are not in darkness so that that day should overtake you as a thief. That's his first thing he's doing. You're not. There's some words that should be felt. You're not in darkness. This doesn't apply to the Christian that this day is going to overtake him. We're not in darkness about that day. It's a day of light for you. 2 Thessalonians describes what that day is going to be for us when he says the Lord Jesus, The whole picture of that day is a rescue mission of Him coming down and snagging you and grabbing you and shielding you for those who love His appearance. And then look at what He says here. I mean, verse 9. God's not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation. I think a lot of brothers and sisters need to know They're not going to go and be judged for their sins. I believe a lot of Christians still, after all the gospel preaching, don't fully understand that. Am I wrong to say that? And the Lord's saying this is where they need you. Comfort concerning the day of judgment. Comfort about the hope. Comfort that wrath is not appointed for the believer. And then there's one more. I don't know that anything will motivate us to holiness more than an understanding that we do not belong to the darkness. What does Paul do? Look at verse 5. You are all children of light, children of the day. Notice this emphasis. 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 and those who get drunk are drunk at night. We don't belong to that. God shattered your darkness. God brought you out. When you came to Christ and you believed in Him, He put an end to sin's dominion over you. He shattered that dominion and He freed you up and He put you in the light. And so Paul's saying, Christians need to understand the difference as God sees it, the difference of what God has accomplished. Those in darkness are enslaved to their sin. Those in darkness are sitting in prisons of their own misery. They enthrone themselves on their own hearts. Those who are sons of the night, two things characterize them. What are the sons of the night and how are they characterized? Well, what are they? Sleep and drunkenness. Well, you know this. For those who sleep, sleep at night. Those who get drunk or drunk at night, sleep is indifference. Sleep is carelessness. Sleep is those who have no interest in the things of God. Sleep are those who are totally out of touch and out of tune with anything that is of the Holy Spirit. And it's characterized by the whole reality. We know that drunkenness is a characteristic that happens to sons of the night. It's a night quality. Well, listen to what Paul's saying. That's not who you are. that's not who you are. If God has come to us today and said, you're not going to go through the judgment day, you're sheltered in Christ. Think about what he's saying now. If I've done all that for you, then don't live as those who will. I've set you apart to something way different, a way different purpose. You're a child of the light, so therefore watch and be sober. Stay awake in your Christianity. Be alert in your Christianity. Be watchmen who expect the Lord to come. Be at the post. Maintain the post. Put on armor. Be like a Roman soldier. Expect your Savior to come. Put on the breastplate of faith and love is the helmet and the hope of salvation. Be ready for the battle. Now, do you see why that's comforting? God didn't come and say to you or God doesn't come to us and whip us harshly. Get with it or else. God announced in his gospel, you're one of my children. Since I've justified you by faith, since I've done this for you, reckon to yourselves now. Learn to think as I think of you to be dead to sin but alive to God. Do you see the comfort in that? Here's the comfort. There may be young people doing these things. There may be old people doing these things. You could get angry. Or you could comfort them. You say, how do you comfort people in their sin? I'm not saying that. I'm saying this. You encourage them in the very confession. And you encourage them and comfort them in light of what God has done for them. What has God done? Dear young person, God was wonderful to you. You're not a child of darkness. He put a sign on you. You've got to stop what you're doing. You can't behave like those who are running around and are going to be judged for those things. You've got to stop. Because God made you something different. God's done something wonderful for you. And so you need to start behaving and being what God has declared to you. I want to encourage you, dear brother. You're showing patterns that concern me. And you're a professed believer shouldn't be living that way. God loves you, therefore. He's not appointed you to wrath, therefore. Why would you spit in His face? Why would you take all this mercy and all this grace and all this gospel and like a football, you don't want to do that. I know of no motivation to holiness and a love for God's law more than to understand that God speaks to His children that way. Calling us to be awake. So do you see the responsibility tonight? All this announcing of comfort to you in the gospel preached from the hilltop. I want you to get down and I want you to go do something for me. Comfort my people, says the Lord. Tell them I pardon their sin. Tell them in the face of death when it's all clouded and they can't see clearly, I'm coming again for them. Tell them when they're scared. that it's the Father's good pleasure to give them the kingdom. Oh, you have a responsibility, you bet. I can't help, and I close with this one, I can't help but think of our Lord on the cross when he's pinned up on that cross and he looks at John and he looks at his mother and he says, behold, your mother. What are you doing? You're on the cross and you're... John, take the responsibility. she's your mom now that's the calling he gives comfort them i'm not against my people in judgment comfort them to be children of the light comfort them and tell them they belong to me i close with the words of philippians 2 so if there is any encouragement in christ any Any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord, and of one mind. Let the mind of Christ be in you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for the comfort that you give us. And may we take seriously in the coming year, we don't know who you'll take. We don't know who life will end. And your people need comfort. As we've received that from you, let us be motivated to go and to take that to others. And let the wonderful Gospels, wonderful as it is, shine in us. And may we never go on sinning that grace may abound. Heaven forbid. May we all learn to think of ourselves as children of the light. Pardon, judgment day already occurring in AD 30. And now, whether we live or die, whether we're absent from the body, we're present with you. We belong to the Lord. Thank you for comforting us with these words today. May we go and comfort one another. In Jesus' name, amen.