Walk As Children of Light
1 Thessalonians • Sermon • Submitted
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Last week, we considered the first eleven verses of 1 Thessalonians 5 from the perspective of counting our blessings. Paul writes to believers, telling them of the sudden destruction that will come upon the lost world. No matter what trials you and I are going through, we ought to be able to gain joy and thankfulness from remembering that God has not appointed His children to wrath! All of God’s children experience His chastening hand at times (Heb. 12:6), but His judgment is infinitely more severe. Even worse, this final judgment will not be temporary. It will be everlasting.
We considered how the ongoing persecution of these Thessalonian believers could have caused them to become discouraged, even to the point of despair. Yes, they were being faithful to live for Christ, but how long would they have to put up with this persecution? Paul joyfully reminded his readers that they would “live together” with Christ one day. He also implored them to “comfort yourselves together, and edify one another.” This is necessary for us today as well! Life is challenging, and our trials can be grueling. We need to help each another. Sometimes this means edification (often called encouragement)—positive and joyful building up and strengthening. Sometimes this means exhortation—to urge, implore. (To challenge?) Sometimes we need someone to help us up when we’ve been knocked down. Other times we need someone to give us a wake-up call when we are distracted, or feeling sorry for ourselves, or have been led astray by a wrong perspective.
We are able to help each other when we see things as they really are. If we view this present life through the “lens” of eternity, we see that when this “light affliction” is over for the saints, we will spend eternity in glory with the Heavenly Father. When this earthly life is over for the lost, they will spend eternity in agony, burning in God’s eternal judgment. Seeing things from an eternal perspective should help us in our trials; it should help us help each other. We need to be reminded of these things!
Tonight, we’re going to study the same eleven verses in 1 Thessalonians 5, but instead of seeing the need to count our blessings, we’re going to pay more attention to Paul’s primary purpose for writing these words. He told them some things they already knew, but his purpose was to teach them some things that they needed to hear. He wanted to edify and exhort them, and his words can do the same for us tonight. Let’s consider the need for us as God’s people to “Walk As Children of Light.”
PRAYER
As we progress through the text, we’re going to see three different times that Paul makes a contrast between the lost and the saved. (This is signaled by the word, “but.”) This does a couple of important things. First, it shows us the terrible condition of the lost, and helps us to be joyful and grateful as members of God’s family. Second, it clarifies our mission as God’s people, and challenges us to walk as children of light.
1 Thess. 5:1-11
I. Sudden Destruction
I. Sudden Destruction
But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
As Paul said, these Thessalonians already knew this. But when you revisit familiar truths at different points throughout your life, they impact you in different ways.
For saints who likely felt constantly afflicted and hounded by the devil’s forces, being reminded of the sudden destruction of the wicked brought comfort; it reminded them that God is not defeated. He has not forgotten His people. His victory is still guaranteed. And the day of the Lord will come when the world least expects it. Destruction will be sudden.
Is there anything more devastating than sudden destruction? Destruction is terrible—think of the forces of nature that bring destruction on whole cities. But in hurricane season, for instance, the entire world may know of a coming storm. Cities are evacuated days in advance. The destruction is no less terrible, but it is expected. People can prepare and adjust for it. But sudden destruction is another thing entirely.
Approximately 27 years after the writing of this epistle, a now-famous example of “sudden destruction” occurred in the Italian seaside resort town of Pompeii, nestled in the shadow of the active volcano, Mt. Vesuvius. Scholars estimate that on the eve of that terrible eruption in 79 A.D., there were about 12,000 people living in Pompeii and almost as many in the surrounding region.
Villagers around the volcano had long learned to live with their volatile neighbor. Even after a massive earthquake struck the Campania region in 63 A.D.—a quake that, scientists now understand, offered a warning rumble of the disaster to come—people still flocked to the shores of the Bay of Naples, and Pompeii grew more crowded every year.
In either August or October of 79 A.D., a number of small earthquakes rocked the Pompeii region. The people there shrugged off the temblors since they “were not particularly alarming because they are frequent in Campania,” according to the writer and eyewitness Pliny the Younger.
Then, shortly after noon on that fateful day, Mount Vesuvius, just five miles away from Pompeii, erupted. The blast sent a plume of ash, rock and scorching-hot volcanic gases so high into the sky that people could see it for hundreds of miles around. The dust “poured across the land” like a flood, one witness wrote, and shrouded the city in “a darkness…like the black of closed and unlighted rooms.”
As it cooled, this tower of debris drifted to earth: first the fine-grained ash, then the lightweight chunks of pumice and other rocks. It was terrifying—“I believed I was perishing with the world,” Pliny wrote, “and the world with me”—but it was not yet lethal: Most Pompeiians had plenty of time to flee, and many did.
For those who stayed behind in Pompeii, Herculaneum and other towns, conditions soon grew much worse. As more and more ash fell, it clogged the air, making it difficult to breathe. Buildings collapsed under overloaded roofs, but still some people remained in the city, now covered under several feet of ash.
Then, on the morning of the following day, a “pyroclastic flow”—a 100-miles-per-hour blast of superheated gas and pulverized rock—poured down the side of the mountain and vaporized everything and everyone in its path.
By the time the Vesuvius eruption sputtered to an end on the second day of the eruption, Pompeii was buried under millions of tons of volcanic ash.
Some people drifted back to town in search of lost relatives or belongings, but there was virtually nothing left to find. Pompeii, along with the neighboring town of Herculaneum and a number of villas in the area, was abandoned for centuries.
About 2,000 Pompeiians died in the city, but the eruption in total killed up to 16,000 people in Pompeii, Herculaneum and other towns and villages in the region.
THIS is sudden destruction. The fortunate Pompeiians escaped with their lives and a few things they could carry. Most people in the area didn’t escape at all. in a day and a half, the landscape changed from a bustling metropolitan area inhabited by wealthy Romans on vacation, to a ghastly scene of destruction and death.
There were warning signs of the destruction, but the people didn’t expect it. They weren’t prepared for it. They weren’t ready to die. They were overtaken “as a thief” by sudden destruction.
II. Living in Light
II. Living in Light
The light reveals reality. The light dispels the unknown. The light exposes the truth and removes confusion. Paul emphatically reminds his readers that they are not in darkness, but are the children of light! His words tells us three things:
A. What we should expect
A. What we should expect
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
By reminding us that we are not in darkness, Paul’s words remove the fearsome first part of this future event.
If you’re God’s child tonight, you are not in darkness. You won’t be surprised. What a blessing that God has told us of His coming judgment! We can be prepared. We can know what to expect.
B. What we are
B. What we are
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
Isn’t it encouraging sometimes to simply be reminded what you are? And when GOD tells us what we are, that is an objective statement of truth! We struggle at times because our perception is off. We perceive certain things, and so we are defeated or discouraged. But when God reminds us of what we are in Him, that can bring great joy, and victory returns.
Christ reminds us that we are valuable to Him
But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.
He reminds us that we are clean in God’s eyes
Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
We are God’s personal work; He is a personal God!
For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.
We are the temple of the Holy Ghost — what a thought!!
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
We belong to Christ
And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.
We are bought with a price — the dear price of the blood of God’s only begotten Son
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.
We don’t easily give up on things that cost us a heavy price! God doesn’t pay a heavy price needlessly. There is no possible way that He will forsake His own!
We are God’s children
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
We are dead and risen to new life in Christ; we are completed and sealed in Him.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
We are a chosen and privileged people in God’s heart and in His hands!
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
We are overcomers!
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
If you’re saved tonight, I hope it encourages you to be reminded of what you are. These things aren’t dependent on your strength, or even your choices. These things are true, now and forever, because God accomplished them. Don’t be discouraged by your own failings; don’t be intimidated by the shrill cries of the forces of evil. Listen to God’s voice as He tells you what you are. That brings comfort and edification.
C. What we ought to do
C. What we ought to do
Paul says, “You are children of light; you need to live like it.”
Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
How we live doesn’t change what we are in Christ positionally, but it does change what He can do through us. How we live will not affect our membership in God’s family, but it will affect how much we will be like our Father. Even though you’re saved, you’re still capable of living like you’re lost.
Rom. 13:11-14
Are you a child of God tonight? Are you in the light? If you are…do you live like it? As we’ll see, Paul becomes more specific on how the children of light ought to live.
III. The Self-Defeating Works of Darkness
III. The Self-Defeating Works of Darkness
For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
Of course, Paul isn’t talking about necessary rest for our physical bodies!
A. Spiritual insensitivity and oblivion
A. Spiritual insensitivity and oblivion
“For they that sleep sleep in the night...”
“Sleep” is a physical concept, applied to the spiritual world so that we may understand how spiritual things work. While some sleep during the daytime, sleep is associated with darkness. While fast asleep, a person is insensitive and oblivious to what is going on around them.
People sleep by choice and by compulsion. A wise person plans to sleep in order to maintain peak performance and health. We also sleep because we can’t keep our eyes open!
Spiritual “sleep” can also happen like this. Many people do not want to consider spiritual things. (We encounter these people regularly while knocking on doors!) They do not know what happens in eternity, and they do not want to be taught. They are intentionally asleep.
Others are asleep, and they can’t help it, in large part. They’re just doing what comes natural to them. But sudden destruction does not discriminate between either group. Eternal souls defeat themselves through spiritual insensitivity and oblivion.
B. Pursuit of pleasure and wickedness
B. Pursuit of pleasure and wickedness
“And they that be drunken are drunken in the night.”
While some might be drunk with alcohol in the daytime, the evil of drunkenness—like sin in general—is associated with darkness.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Spiritual darkness influences people to make some pretty bad choices—self-defeating choices. Would sinners choose spiritual sleep if they could see the danger of it? Would they choose wickedness if they could truly see the evil and condemnation that it brings? But they don’t see, because they are in darkness. Paul says, “Ye, brethren, are not in darkness.”
IV. The Victorious Works of Light
IV. The Victorious Works of Light
A. Watch and be sober
A. Watch and be sober
Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
In order to watch, one must be able to think past the moment. But it is natural for sinners to LIVE for the moment! In that mindset, there is nothing more important than right now! This kind of person is not watching. They are entirely focused on right now, and nothing beyond that.
In verse 3, we see that the lost world will say, “The here-and-now is peaceful and safe!” They cannot see past the present; they are not watching. And so they will be overtaken by unforeseen destruction.
We see some important things about a watchman in Ezekiel.
Ezekiel 3:17-21
A watchman is engaged with the present and what God says about the future. He is alert.
Paul also exhorts the Thessalonians to be sober, or under control. A sober life is a self-controlled life. This is a mark of the Spirit of God!
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
A watchman who is not alert cannot see the danger coming. A watchman who is not living a life under the Spirit’s control, cannot recognize danger, though he try to be alert. The saints must both watch and be sober!
B. Put on spiritual armor
B. Put on spiritual armor
In verse 8, Paul again mentions sobriety. An uncontrolled life is not characterized by spiritual armor.
But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
1. Breastplate of faith and love
1. Breastplate of faith and love
Faith and love aren’t emotions; they are choices to think, do and say what we ought. These choices are made every day. Just like armor, they need to be “put on” intentionally every single day.
It is easy at times to put stock in our predictions of the future. Negative predictions = fear. Positive predictions = self-reliance. Faith = reliance in God’s promises, no matter what’s in the future.
It is also easy to love what we shouldn’t, and fail to love what we should.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
This active choice to put on the breastplate of faith and love will protect us against the forces of evil. It will help us live like children of light.
2. The helmet of the hope of salvation
2. The helmet of the hope of salvation
We often speak of salvation as something that we already have. THAT is the hope of salvation! Don’t let Satan play mind games with you. Protect your mind with the helmet of the hope of salvation! These Thessalonians needed that protection as they grappled with the threat of persecution every day. We need to vigorously protect our thought life as well.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
Can we see the stark differences between how sinners in darkness live, contrasted with how redeemed sinners in the light live? Instead of living in an unaware and wicked state, the saints may live in the light, alert to the snares and attacks of the flesh and the devil, and protected against them through self-control and the invincible armor of God.
Nothing can pierce the breastplate of God’s armor! Nothing can crush the helmet of the hope of salvation! Our victory, then, depends on our choice to wear it or not. This is what the Thessalonians needed to hear.
V. An Appointment With Wrath
V. An Appointment With Wrath
For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
We’ve discussed this already, but it should make us shudder to think about being the object of God’s wrath.
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
This isn’t about death. Many have faced death without this kind of dread. These great men, mighty men, and every free man are seeking to HIDE from the wrath of God. An appointment with God’s wrath is far worse than death. And those so appointed cannot hide from it. This is what it means to be of the darkness.
VI. The Recipient of Christ’s Salvation
VI. The Recipient of Christ’s Salvation
For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
Why would Christ die for us, and then fail to save us? If you are a redeemed child of God, you are not appointed to wrath. You will NOT see it. Instead, you will “live together with him.”
I don’t know what trials you are going through tonight. Does meditating on the surety of Christ’s salvation bring comfort to your soul? Are you blessed to remind yourself that you are a recipient of the saving grace of God? The Lamb’s wrath is not meant for you. You will enjoy the riches of His Heaven instead.
We’ve seen the polar opposites between darkness and light. The one is surrounded in uncertainty and confusion. Those in the darkness are insensitive to truth; they seek after pleasure and wickedness. Those who die in their sin and in the darkness will be appointed to wrath, from which there is no escape.
But the saints are in the light. We are given the knowledge and wisdom of God, allowing us to distinguish truth from error. We are called to be alert and under control, purposefully putting on the armor of God, which will guard our mind and our heart from the attacks of the devil. We are not appointed to wrath. Instead, we are appointed to eternal life, fellowship with God, and victory in Christ.
These Thessalonians were under assault by the enemies of the cross. They were living in the daily threat of persecution. And so Paul wrote these words to remind them of what they already knew, to reset their perspective, and to give them encouraging and challenging words to continue faithful for Christ.
Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
May we as God’s people also comfort ourselves together, and edify one another! Praise God for delivering you from wrath. Thank Him for shining the light of truth in your life. And commit to Him to daily put on His armor, watch and be sober, and live victoriously in this present world.