Sermon Tone Analysis

Call To Worship Scripture

Sermon Scripture

It had been around 50 years since Jesus had ascended into Heaven with a promise to prepare a place for believers and return to bring them to Himself.

Fifty years of church growth, teaching, learning, discipleship, disciplines, joy, persecution, new life, and martyrdom.

In short, the church had been preparing for a unified moment for 50 years.

It had been around 50 years since Jesus had ascended into Heaven with a promise to prepare a place for believers and return to bring them to Himself.

Fifty years of church growth, teaching, learning, discipleship, disciplines, joy, persecution, new life, and martyrdom.

In short, the church had been preparing for a unified moment for 50 years.

We have been a church for ten years, this year.

A major part of our aim has been to proclaim, teach and disciple the church in this unified anticipation and goal: that is the anticipation of Christ emanate return for His bride, and the goal of running the race unto glory well.

Having been a church for ten years, we have broken our study down into a year long goal of reading through the Bible to help prepare us.

Our gathering together is a weekly goal, and our meeting with the Lord is a daily ambition and so strong of a ambition and dependence do we hope it to be that it is a constant.

Now in our ten years together, anticipating Christ return we have witnessed much life happen.

So much so that you can really begin to wonder or lose sight of that initial goal: That is, you can personally lose sight and we as a church can lose sight.

You get married, you have children, your children grow, a rollercoaster of job situations have come and gone, a rollercoaster of marriage growth and struggles and parenting trials and errors.

We have seen friends and family move away.

We have seen friends and family fall asleep in the LORD.

And yet here we are after all of this time, and after all of this change, gathering together again on Sunday morning with the Spirit and the Bride saying, “Come quickly LORD Jesus, Come quickly.”

It is indeed a baffling thought.

In our quick moving society and our pleasure/fulfillment on-demand ways to think that we have met together for ten years and yet that prize that we run towards, that ambition that we share has not yet been fully realized.

Now, picture 50 some years going by.

Those who witnessed the life of Jesus are getting fewer as one generation passes things off to another.

The ambition is passed on while the completion has yet to come.

Have we missed something?

(they thought)

If we haven’t missed it, then what about among us who have died and therefore are not here any longer to wait for Christ return?

Did they miss it?

Just as the women thought Jesus was too late to heal Lazerous because he died, so did the church thing that Christ had delayed to long to save them all.

This is what the letters to Thessolonica are to address for the church:

Listen to how this all comes about:

LETTER 1

In the first letter we begin by hearing of Pauls desperate attempt to get to them to encourage and care for them, but we read that he was prevented by Satan:

Paul cares for the church even in his absence.

He is encouraged to hear of how they are and he prays for them:

Now in chapter 4 comes the instruction.

First on how to live a holy life in Jesus.

CONCERNING YOUR HOLINESS:

Strive to walk in God and in the instruction of God more

Abstain from sexual immorality - Control your body in holiness and honor (not in passion of lust)

Don’t disregard God - He has called you to holiness

Control your body in holiness and honor (not in passion of lust)

CONCERNING BROTHERLY LOVE:

Love one another even more

Aspire to live quietly (mind your own affairs & work with your hands)

*stay at home and mind your own business rather than running here and their and minding everyone else's business.

make it your aim to be content and not be bound in the race to obtain and display.

- this builds into the next portion of whom you are dependent upon.

Be dependent on no (earthly) man (outsiders) but on the Lord

In summary: strive to be more holy, strive to be more brotherly

1 Thessalonians

Now in the first two areas of teaching in 4:1-12 Paul spoke to the church of what they were already well aware of.

He opened both teaching points by saying things like, “as you have recieved from us…as you are doing...” .. “you have no need for anyone to write to you....you have been taught by God.”

In other words Paul begin by encouraging them in that which they were already aware of:

You know you are to live Holy so live Holy.

You know you are to love your brother, so love your brother.

Now, there is something that you don’t know, something that you appear to be ignorant of, that you should not be ignorant of.

Paul says, I don’t want you to be uniformed.

Here is what we have church.

There is something amongst us that is not as well known as “Live Holy” or “Love your brother”, but it ought to be.

The church everywhere, for her health and her good ought to know this truth about those who are asleep.

That is, those who were in the church, those who were worshiping amoungst us.

Those who were trusting in Jesus along side us, but have since passed away.

Concerning this, there is what appears to be a natural occuring ignorance within the church that needs to be addressed.

Why?

Because if this is not properly addressed then our grief will turn to despair, being absent of hope.

Here is the question:

Living amoungst the seen while living for the unseen, how do we know that we haven’t missed what we are living for?

When living for the resurrection but surrounded by death, how do we know that the resurrection hasn’t passed us by?

While waiting for the return of Christ, yet watching all of us die in waiting, how do we know we haven’t missed it?

Well, You know because of what you know:

Jesus died and rose again

Just as Jesus arose (conquered death) so will He bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

This is the declared word of the Lord (meaning it is certain, it has been declared to happen)

We who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

The Lord will himself descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.

Notice what we are given in terms of specific description (though not the time, the description makes this an unmissable event for the faithful)

Who: The Lord Himself

How: Descend From Heaven

What: A cry of command, voice of an archangel, sound of the trumpet of God

Then the action happens as the church arises to meet God in the air in two stages:

The dead (asleep) in Christ arise first

We who are alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to forever be with the Lord.

I call this the lights, camera, action description.

We are the lights of the world awaiting the call of action.

The return, the call is the camera.

It is pointed, rolling, and capturing.

And the action is that which takes place in the capturing eye of the camera.

For now, we are here ready, waiting, preparing, anticipating that “lights, camera, action.”

I call this the lights, camera, action description.

We are the lights of the world awaiting the call of action.

The return, the call is the camera.

It is pointed, rolling, and capturing.

And the action is that which takes place in the capturing eye of the camera.

For now, we are here ready, waiting, preparing, anticipating that “lights, camera, action.”

These words are our encouragement so speak them often to each other that in the midst of this world you won’t lose the hope of Christ soon return and our reunion together forever.

Now having spoken this, let me say this.

There is perhaps nothing that brings people greater alarm or can cause more of a shake up in the church than speaking of the return of Christ.

The when, who, and how seems to cause more debate than encouragement.

Well, this was introduced by Paul in and by the time Paul is penning his second letter, he had to readdress it to Thessolanica church.

First Paul moves from addressing the resurrection of the dead and calling of the living to addressing times and seasons and in specific “the day of the Lord.”