Ready or Not
1 Thess 5:1-11 READY OR NOT (idea from Lee Eclov)
Introduction:
A. Some people think believing in an afterlife is dangerous. Illus.: A recent issue of TIME magazine was all
about the brain. The lead article, “The Mystery of Consciousness,” was by Dr. Steven Pinker,
Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard. While marveling at the workings of the brain, he clearly
thinks we have only the brain—no eternal soul. At the end of the article he wrote, “And when you think
about it, the doctrine of a life-to-come is not such an uplifting idea after all because it necessarily
devalues life on earth. Just remember the most famous people in recent memory who acted in
expectation of a reward in the hereafter: the conspirators who hijacked the airliners on 9/11.
“Think, too, about why we sometimes remind ourselves that ‘life is short.’ It is an impetus to extend
a gesture of affection to a loved one, to bury the hatchet in a pointless dispute, to use time productively
rather than squander it. I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that
every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.” [12907, p.70]
B. No Christian should disagree “that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift,” but
what difference does it make if you believe that Jesus is coming back? He says such beliefs are a
liability—devaluing life in the here-and-now.
C. Last week we thrilled to the promise of the second coming: vv.16-17... It is with the Lord’s shout and
the last trumpet ringing in our imaginations that we turn today to the next verses—1 Thess. 5:1-11... So
what difference does it make if you believe that Jesus is coming back? What good will it do? Dr.
Pinker says “nothing gives life more purpose than” knowing these are the only moments we have. The
Bible says, Nothing gives life more purpose than knowing the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back.
This text tells us what good it does to believe:
I. NO MATTER WHEN IT COMES, WE ARE READY FOR THE DAY OF THE LORD (5:1-5)
A. The Day of the Lord is a biblical certainty. It is that time when God settles accounts, when ‘the author of
the play walks out upon the stage,’ to paraphrase C. S. Lewis. Zephaniah 1:14-18 says, “The great day
of the LORD is near—near and coming quickly. Listen! The cry on the day of the LORD will be bitter, the
shouting of the warrior there. That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, ... a day of
trumpet and battle cry... I will bring distress on the people and they will walk like blind men, because
they have sinned against the LORD... In the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for he
will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth.” The Day of the Lord begins when Jesus comes
back. And it is the point of no return. No going back. No making amends.
B. The Day of the Lord is certainly coming, and suddenly. [5:1-3] Paul uses two analogies: “Like a thief in
the night” tells us that the Day will be “sudden and unexpected,” while the second phrase, “as labor
pains on a pregnant woman,” emphasizes that the Day will be “sudden and unavoidable.” John Stott
says one phrase tells us that there will be no warning, while the other, that there will be no escape. And
this is all the more terrible because people have an overwhelming sense of false security. A literal
translation would be something like this: “While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’—Sudden
destruction comes on them!” Illus.: T. S. Eliot was a poetic Christian prophet. Here are some lines from
his “Choruses from ‘The Rock’”:
And the wind shall say: “Here were a decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls...
Though you forget the way to the Temple,
There is one who remembers the way to your door:
Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
You shall not deny the Stranger. [Collected Poems, pp.103-104]
C. Eliot also wrote,
O my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions...
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We do not need to be caught unawares when the Stranger comes because we are Day people, not night
people (vv.4-5). Christians, through their faith in Christ, have already entered safely into the Day of the
Lord. All around us, people continue to live in the deep darkness that precedes the dawn of that Day.
But we live in that Day now, already. We have passed through dark death and judgment’s night in
Christ. It is as though we live in a Pre-Day light. We have given up our love of darkness. We have
nothing to hide anymore, nor do we want to live shrouding our beliefs or behavior in shadows, nor
spiritually inebriated. We are children of the Light and of the Day.
SUMMARY: So what difference does it make that we believe in the second coming of Christ? As children of
the day, we are ready for the Day of the Lord. Our treasures are stored up in heaven, and having already
been born again, we do not fear the birth pains of the Lord’s coming. The second reason why it matters that
we believe in the second coming of Christ is this:
II. WE LIVE WITH EYES OPEN AND HEARTS READY (5:6-10)
Illus.: It was after a sermon on the second coming that a family was having Sunday dinner. Their teenage
son said he still had a lot of questions about the Lord’s return. His father said, “Well, we don’t know all
we’d like to know, but the best preparation is simply to live each day as if it were your last.”
“I tried that once,” the son said, “and you grounded me for a month.” What does it look like to live
ready to go?
A. V.6 says, “Let us be alert.” We live on alert. The word means watchful. Jesus said, “Keep watch,
because you do not know the day or the hour.” [Matt 25.13] He said, “Keep watch because you do not know
when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the
rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I
say to everyone: ‘Watch!’” [Mk 13:35-37] Jesus said, “You also must be ready, because the Son of Man
will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” [Lk 12:40]
Illus.: I love the story Joe Stowell tells about the problem they have up at Shepherd’s Home in
Union Grove, Wisc. It’s a Christian home for the mentally impaired. These kids are taught about Jesus,
and they’re taught that he can come back at any time. The problem is that each day the children run to
the window to see if this is the day Jesus will return. They just can’t keep their windows clean! [#3542]
The point of being watchful and alert is not that you might see Jesus’ coming before someone else
does, nor that you might miss it if you’re not watching. Rather, it is that we will not grow complacent
and careless about our lives. Jesus said in Luke 21:34-36, “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed
down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly
like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the
watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to
stand before the Son of Man.”
That’s why our text says, “Let us be alert and self-controlled.” We have to fight against those sins
of spiritual complacency that put us to sleep. Look with me at 2 Peter 3:10-14, 17-18...
Illus.: One day in the year 1789, the Connecticut House of Representatives was in session when the
sky grew ominously dark. It seemed more than an approaching storm. There was something
otherworldly and eerie about it. It was so frightening that some of the representatives feared that the end
of the world was at hand and clamored for adjournment. Colonel Davenport, the Speaker of the House,
rose and said, “The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for
adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. Therefore, I wish that candles be brought.”
Alert and self-controlled.
B. We live dressed to go. V.8 says, “But 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.” We don’t wait for Jesus in our
flowered shirts and straw hats, but rather, dressed for battle. There will be attacks upon us while we wait
for Jesus and we need spiritual armor to protect heart and head. Notice our protection:
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1. Faith. Putting on faith like a breastplate means that we live knowing we are strangers in this world.
“This world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond
the blue.” Do you live like that? What in your lifestyle would say to others, this guy doesn’t live for
this world?
Faith also means that we live day in and day out in reliance upon our Father. We rely on him for
our daily needs. We rely on him to produce Christlikeness in us. We rely on him to help us be agents
of grace in this world, builders of his Kingdom here.
Wearing faith like that changes the kind of person we are, and it outfits us for Christ’s return.
2. Love. Loving other people for Jesus’ sake is like putting on a Kevlar vest for the heart. Love is what
keeps us from the soul-drunk behavior of sexual immorality and lusts, and from dissension and
jealousy, all which threaten our readiness (cf. Rom. 13:11-14). Love is a strange kind of armor, isn’t it?
Love lets in hurt and pain, but it protects our hearts from deadly self-centered sins.
3. Hope of salvation. In vv.9-10 Paul explains two ways in which our hope of salvation protects us. V.9
offers the protection of God’s sovereign care... You aren’t a Christian because you’re so good or
deserving, nor because your faith is so strong or your love so pure. Your “hope of salvation” starts
with God’s appointing you to receive salvation. Put that over your vulnerable mind—that God chose
to save you. This truth offers the protection of security. I am in God’s hands!
Secondly, look at v.10... Thanks to the death of Christ for us, we can live with Jesus right now,
while we wait for his return. In fact, we can even live with Jesus if we fall asleep in him. Our bodies
may sleep, but we will live with him while we wait for him. We are never alone, never left helpless,
never in danger. Cover your mind with that truth like a helmet. Our salvation gives us abundant life
now in Christ.
SUMMARY: When I was a kid growing up in a very conservative church, I quite often considered what I did
in the light of the second coming. Unfortunately, I often got hung up on the wrong things. I remember the
time the grocery store owner where I worked told me to go three doors down to the bar to get some chewing
tobacco for a customer. I remember thinking, “But what if Jesus comes back while I’m in the Dew Drop
Inn?” My error was that I didn’t know Jesus very well, but it wasn’t an error to think about living as if Jesus
would come back in the next moment. Do you ever think that way? Are you guarding your heart with faith
and love, and your mind with your hope of salvation? Is there self-control befitting a watching saint? As
Pastor Jared asked from chap. 4 a couple of weeks ago, are you walking in such a way as to please God?
What difference does it make to believe in the second coming? Dr. Pinker thinks it “devalues life on earth.”
The Bible teaches that it is the motive for vigilant godliness—for living with our eyes open and our hearts
ready. There is one more result of that blessed hope in v.11...
III. WE HELP EACH OTHER WAIT WELL (5:11)
Illus.: Chuck Colson wrote about a riot at Washington, D.C.’s Lorton prison complex a few years ago.
Inmates torched buildings and armed, menacing gangs roamed the grounds. But in the main prison yard a
group of Christian inmates stood in a huge circle, arms linked, singing hymns. Their circle surrounded a
group of guards and prisoners who had sought protection from the rioting inmates. These Christians were a
community of light, and lives were saved. That’s the idea behind the two related commands here in v.11:
A. “Encourage one another”. The word is sometimes translated “comfort”. It’s the same charge given to us
at the end of chapter 4 after that wonderful picture of Christ’s second coming. “Encourage each other
with these words.” The idea is to use the promise of Christ’s coming to help your brother or sister stay
strong. We must help each stay anchored to this bedrock hope.
• We remind each other that our Christian loved ones are with the Lord, and so we shall join them.
• We sing songs like, “It Will Be Worth It All When We See Jesus,” and “Soon and Very Soon,” and
“I Will Bring You Home.”
• We pray for each other—not just for hardships to lift, but for Christ-filled hope in the midst of those
storms.
• We talk about heaven, and remind each other often that this world is not my home.
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• We send notes and e-mails to one another that remind us of the eternal truths, like the one I got from
Christine a couple of years ago that said on the outside, “Nothing happens, and nothing happens,
and then everything happens.” And inside she quoted a hymn by Charles Wesley entitled, “Although
– Yet.”
Away! My unbelieving fear!
Fear shall in me no more have place;
My Savior doth not yet appear,
He hides the brightness of his face.
But shall I therefore let him go,
And basely to the tempter yield?
No, in the strength of Jesus, no;
I never will give up my shield.
B. “Build each other up”. I think Paul meant that we should help each other grow in godly living—help
each other to be alert and self-controlled, to put on the armor of faith, love and hope. This is why we
meet together, why we worship together, why we must pray with each other, and eat with each other,
and be in small groups together. Holiness is contagious. Illus.: I have just finished reading a most
remarkable book by Kathryn Greene-McCreight entitled, Darkness Is My Only Companion: A
Christian Response to Mental Illness. This dear sister in Christ suffered through about 10 years of
extreme depression and bipolar disorder. In one place she writes about the importance of Christian
fellowship: “This is why it is so important to worship in community to ask your brothers and sisters in
Christ to pray for you, and to pray with them. Sometimes you literally cannot make it on your own, and
you need to borrow from the faith of those around you. Sometimes I cannot even recite the creed unless I
am doing it in the context of worship, along with all the body of Christ...When reciting the creed, I
borrow from the recitation of others. Companionship in the Lord Jesus is powerful.” [p.88]
Does it make a difference that we believe in the second coming of Christ?
• No matter when it comes, we are ready for the Day of the Lord
• We live with eyes open and hearts ready
• We help each other wait well
Sermon text with italics and bold and John 3:16 and v. 20.
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