1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 Build up one another

While we cannot know the exact day or hour when Jesus will come back, we are called to be ready—not with anxious fear, but with purposeful preparation. Making sure we are building up one another and being dressed for the occasion. 

 If you would like to give online click here https://secure.myvanco.com/YHPM

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I appreciate you guys all your prayers for our mission trip for the kids that we took to Denver. It was a fantastic trip. You guys have been asking me about it. We will be putting together a video uh in a couple weeks uh doing that. I think I just glanced at how many clips, and we have like 780 pictures and videos, so I gotta narrow that down so the service isn't you know two hours long. Um and so I'll be putting that together. In a couple weeks, we'll have that a full update, but just a couple highlights um from the trip. One of the biggest things that we saw uh was amazing to see. We took students at the beginning of the trip, they all knew each other, um, but they kind of paired off and they just had their one friend that they kind of sat next to and were a little awkward around everybody else on the way out. Um then on our way back, on when we were in Cortez, our final Saturday before we got home, all six, we looked down, and all six are in the sewing pool together and just one big circle, and just hey, what's gonna do this and this? And all of them. And so the group cohesion was amazing. Um, another highlight that we saw happen was where the kids were in the morning, we would do quiet times before we got up. We'd have breakfast, do a quiet time, a devotional time. And then later that day, as we were serving, the kids would actually say, You know what? This is just what I read this morning, how there's no longer Greek or free. We're all the same, serving together, serving one another. So it was really amazing to see them apply scripture immediately and have that happen. Uh one of the other things is we were um driving, and just kind of a fun highlight, Adriana almost hit a bear um on the road as we were driving. Uh we were close to the fires that are going on in Colorado, so I think she might have tried to kill Smokey. I don't know. So uh that would not only you cannot do that, Adriana. No, it was uh it was under just a great trip. Thank you guys so much for all the prayers. Um God worked in so many tangible ways and so many just I mean, so many unique ways to do it. So thank you guys for all the prayers. Um before we jump into 1 Thessalonians tonight in chapter 5, uh let's take a second to pray. Um, Lord, as we just study and we look about your word and what's going on, Lord, here in the scriptures, help us to to open our hearts, to be changed by what we read, to not come back the same, but to see how good you are and to see how much you love us in these words, Lord. We pray this in your son's name. Amen. Now we're studying 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, 1 through 11. To fully understand, I think, this passage. There's a couple things that we need to remind ourselves of. First, is who this book is written to. It's written to the church in Thessalonica, Nica, or Nika, um, but it's written by Paul. Paul didn't get to chance to spend a lot of time with this church. He didn't get to spend the time that he wanted to because he had to flee the city because of violence threatened against him. And so he didn't get to give them the full teaching he would have liked to. And so they have questions about certain things. And so last week, as we read chapter four, if you read the other, did the reading, he talks about the return of Jesus and what's going to happen, because the Thessalonians were asking, what is it? What happens to these people that have died before Jesus has returned? And so Paul answers that question, and he very clearly says to them, you know, the dead will rise first with Christ, and then followed by those who are still alive, will be caught up together with them in the clouds. And so that's kind of how he ends chapter 4, and he rolls into chapter 5, where we're picking it up today. All right, and so chapter 5 starts off, and he says, Now, brothers and sisters, so he's continuing this thought about Christ's return. And he says, Now, brothers and sisters, and again there's that phrase that we talked about, brothers and sisters, that great affection that he has for the church. Now, brothers and sisters, about the times and dates, we don't need to write to you. For we know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, while people are saying, peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. And so he starts with this affection, but then he tells him, listen, we don't know the time that he will return, that Christ will return. We don't know the time. And this is actually a very strong echo of what Christ told his disciples in Acts chapter 1, right before Christ ascended into heaven, before he was taken back up, he said to them, Acts chapter 1, verse 7, he said, It is not for you to know the times of the days of the Father set by his own authority, but you will receive power and the Holy Spirit comes on you. You'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. After this he said, or after he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid them from their sight. Now, Paul uses this phrase about the days and times we don't need to write to you, for we know very well the day of the Lord. Now, the day of the Lord is this idea that we see in the Old Testament in several places. In Isaiah chapter 13, it says, See, the day of the Lord is coming, a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. And then also Joel is one of the bigger passages in Joel chapter 2, and Peter actually quotes this passage on the day of Pentecost when he preaches to the 3,000 people, and he says, This the sun will be turned to darkness, the moon to blood, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, for on Mount Zion and Jerusalem there will be deliverance. And so he's playing or he's using the scripture that comes from the Old Testament. And the day of the Lord is basically the idea that God will directly and dramatically work in the world's affairs. Now, in the context of chapter 4, Paul's talking to about the return of Jesus Christ. This is the day of the Lord. He's referring to that Jesus will work directly and dramatically in this way. Now, Joel sums it up and he says, listen, this is going to be a terrible day for those that are sinners, those that have chosen to live apart from Christ, this is going to be a horrific day of judgment and one that is very, very difficult. But for those that know God and know Jesus, this is going to be a day of great rejoicing because we'd be reunited with our Savior and rewarded for our faithfulness. But what he emphasizes is we don't know the day this is going to happen. There's no way that we can know because it's only on God's authority that he knows. But we do know this. We don't know the exact day, but we do know that we are one day closer today than we were yesterday. And that's something to praise God about. Amen. Here's what also Paul says we do know. It will be sudden. We don't know when it's gonna be, but it will be sudden, like a thief in the night. And then he says, you should be ready for it. Make sure that you're ready for this day. Because for the believers, it's gonna be wonderful, but for those that are unbelievers, it's gonna be horrible. So make sure that you're ready for that return of Christ. And then he tells you how to be ready. In verse 4, he says, But for you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness. So this day should not surprise you like a thief. You are all children of light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to darkness. So then let us be like others, or let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober minded. For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint to Oh, we'll stop there and do the rest in a second. And so Paul says that we should be ready of it, ready for it, because you are a child of light. And now I love this metaphor, and Peter really lays into this metaphor also, and it's this beautiful idea. And I mean, there's so many different ways that we could think about and dwell on it. I would encourage you, we're not going to go into it much today, but think about the difference between somebody who lives in the light and somebody who lives in the darkness, who lives open and illuminated before God, laid bare, and then somebody who's full of shame and hiding their sin. There's so many different ways you can approach this, but he said, you are a child of light. And since you're a child of light, you need to dress like one. You need to dress like a child of light. And he tells us three things that we need to put on, right? Love, faith, and hope. Love, faith, and hope. Sound familiar? You know? The greatest of faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. These are the things that we need to put on. Now, the metaphor that he uses when you read it, it says, But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate and hope of salvation as a helmet. This is a metaphor that he uses a lot. If you read the New Testament, you've run across this. He uses it in the book of Romans, you know, let us be like soldiers. And then he says in 1 and 2 Timothy, again, the soldier metaphor, but the biggest one and the most familiar one that we probably know is in Ephesians chapter 6, where he talks about the full armor of God. Now, I love this because I can see Paul almost developing this idea because 1 Thessalonians is one of the earliest books that was written, scholars believe. And so this idea, I'm sure he said, yeah, he kind of came up with this idea of a breastplate and a helmet, and then he kept thinking about it, and when he writes Ephesians, he gets to the full armor of God. Right? And so he tells it there's not only a breastplate there, but he says, and there's the belt of truth to put around your waist, and then a breastplate of righteousness, and shoes of the gospel of peace, a shield of faith, a helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And so he says, put on the full armor of God. Or here, you're a child of light dressed like a child of light. Now, one of the issues I see a lot of times in the church, especially in America, is that we have a lot of spiritual streakers. Right? Because they want to put on the helmet of salvation and that's it. And then run around with everything else just off. And so they want to don this idea, yeah, I'm saved, but I'm not gonna read the word, I'm not gonna dive into that. I'm not gonna be accountable to other people, I'm not gonna live a righteous life, or put the belt of truth, I'm still gonna, you know, dip into lies when it's convenient, or these type of things. And they're like, no, no, I'm a Christian, but they don't put on the rest of the armor of God. If we want to stand firm against the attacks of Satan, if we want to stand firm in truth, we need to be dressed with the entire armor of God or the full armor of God. All right? So then Paul continues on and he says this in verse 9. He says, For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Now, this awake and asleep metaphor is tied back in to chapter 4, where he uses this as a metaphor for those that are asleep or dead, and those that are awake still alive. And so basically defines that we are to live with Christ. Now, a Christian is someone who follows, who starts following Christ and never stops following Christ. And Paul says that continues not just in our life, but starting now and never stopping. Including as we die, we still are following Christ. Somebody who is Christ's follower is somebody who starts and just keeps going, never stopping. Now, Paul is wanting them, all of this verses, all these first 11 verses, are simply saying, I want you to be ready for the return of Christ. I want you to be prepared. I want you to be dressed and ready to go. And then he gives them one final command in verse 11. He says, Therefore, remember, therefore, ties with everything before it. Because Christ is returning. We don't know when, but it's going to be sudden, we should be ready. How do we get ready? We're dressed with faith, hope, and love as children of light, and we're ready to never stop living. And then he says, Therefore, because of all those things, because you're a child of God and God is returning, therefore, verse 11, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. Encourage and build. Encourage and build one another up. Now, if you look into this word build, it's not some kind of metaphor. It actually is the word for like build a house. And this is actually the same word that Jesus uses in Matthew 16. Matthew is talking to his disciples, excuse me. Matthew's talking to his disciples, and he, I'm sorry, Jesus is talking to his disciples. Matthew records it for us. And Jesus asks his disciples, who do people say the Son of Man is? And so they answer him, you know, some say that he's Elijah or he's John the Baptist or Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. And he says, What about you? Who do you say I am? And Peter replies, You know, you are the Son of the living God. And Jesus says to him, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you were Peter. On this rock I will build, and it's the same word, on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. See, Jesus, his ministry was to come and seek and save the lost, and then begin to build his church. And he builds it on this fact that he is the Son of the living God. Now, Paul in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians actually takes this farther. And he starts to take this idea of building, and he says, you know, it's not just like a building, not just a physical building, but the church, we, the people, are being built up. He says this in 2 Corinthians 6.14, he says, Do not be yoked together with unbelievers, for what a righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can have, uh can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Baile? Or what bel what does a believer have in common with the unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. Now Peter gives us this other insight into this idea of building up the church. In 1 Peter chapter 2, he says, as you come to him, referring to Jesus, he is the living stone, rejected by humans, but chosen by God and precious to him. You also, talking to us, you also are living stones, being built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, an offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For the scripture says, see, I lay a stone in Zion and choose a precious cornerstone for him who trusts in me. It will never be put to shame. So we see this idea, this metaphor of being built into the body, into the temple of God, into the house of the Lord. And so we are being, and we are each a stone. Now, you might want to take out your Lego, right? And I know I shouldn't have to explain this because it's just so easy to understand. This is a model of a temple, right? And I know you're like, Jared, why do you have to say that? It's so obvious, right? But it is, right? Don't laugh too hard. It took me a while. All right, so anyway, each one of these bricks is a living stone. See, we are being built, and we are building the house of God. And this is the work that Jesus started, that he passed on to his apostles, that his apostles passed on to the disciples of the churches, that the churches have passed on. And it's our job because we are living stones. So how do we become, how do we get built, or how do we build others into this temple of God? Now it would be hard to see that, so check this out. Boom, Lego, right? Like, I didn't even know they made them this big. This is great. The New Testament gives us a blueprint of how we are supposed to be built into the temple of God. Maybe you want to take out your Lego so you can do it I'm a tactile person, so I fidget with stuff if you want to grab it. Because each one of those things, I had to look this up, but each one of these little numbers on top, that's a lug. Right? A lug, L-U-G. Right? This holds together to where I can move it upside down. Now, if I did this with Django blocks or just wooden blocks, right, it'd just fall apart immediately. Why does it hold together so much better? All those little lugs. The New Testament gives us these scriptures that are like these lugs that hold us together. There's about fifty, there's over fifty of them. These are passages that are the one another passages. See, Jesus even started this. In John, he said, what? Love one another. So you're supposed to use this, and as we love one another, oh, we start to put those lugs together. And we start to build something strong. And so love one another, that's good. But then the disciples say, okay, we're supposed to love one another, and they repeat this. You know, it says it in John 15, and then Paul says it in Romans 12, and 1 Thessalonians, and 1 Peter, and 1 John, 2 John, all have this command repeated: love one another. But then they get it specific to how we're supposed to be loving one another, honor one another, greet one another, welcome one another, show hospitality to one another. In Romans it says live in harmony with one another, forgive one another, it says in Ephesians and Colossians. And that's an interesting one. Because if you have to forgive somebody, what does that mean? It means they did something to you. They irritated you. Guys, we're gonna, as we're a body of Christ, we're gonna mess up. We need forgiveness, not just from Jesus, but from each other. And we need to forgive. And every time we do that, we start to put more and more of these lugs together, right? And then if we start to add more bricks, the strength continues to grow. And this is building up. And it gives them more. In 2 Corinthians, it says live in peace with one another, comfort one another, care for one another, confess your sins to one another. Instruct, teach, admonish, speak truth to one another. Each one of those things is another lug that's building the temple of Christ. And so these are the things, these one another's that we're supposed to do. Now take your Lego, right, and flip it over because you got those little nubs on top. But look at the underneath. There's spots for those little lugs to plug into. Not only are we supposed to love one another, we're supposed to let one another love us. See that underside, these lugs do no good. If that bottom is solid, if nothing can plug in together, it doesn't work. It's useless. See, we're supposed to confess sins to one another. Usually we're really eager, unfortunately, a little too eager sometimes, to hear other people's confessions. Right? But just as equally important is to confess our sins to one another. We're supposed to, you know, serve one another. And we, a lot of people are willing to do that, but then all of a sudden, when they come to their turn to be served, like, no, no, no. Kind of like Peter, don't wash my feet. Don't do that. And yet, if we don't allow others to love us, to show us hospitality, to serve us, to greet us, to pray for us. I don't know how many people I've talked to is like that they just say, Oh, I just feel like I just asked for too much prayer. No. We're supposed to be doing that. How are we to carry one another's burdens if we don't know one another's burdens? How are we supposed to build up the body of Christ if we don't allow ourselves to be encouraged by other people? See, and so there's two sides to that piece of Lego. Now here's the thing is we want at Valley Christian Church to be building the body of Christ. But the truth is it's hard to encourage one another, to greet one another. Those are not bad, to sing to one another. We can do those pretty easy on a Saturday night or Sunday morning. Or even, you know, sometimes when we're watching online, we can do those things. But to show hospitality, to carry one another's burdens, to do that is very difficult when we come for one hour and we do a lot of singing and we listen to one guy and then we leave. It's really difficult to sit in rows and be in one another's lives. And so our goal, what we're going to start doing as a church, is really encouraging all of us to start getting involved in small groups. And you're like, Jared, I didn't know they had small groups here. That's exactly it. We don't right now. And so we're going to start launching those small groups. And we want those to happen. This is what we need for you guys. As you have this Leo, I want you to spend time, and I'm giving this to you for a reason, as a reminder, is I want you to think about and pray about being involved in a small group. Maybe it's attending a small group. Maybe you need to, like, you know what, I've got a house that I want to use for God. And so you're like, yeah, I really think I need to be hosting a small group. Or you're like, I don't have a house, but I like to talk, so I'm willing to lead a small group. Or whatever it may be. And so we want to start these small groups. And we want to see this start to happen. So I would ask that you specifically pray for this. And this is what I'm going to do on my end, is I wouldn't just throw you out there and go, go start a small group. Ready? Hit it. Right? We are going to start providing tools and training for anybody that wants to lead, or anybody who's, even if you're like, I don't know if I do or not. I want to start providing that. So what we are going to start doing is providing a small group outline. This is just a sample one. This is based off next or last week's sermon. And so what we're going to do is every Sunday, if you want, since you're on Saturday nights, they're going to be published Sunday morning, I can email it to you. I'll get your list and I'll email it to you late Saturday night or Sunday morning. And so you can look at it. And in that, every week, it's going to have a packet like this. It's a couple pages long. It's way more time than you have to do a small group in. So there's plenty. You're going to have to like skip a stuff because this is so packed with good stuff, right? But it's going to have an opening. It's going to have like how this is how to introduce your small group. This is what to pray for when you open. This is, you know, takeaways from this sermon, discussion questions, how it's going to be. There's going to be sections on that, personal reflection, how you can apply this to your life this week, some ideas, some accountability for you to hold other people and to pray for one another. So we're going to make sure we have this tool to give anyone who's interested in starting or leading a small group or hosting a small group. And we're going to make sure that going forward this is available for you guys every week. Now, maybe you're like me and you've had a really great experience in a small group, and then there's one small group that you just got burned. And you're like, Jared, I can't do it. It was just too hard. I just, I can't go through that again. And I'm with you in some ways. I've I've experienced that. If that's what you're at, and you kind of need to ease in the kitty end of the pool, what we're also going to do is through the app, right? We just started that instant church directory. We're going to have what we're going to call lunch questions. Lunch questions. Basically questions that are for you guys. If you don't want, if you're not ready for that small group commitment yet, these are times for you to maybe just say somebody, hey, do you want to grab coffee after Saturday or maybe meet up Sunday? And there's questions that will be reflective of what's preached on the weekend service. So you can go and you just pull up the app and be like, oh, okay, last week Malcolm talked about sexual purity. How do you think the sexual purity of today is similar to what happened in Thessalonians? How do we have to balance that? What's different? How do we live this out? Or whatever the sermon topic may be. So this one it's going to be about scriptures and one another's and that type of thing. We want to put these tools in your hand because we want you guys to find people that you're acquainted with and go, you know what? Let's get together and live life and begin to build one another up and encourage one another so that we can be ready as we see the day of the Lord approaching. That we are dressed as children of light, that we are put on faith and hope and love. And that we are ready to do this because it is our job, it is our mission to continue the work Jesus started. To build the church and to be ready for his return. So please, as you take that little token, that little thing, spend some time this week praying about it. If you have questions or if you have anything, oh, one other thing that we're gonna do too. I'm sorry, I totally forgot. Tuesday mornings for the next few weeks, while Malcolm, until we fire him in a few weeks, is gonna be leading a Bible study on these small groups. He's gonna be demonstrating how these are happening. We're looking also, we're gonna start launching an evening training session, too, to where if you're interested, we're gonna have that. We're not sure where that's gonna meet at this point. In the next few weeks, we're gonna figure that out. And maybe you're like, Jared, I don't want to lead it, but I'll host it. Come talk to me. We'll figure this out. And we want to train leaders to go and lead other small groups. And so this is the things that we're trying to do, to make sure, and above all, it's not that small groups are that important because they're small groups. The small groups are important because that is where we're going to build the body of Christ. All right, let's pray, guys. God, thank you. Thank you for your love and the fact that you have invited us into your ministry to work alongside you, Lord. Lord, I pray that we can build one another up, that we can encourage one another as we see the day approaching, so that we can be ready for your return. So that the day of the Lord will be a time of rejoicing for each one of us, Lord, not a time of fear. Thank you for your love and thank you for your body, Lord. It's your son's name that we pray. Amen.