Good Grief

Well, this past Friday, I had the opportunity to officiate an out-of-town wedding.

And as we all know, weddings are wonderful celebrations.

It's an opportunity for family and for friends to gather, to celebrate, to rejoice.

And for the bride and groom in particular, it's especially a wonderful day.

It's a day that they've been looking forward to for months and sometimes even years.

And so weddings are wonderful celebrations.

It's supposed to be the best day of the bride and groom's life.

But for those of you who've ever planned a wedding, or maybe it was your own, or you helped somebody, you know that some of the work that goes into putting all the preparation in place for that big day, well, that can be pretty stressful.

The venue, the food, the flowers, the decorations, the dresses, the seating arrangements.

And then, of course, there's perhaps one of the most stressful parts of planning a wedding.

There's the guest list.

For many people, as they plan for their wedding, it's a very difficult thing to enter into putting together the guest list because over the course of our lives, we encounter all sorts of people and develop all sorts of relationships.

We have family, we have friends, we have coworkers, we have neighbors, we have people we grew up with, we have people who we haven't seen for a while, but maybe they played a significant role in our life at some point.

And so all of a sudden you're faced with the difficult task of asking yourselves, well, who do we invite?

Because the reality is over the course of our lives, most of us will develop far far more relationships than we're able to fit in a wedding venue.

And so you make the list and then you revise it, and then you revise it again, and then again, and then all of a sudden somebody says, Well, did you invite so-and-so to the wedding?

And then you're thinking, Oh my goodness, how on earth would we could could we forgot that person?

And it's so stressful because as you're preparing for that day, a monumental day like that, which so much joy and so much celebration, you just don't want to miss someone important.

You don't want to leave anyone out.

And that is exactly the tension that the Thessalonians were feeling when the Apostle Paul and his crew wrote them a letter.

They were eagerly awaiting a very important day.

They were waiting for the day that Jesus was returning, and they knew that that was going to be a day of celebration.

They were looking forward to that day.

They knew he was coming back, they believed he was coming back soon, and they knew that when he returned, it would be a day of victory and rejoicing, where Jesus would fulfill all his promises for his people, where they would all celebrate.

They were looking forward to that day.

But here's the thing: as they waited for that day for Jesus to return, there was something apparently that they hadn't prepared for.

As they looked around their church family, they noticed that certain members of the church who were also waiting for Jesus to return had ended up dying.

And for the Thessalonians, these brothers and sisters whom they loved, who they also were waiting for Jesus to return, when they were suddenly gone, all their anticipation and joy about Christ returning, it was suddenly mixed with anxiety because yes, Jesus was coming, yes, that's a good thing, but what about those people who who died waiting?

What about them?

What happens to them when Jesus comes back?

Do they somehow forfeit what everyone else gets to experience when Jesus returns?

The real question that they were asking was this: when Christ returns, will those who die in Christ miss out?

That's the question that looms over the second half of chapter four of the book of 1 Thessalonians.

And so if you want to see an answer to this question, then I want to invite you to open your Bibles with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 this morning.

1 Thessalonians 4 · chapter mention

1 Thessalonians chapter 4.

1 Thessalonians 4 · chapter mention

And if you're new to our church, welcome.

We're glad you're here.

We open our Bible every single Sunday.

We're Franken with Bible Church, so we take the Bible very seriously.

We open it every Sunday morning.

So if you brought a Bible, that's a great practice, uh, a habit to bring your Bible often.

If you didn't, we got you covered.

There's a Bible in front of you.

And if you don't own a Bible, use that Bible that's in front of you today, and then take it home with you after the service.

We'd love for you to have a Bible.

And if you're looking for this book, just a heads up.

It's in the New Testament.

The last quarter of your Bibles is where the New Testament's found.

You have the four Gospels, Acts.

Then you have these epistles, these letters, Romans for 2 Corinthians, then smaller ones, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians is where we're at.

And as you're turning there, we are continuing a series through this entire book.

We've called the series ready.

And if you've been with us so far, you know for the past several weeks, we've looked at the first uh three chapters and the beginning of the fourth chapter, and we've seen this letter that Paul and his co-workers, Timothy and Silas, wrote to the church in Thessalonica.

And by way of reminder, this church was a baby church.

Paul and his crew had just planted this church.

This is one of the first letters that's written in the New Testament.

And his missionary team traveled to the city of Thessalonica on Paul's second missionary journey, and this is where they planted the church.

Now it began with them simply proclaiming the gospel in the synagogues, and then to all the people who are around there.

And as they preached the gospel, immediately the people of the city began to respond.

So they trusted in Jesus.

We're told that they turned from idols to serve the living and true God.

We're also told in Acts 17 that these people in the city of Thessalonica, they recognized that Christ was the true king.

He was the King of kings and Lord of Lords.

And Paul says in the very first chapter of this book that from the moment the church began, they began to wait for the sun from heaven.

By that, it means that they knew that Jesus was the Son of God and they knew he was coming back.

They knew he was returning.

But you see, not long after that church was established, as we said before, this city had opposition against the gospel.

This contingency of Jewish individuals rose up and began to fight against the church and persecute the church, and they also persecuted the missionary team who went and came with the gospel.

And so Paul and his crew were forced to leave after a short amount of time.

And so they really didn't have much time to disciple or instruct these baby Christians.

They gave them the essentials, the basics.

They taught them some key things about Jesus and about what Jesus did, but there were gaps in their understanding.

And this shouldn't surprise us.

Because the truth is, if you think about when we first came to Christ, did we understand everything about the Bible?

I didn't.

You know, I was five years old when I think I accepted Christ as my Savior.

At five years old, you don't know a whole lot about the Bible at that point.

You know about Jesus, you know who he is, you know what he did for you, but there's so much I didn't know.

And I'm sure the same is true for you.

Whether you're five or whether you're 50, the first time that you trust in Christ and you become a Christian, there are gaps in our understanding.

It takes a lifelong process to learn and understand the Bible.

We can always grow and always learn.

It takes time to grow.

And so this is the case for the Thessalonians.

They understood certain things, but there were gaps in their theology.

So they knew Jesus had risen from the dead, they knew he was king, they knew he was coming back.

But apparently one of the things they never really figured out was what happens if somebody dies before he gets here.

That was the gap in their understanding.

And this is more than a theological question for them.

This was a deeply personal issue.

Because the people who were dying in their church were people they loved, people they had relationships with.

And so, because of that, Paul writes them this section.

And so as we walk through, that's the backdrop for us to understand exactly what's going on.

These people are concerned.

And so to press into that, the first section this morning we're going to look at, number one, is simply that the concern.

The concern.

So notice verse 13, that's where we're going to jump in today in chapter four.

Verse 13 says this.

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.

Now, as we jump into this first verse today, verse 13, we're going to get a glimpse of the concern, as we've already stated, that's weighing on the Church of Thessalonica.

Now, as I've thought about this a little bit and I was prepping for this message, it kind of dawned on me that there's something really interesting about all this.

I mentioned that I became a Christian when I was five years old.

And growing up, I would hear people share the gospel with me.

And the gospel was almost always presented in the exact same way.

And this is how it was presented.

People would say to me, Well, where do you think you're gonna go when you die?

Right?

Now I'm I'm little at the time, so little Joey is hearing people say, Hey, if you died today, where do you think you'd go?

And then they would share the gospel with me.

And inevitably what they would always say is, Well, here's the good news.

If you trust in Jesus, Jesus will forgive you of your sins, and then when you die, you get to go to heaven.

Now, this is true.

I'm not saying at all that this isn't true.

Praise God for this, right?

This is true.

If you're a follower of Jesus and you die, you go to be with Jesus.

That's a good, that's a good thing.

That's good news.

Paul says to the church in Philippi, he says, to be absent from the body, he's describing death, is to be present with the Lord.

And he describes that as better by far, right?

It's it's better to be with the Lord.

It's a wonderful thing that we get to be with Jesus when we die.

If you read the book Heaven by Randy Alcorn, he calls this the present heaven, right?

So as Christians, when we die, we go into the presence of Jesus.

That is good news.

But here's the thing: interestingly, the the Thessalonians seem to have approached things a little differently.

When they presented the gospel and heard the gospel, that wasn't the framework that they were thinking of.

In fact, it's almost the exact opposite.

Their focus wasn't primarily about what would happen when they died, their focus is about what would happen when Jesus returned.

So, in some ways, what they learned and heard was the inverse of what I learned and heard growing up.

I knew, for me, the good news of Jesus was all about what would happen if I died before Jesus returned.

But they knew what would happen if they were alive when Jesus returned.

They didn't really know what would happen if they died first.

Isn't that interesting?

And so all of a sudden, this question became very real.

They're all waiting for Jesus.

They know he's coming again, but now they're noticing that people in their church are dying and they're wondering what's going to happen to them.

Are they gonna somehow miss out on the celebration?

That's the question.

And so that's a big question, it's a scary question, and for the Thessalonians, it was a question that was causing them to grieve.

Because when their brothers and sisters in Christ died, they were beginning to be concerned that maybe God's plan for them was something that they weren't sure about, and maybe that was something that they they should be upset about, and so they began to be grieved.

But notice what Paul says.

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep.

That means death.

That you may not grieve as others do, who have no hope.

Now, as Paul says these words, I want you to notice what Paul isn't saying.

He is not saying, hey, if if believers die, don't grieve.

That's not what he's saying at all.

No, the truth is we should grieve.

If we have brothers and sisters in Christ who are faithfully walking with the Lord, who die in Christ, we should grieve that.

You want to know why?

Because death stinks.

That's why.

Sometimes in the church we we pretend like death is a wonderful thing.

It is not, is it is an enemy.

Scripture is very clear.

Death is our enemy.

It's not a good thing, it's a villain.

Death is a thief, in fact.

You and I have all these people that we build relationships, and what does death do?

It robs us of those relationships because now we don't get to be with those people because death has taken them away from us.

And so death is a villain, death is a thief, it's an awful thing.

We shouldn't like it, we shouldn't say it's great, we should hate it.

Death is awful.

And the truth is, when someone dies, we should grieve.

Grief is natural, it's not something we should ignore or try to suppress.

And grief is not something that you just get over.

No, grief is something you have to move through.

You walk through grief, it's a process, it's a healthy response to significant loss.

But notice here the distinction Paul makes.

There are two kinds of grief.

There's a kind of grief that has no hope, and there's a kind of grief that does have hope.

Right?

There's a hopeless grief and there's a hopeful grief.

And so notice as he begins to talk through that, I want to begin just to press into what is a hopeless grief?

What is a what is a grief with no hope?

Well, think about it for a moment.

If there is no God, if there's no such thing as the resurrection of the dead, if there's no such thing as the afterlife or life beyond the grave, then when someone dies, well, that's it.

They're gone and we never get to see them again.

Right?

So from that worldview, from the atheistic worldview, death is something that's crushing.

Because when our loved ones pass away, when they die, they're gone forever.

We never see them again.

That is a kind of grief that is hopeless.

And that's a tragedy.

I mean, I can't imagine people processing death that way with that framework.

That's a tragedy.

But listen, we don't have that same kind of grief.

No, our grief has hope.

We do not grieve without hope.

No, in Christ, we have a different kind of grieving.

We grieve with hope because a hopeful kind of grief recognizes that death doesn't get the final word.

Let me say that again.

A hopeful grief recognizes that death doesn't get the final word.

And I think Paul alludes to that even in the language he uses here.

Notice how he calls death something that's comparable to being asleep.

Now, to clarify one thing, this is common.

We find this in the Hebrew Bible, in the Old Testament, we find this language quite a bit in the New Testament.

Even Jesus describes death with this euphemism, being asleep.

You know, it's a more comforting kind of term.

Some people overdraw from this illustration and they begin to develop a framework about death that I think is false.

So perhaps you've heard of people who believe in what's called soul sleep, that when we die, there's this unconscious existence.

Uh, I would depart from that.

I don't think that's biblical at all.

I think to draw from what Paul is trying to say here, he's not using this in a wooden literal way.

When we die, we don't just go to sleep.

No, he's emphasizing the temporary nature of death, specifically for those who belong to Jesus.

And so sleep is not a permanent state, right?

Typically, when someone goes to sleep, we expect they're gonna get up.

That's how he's using it here.

Death is not a permanent state for those who are in Christ.

And so, right out of the gate, Paul with Silas and Timothy, they're beginning to address this concern with the Thessalonian church.

Yes, they've lost people in Christ, people they love.

Yes, they should grieve, but they shouldn't grieve as people with no hope.

Because those who belong to Jesus, there's a hope that death isn't the end.

It's not the final word.

And that raises an important question.

Well, how do we know that?

How do we know that death isn't the final word?

Well, I'm glad you asked that question.

To answer it, we got to keep working through the text.

And so now that number one, we've seen the concern, Paul addresses their concern about those who die in Christ before Jesus returns, the next section he's gonna unpack is number two, the conviction.

The conviction.

So notice what he says in verse 14.

He says these words For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

You see, as Paul and his team begin to address these concerns in the Church of Thessalonica, I want you to notice here how they're anchoring their hope for the future based on something that God has already accomplished in the past.

So their hope for the future is based on what God did in the past, namely, their hope is rooted in the fact that Jesus died and rose again.

This is what we believe.

In fact, I would suggest to you that if you're a Christian today, this is what you must believe.

This is the essence of what it means to be a Christian, that we believe that Jesus died and Jesus actually rose from the dead.

That's foundational.

That's our conviction.

So you don't become a Christian by being a good person.

You don't become a Christian by following the rules.

You don't become a Christian by going to church or doing things to earn your way to heaven.

You can never earn your way to heaven.

No, God had to come down to us in the person of Jesus and accomplish our salvation for us through his death and through his resurrection.

And what makes us a Christian is our faith in Jesus, trusting in him and in his death and burial and resurrection.

So we become Christians by faith.

And we, by faith, we believe that Jesus actually died and that he actually rose from the dead.

This is not a fairy tale, it's not a cute story, it's not a myth.

We believe that this is a historical event, that there was a real Jesus who actually died and who actually rose from the grave.

So Jesus was a real person.

We believe that God sent Jesus who stepped into time and space, and so the Son of God came, he was born of the Virgin Mary, he took on flesh, he became human, he lived a perfect life, he was fully obedient to his father, he was fully righteous.

And while he lived a perfect life, at the end of his life, he was arrested, he was condemned, falsely accused, and crucified.

We believe that the death of Jesus, while it was certainly horrific, it was also necessary.

Jesus did not die for his own sin, he died for my sin and for your sin.

We believe that on the cross, Jesus bore our sin, he took the punishment for our sin upon himself, right?

The debt that we earn for ourselves against the holy God.

He paid that debt, and through faith in Jesus, we can be pardoned, we can be forgiven, and we can be declared righteous in God's sight.

So we actually believe that.

That really happened.

That's our conviction.

Jesus died on the cross, that's half of it.

And then we believe he came back to life.

Then we believe he rose from the dead three days later.

And when I say that, I'm not being metaphorical, I'm being illiteral.

He actually came back to life, bodily, with a resurrection body.

So after his resurrection, we believe that Jesus appeared to his disciples.

He met with the women, he then met with the twelve, and then he met at one point more than 500 people.

Countless eyewitnesses saw the resurrected Jesus, and then after 40 days of making appearances, the resurrected Jesus ascended into heaven.

That's our conviction.

We actually believe that Jesus died and rose again.

Do you believe that this morning?

Okay.

If you're a Christian, we must embrace that truth.

We believe Jesus died and rose again.

We believe that.

And so for Paul and his team, this conviction about what God has done in the past gives us confidence as we look toward the future.

Because if God has already accomplished all this in the first coming of Jesus, then we can rest assured that at the second coming of Jesus, God will fulfill all his promises.

This is what we see here.

Specifically, we can trust that when Jesus comes back, he's not going to forget anybody.

And nobody's going to miss out here, right?

So he's got a plan.

He's got a plan for those who are alive and a plan for those who are dead, because here he kind of begins to talk about how God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

So he has a plan.

So what is this plan that God has about bringing along those who've died in Christ before he returns?

Well, to figure it out, we've got to keep moving.

So now that we've seen number one, the concern, the concern is this we're waiting for Jesus, but people keep dying.

What happens to them?

Now we've seen that, number two, the conviction.

Well, we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and Jesus isn't going to miss anybody.

Now we have to go, well, how exactly is that going to be the case?

What exactly is Jesus going to do?

And that leads to point three.

We're going to see the coming of Jesus, the coming.

So in this section, Paul and his crew get very, very specific.

They're going to give an order of things.

We're going to see this in a moment during the second coming of Jesus.

But notice how he sets the table for this in verse 15.

He says, These words, for this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, right, who are waiting for Jesus, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

So notice what he's saying here.

What he means is this when Jesus returns, those who are dead in Christ will not be forgotten.

In fact, they get first dibs.

Isn't that interesting?

So, in the order of operations, what Paul and his crew are saying is Jesus is going to return.

And so he's going to now give us this order.

Now, here's the thing I'm a nerd, you all know it, I use a literal.

When I do my points, right?

It all starts with the same letter.

I like, I get kind of OCD about that too, just so you know.

I like kind of went overload this week.

And so I have a whole set of subpoints under point three that are also all alliterated.

You ready for it?

Okay, we're gonna walk through this whole progression here.

So, like it's totally nerdy.

Some of you are like, yeah, dude, you gotta like figure something out because that's really nerdy.

But that's how I'm wired.

Okay, so notice the first subpoint.

We're gonna get this order of operations here.

First of all, we need to look at number A, not number, letter A, the return of Jesus.

The return of Jesus.

So notice verse 16, what he says.

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

Now, notice here what he's describing first.

This is the return of Jesus.

Jesus himself, embodied because he is perpetually now in the flesh, but in a resurrection body, he will descend himself from heaven.

So this is the return of Jesus, and when Jesus returns bodily, what's gonna happen, the way Paul describes it, is that this is gonna be a return that's undeniably clear to everyone.

Listen to the language he uses here.

When he returns, there's a cry of command, there's a voice of an archangel, and there's a sound of a trumpet of God.

Translation: this is not a quiet event.

When Jesus returns, he's not gonna slip through the back door unnoticed, you know, quietly.

He's not gonna do that.

It's a grand appearance.

Earlier on, I addressed soul sleep to press into this a little more.

There's also a belief from some individuals, I think it's kind of an offshoot of the Christian faith, that Jesus already returned and he kind of has this invisible reign taking place.

I would say that that's neglecting to see what we see here in the text.

There's nothing quiet or invisible about Jesus, it's very visible.

He's embodied.

And so what this is is something that's undeniable, unmistakable.

Now, when we talk about the return of Jesus, I also realize there's lots of debates, all kinds of opinions about all sorts of things that unfold.

Faithful Christians have disagreed about certain things for a long time.

One thing Paul makes abundantly clear here is that when Jesus comes back, everybody knows it.

Nobody's gonna get that wrong.

Everybody's gonna know that the king has come.

There's no mistaking his arrival.

And so he starts by just simply talking about the return of Jesus.

That's the first thing.

And what's the next step in the progression?

Well, now, point B, he's gonna look at the resurrection of the saints.

The resurrection of the saints.

You see, this is the moment where Paul and his team now are explicitly addressing the concern of the Thessalonians.

So, what happens to those who die in Christ, who are waiting for Jesus' return?

Will they be left out?

Will they miss out on the grand celebration?

Paul says, absolutely not.

No way.

No, in fact, they're at the top of the guest list, believe it or not.

How so, you ask?

Great question.

Well, after describing the return of Christ, notice what Paul says immediately follows.

He says, This, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Notice how Paul is unpacking this for the Thessalonians who are wondering if they're left out?

No, the dead in Christ rise first.

This is not a possibility, this is a promise.

Those who are dead in Christ, waiting for his return, will rise.

In fact, the resurrection of Jesus guarantees this.

Remember, Paul says elsewhere that Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection.

If you're familiar with that farming term, when you're farming and there's an early crop, right?

When you look at the crop, that's the first fruits.

And what the yield looks like, that harvest, it gets an indicator for the rest of your crop.

And so Jesus is the first to rise of the resurrection body.

He's the first fruits.

And what that essentially means is this, right?

That Jesus, he came from out of the grave, he rose from the dead, but his resurrection is not an isolated event, right?

It's the beginning of something.

Jesus inaugurated the new creation in his resurrection.

And so his resurrection guarantees there'll be more resurrection to come.

Because Jesus rose from the dead, those who belong to Jesus who die in Christ will also be raised from the dead.

And here's the thing that's cool.

It doesn't matter how long you've been dead.

It doesn't matter if you've been dead for one day, one year, or one thousand years.

It also, biblically, I think, doesn't matter the condition of your body.

I realize some people get very concerned about this.

Cremation and all these things, right?

The reality is, given enough time, all of us return to dust.

We were made from the dust, and given enough time, that's what we return to.

And God is able to raise from the dead dust.

What death reduces to dust, God will raise to life.

God will raise his people from the dead.

It's a guarantee, and will be raised new.

We're given new life just like Jesus in a resurrected body.

I realize that for some of us, when we think about coming back from the dead, we get all these spooky ideas of what that looks like.

You know, you've probably watched too many zombie movies.

This is not the walking dead.

This is life that's perfected.

That's what a resurrection body is.

Like the best ideal version of us, that's the resurrection body.

It's it's it's made new, raised to an incorruptible, imperishable, glorified kind of body.

This new body that we have, right, it's awesome.

So one day I'm gonna have a six-pack.

I've got like a dad pack going on, but one day I will have a six-pack.

I'm looking forward to that day.

So Paul is telling these grieving Thessalonians that those among you who die before Jesus returns, they're not at a disadvantage.

They're not gonna miss what God is doing, they're not gonna even arrive late.

No, they rise first.

This is what Paul says.

But then he doesn't finish.

He continues.

So this is the order of things, right?

So we have the return of Jesus, and then the first thing he does is he raises those who are dead in Christ to resurrection bodies.

And then now, the third point, point C here, our sub point, is this it's the reunion of all God's people.

Notice what he says in verse 17.

He says this.

Then we who are alive, who are left, right, who are still alive when Jesus returns, 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.

Now, there's a lot of sections here that people get really focused on contextually, based on the argument that Paul has been making throughout this text, talking to the Thessalonians who are concerned, the key word really here is the word together.

That's what he's leaning into.

We're looking at this passage based on the context.

And what Paul is saying here is when Jesus returns, those who die before he returns, and those who are still alive, guess what?

They all get to be together.

There's a reunion.

We all get to be together.

So these Thessalonians who are grieving, their loved ones in Christ who died, he's saying, Hey, you get to see them again.

You get to be with them.

You're not to be afraid they're gonna miss out somehow.

No, they're gonna be there, they're gonna be there first, and then if you're still alive, you get to be with them.

Now, what Paul doesn't explain here, but he explains it elsewhere.

This is remarkable.

If Jesus were to return today and we are still alive at his return, guess what happens to us?

We who are still alive, there's a transformation that takes place.

Paul says, uh, not here, but to the church in Corinth, he says this we shall not all sleep, meaning we won't all die before Jesus returns.

He says, but we shall all be changed.

And so, in other words, what he means here is those who are dead in Christ at his arrival will rise from the dead, they'll receive resurrection bodies, and immediately after those who are alive when Jesus returns, we're given a new body as well.

We're transformed, right?

We will see Jesus as he is and we'll be like him.

We'll also receive those resurrection bodies, we'll also have the six backs.

And so in the end, every follower of Jesus will be glorified, perfected, and all God's people, here's the point.

We get to be together.

We get to be together with one another.

We'll meet the Lord, we'll see Christ, we'll share in his resurrection life.

And notice where Paul lands this section, he says, and so we will always be with the Lord.

That's his focus.

I want you to know the good news this morning, and I think the comfort and hope that we have this morning is not simply that we get to survive death.

It's not simply that we get renewed bodies, and I'm looking forward to that.

The greatest comfort we should have and the greatest thing we should look forward to is we get to be with Jesus and each other forever.

That's what Paul is saying.

And so, because of that, because of the fact that we get to be with Christ forever, we can live with confidence and we can live with hope.

Because he's coming back.

And when he arrives, whether we're alive to see it or whether we've already died, all God's people will be gathered together to celebrate the arrival of King Jesus.

So Jesus is coming back, the bridegroom is coming for the bride, and when he comes, it's gonna be party time.

There's gonna be a celebration, and this celebration is unlike any other celebration because on that day, nobody needs to fret over the guest list.

There's room for everybody.

We all fit.

We don't need to fret.

We don't need to wonder if God has somehow forgotten someone.

We don't need to worry if those who we love who are in Christ will somehow not be there on the last day.

No, the truth that Paul wants to bring, and I think that we need to see from our text very clearly today is this.

The big idea is no one who belongs to Jesus will be left out when Jesus returns.

No one who belongs to Jesus will be left out when he returns.

That's the good news this morning.

That's good news, and that's good news, I think, that enables us to grieve, but to grieve with hope.

To grieve rightly.

When our brothers and sisters pass away in Christ, when there are people we love, we can grieve with hope.

And I hope this encourages you today.

In fact, I want to just throw this out there.

I'm even nurdier than you already thought.

Guess what?

I had three alliterated points, then three subpoints under my point three.

Do you know I have a fourth point also alliterated today?

With the one minute and eighteen seconds I have left.

Can I give you my fourth point real quick?

Point four this morning, we've seen the first three is the concern, right?

Number one, the concern, what happens to those who die in Christ before Christ returns?

The conviction, Jesus rose from the dead, and he's not going to miss anybody.

The coming, he will return, the dead in Christ will rise, and those who are alive at his coming will be transformed.

And point four, we now have the command from our text.

Notice how all this ends with an imperative command.

He commands the church to do something with all this news.

He says these words.

He says, Therefore, encourage one another with these words.

Encourage each other.

Can we have this be our challenge this morning based on the text?

Based on the fact that no one who belongs to Jesus will be left out when he returns.

Paul gives the Thessalonians this command to encourage one another.

I want to do the same thing this morning with one another here.

And so, very simply, I want you to think of someone in your life right now who's grieving, who's going through loss, maybe a brother or sister in Christ who's grieving, maybe somebody who's standing beside a hospital bed right now, somebody who's recently stood beside a casket, grieving, somebody who's struggling with the reality that their loved one in Christ is now gone.

Can you remind them of this hope?

Can we be a church that doesn't just understand this with our minds, but actually takes what God's word says and lives it out by reminding one another of this good news, reminding one another that death doesn't get the final word, not in Christ.

Remind them of the fact that Jesus died and rose from the dead.

Remind them that Jesus is coming back, and remind them that the dead in Christ will rise.

And on that day, all God's people will gather and celebrate.

We will all come to the wedding celebration of the Lamb, and we're gonna party, we're gonna go to the reception.

There's room for all of us.

This is good news, church.

This is good news for all of us, and this is a truth that's worthy of making encouragement in other people's lives.

So encourage one another.

Encourage each other with these words.

And as we wait for Jesus to return, let's celebrate the fact that we all get to be together.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for today.

Thank you for your word.

I just thank you for the fact that 2,000 years ago, through the power of your spirit, you inspired Paul and his co-workers to write this letter to a group of people who were going through a season of life that their circumstances, their situations, a lot of the things they were facing were very distinct from us.

We don't know what it's like to live in Macedonia 2,000 years ago.

And yet the human reality of their hearts that were grieving, the loss of people around them, we can resonate with that.

We know exactly what it's like to grieve, to mourn.

In fact, maybe there are people who've been doing that recently, right here, right now.

I pray that you, the God of all comfort, would draw near in this moment, encourage their hearts.

And I pray that you would enable us, through the power of your spirit, to encourage one another with this truth.

We thank you that Jesus died and rose again.

We thank you that he's coming back.

And we thank you that no one who's in Christ is going to be left behind.

Not when he returns.

So thank you for that comfort and hope.

We get to be together forever with Jesus.

What a wonderful celebration that's going to be.

So we thank you for that.

We love you, Lord.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.