Providing Encouragement

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We're in the midst of a series focused on the apostle Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians. After starting a new church community in the large seaport city of Thessalonica, Paul is forced to leave abruptly because of opposition he faced to the message of the gospel. And now several months have passed, and like a good pastor, Paul writes a letter to the Thessalonians to address some of their specific questions and concerns, which had been reported back to him through his colleague, Timothy. Now at this point, this is a group of relatively new Christians who are feeling more than a little anxious. Part of the reason is because Paul has left, so they've lost their leader, and they're also suffering at least some mistreatment because of their faith. And in addition to that, some of the closest people to them, friends and family members, have died, and they weren't expecting this. They didn't see that coming. So now they're wondering, “How is this all going to end?” And they're not sure how much more they can take. But Paul writes, not to chastise them for their anxiety but rather to encourage them.

Now apparently when Paul lived among them, he taught them about what is known as the day of the Lord, which we might know as or think of as Judgment Day. Paul taught that when Jesus returns, he's going to hold the world to account for the lives that we've lived. But if you're a typical New Yorker, you might view Judgment Day with a heavy dose of cynicism. You might say, forget about it. It's not going to happen. That's just a threat or a scare tactic. This is just a vain attempt to try to control people's behavior and get them to act a certain way. But no, Paul doesn't see it like that. He takes the day of the Lord deadly seriously. If we understand the day of the Lord rightly, we'll see that it is the true source of our: 1) security, 2) motivation, and 3) salvation.

So let's take a look at 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 and see how we might learn these things.

¹Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. ²For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. ³While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. ⁴But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. ⁵For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. ⁶So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. ⁷For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. ⁸But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. ⁹For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁰who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. ¹¹Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

Security

Apparently the day of the Lord was a frequent theme among the prophets of the Old Testament; they spoke of a day when God would intervene in history, when he would judge the nations and overthrow all of God's enemies. But in the New Testament, the day of the Lord becomes the day of the Lord Jesus, because Jesus has been revealed to be the one true Lord of the universe. But given the pressure that the Thessalonians were living under, they wanted to know, when is this going to happen? Paul talked to them about the day the Lord, so they want to know, when is this going to happen? But Paul doesn't answer that question. For one, Paul doesn't know when it's going to take place, so he can't give them a time or a date. But for another reason, Paul perceives that there is something else lurking underneath that question. They're asking, when is this going to take place? But Paul realizes what they're really asking about is where they should place their security. They want to know that they're going to be okay, that they've got nothing to worry about. And that's why, in verse 3, Paul warns them about people who are talking about peace and security, but then sudden destruction is going to come.

For the Thessalonians, they might have been tempted by those who were advocating an alternative source of peace and security. They might have been susceptible to these words because they were living under the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome. You see, it was the Roman Empire that offered to people peace and security. That was especially true in the city of Thessalonica, because years before this moment, Mark Antony had granted Thessalonica the right to become a Roman city rather than merely a Roman colony, because the Thessalonians had sided with Mark Antony against the neighboring city in battle, Philippi. And these two words, peace and security, were the words that were used most often as propaganda for the Roman Empire. So people were suggesting, “This is where you find true peace and security; you find it in Rome.” And given the fact that they put their faith in Jesus, but then Paul has to leave town, Jesus has not yet returned, and so many of their close friends and family members have died, they're wondering, “Did we make the wrong choice? Are we on the right side?”

I would suggest that, just as they had to ask this question, “Should we put our trust in Jesus or in Rome?” so we have to ask ourselves are we going to put our ultimate trust in Jesus or in politics when it comes to our ultimate source of security? We've just lived through another contentious election cycle, and whether you are elated or depressed by the outcome, this is the question we need to ask ourselves when it comes to our ultimate security: Will we put our trust in Jesus or in politics?

John Byron is a commentator who wrote on the letter of 1 Thessalonians, and in this particular section, he writes these words:

Similar to the Thessalonians, if not even more so, the modern church must remember that no government, social institution, or foreign or economic policy can guarantee peace and security. To peg our hopes on a political personality, a party, a legislative bill, or even the democratic process is to place ourselves in the same position of those about whom Paul warned the Thessalonians. Those who cry ‘peace and security’ and divert their attention from God are unaware of just how quickly it can all be stripped away. When the church joins in with those cries, it stands in danger of being surprised by the ‘thief in the night.’

So where does your ultimate source of security lie? How do you know that ultimately you're going to be okay? Is it based on who sits in the Oval Office, or is it based on who sits in the throne room of heaven? So Paul challenges any sense of complacency here, and he uses two images to convey Jesus' coming. He uses these two images to tell us that, on the one hand, his coming is going to be unexpected, but on the other hand, it will be inescapable.

A Thief in the Night

First, he tells us that the coming of Jesus will be unexpected because Jesus will come like a thief in the night. This image originated with Jesus Himself. Jesus is the one who said, if you knew the night that a thief is going to break into your home, you would stay awake. But you don't know when Jesus will return, because he's going to come like a thief in the night, and therefore you can't predict it; you can only prepare for His coming by being ready.

Labor Pains

But his coming will not only be unexpected, it will be sudden and inescapable. So now Paul uses the second image of labor pains coming on a pregnant woman. Now, oftentimes when that image is used in the Scriptures, it is used to emphasize pain or sorrow, but here, Paul uses it to emphasize the suddenness of labor and the inevitable outcome of labor. Once those labor pains hit, there's no stopping what's coming. The baby is going to be born.

When my wife, Ashley, was pregnant with our fourth child, she decided to labor at the apartment for as long as possible so as not to go to the hospital too soon. But in this case, we might have waited a little too long. Certainly, our cab driver was worried that he might be delivering a baby in the back of his cab. But no, we got to the hospital on time. But then when we went up to the maternity ward, the place was packed. The nurses all commented on the fact that it must be a full moon, because all the labor and delivery rooms were taken, and so the nurses explained to Ashley she would just have to wait in the lobby. But at this point, Ashley had a lot of experience. This is baby number four. And Ashley said, “You don't understand; this baby is coming.” And she was right. And so they quickly opened up a room and rushed her into it, and Charlotte was born almost on the floor of the hospital lobby. (But no, she made it to a bed.)

The point is that Paul is suggesting that the coming of Jesus will be unexpected, but when it comes, as sudden as it may seem, it is inescapable. It's unavoidable. There's no way around it. And therefore you've got to be ready. But Paul is not issuing this as a warning directed to the Thessalonians, or even as a threat, because it's not the Thessalonians who are in danger. Rather, the ones who are in danger are the ones who are advocating a false source of peace and security. So the first thing to note is that the day of the Lord is the true source of our security.

Motivation

But then the second thing we need to note is that the day of the Lord is the true source of our motivation. Knowledge of this promised day is what inspires us to live differently now. So Paul proceeds to remind the Thessalonians — and us, by extension — who we are in Christ. Beginning in verse 4 through verse 8, Paul mixes a lot of his metaphors, but the upshot of what he's trying to communicate is he's not trying to tell us to become something that we're not; rather he's reminding us to be who we already are. What he's telling us is that the day of the Lord has already dawned, and if we have put our faith in Jesus, then we belong to the day rather than the night, and we have to live now as people of the day. Let me share three different analogies with you to try to draw out the meaning of what Paul is seeking to describe to us.

Mountain Range

The first analogy comes from Karl Barth, who was a theologian in the 20th century who lived in Switzerland. And Barth, being someone who lived in Switzerland, had mountains on the mind, and he knew that there was one place where you could see what looked like a single mountain with one summit. So if you were standing in a particular spot, it looked like it was a single mountain with one summit, but if you looked at that same mountain from a slightly different direction, what you would notice is that it's actually not a single mountain with one summit, but a range, a whole mountain range.

Barth suggested that in a similar way when you read the Old Testament and you read the way in which the prophets describe the day of the Lord. At first, it seems like they're describing one single day. But then, from the perspective of the New Testament, what you realize is that the day of the Lord is not one single day, but it is an age which spans from the first coming of Jesus to the second coming of Jesus. So Jesus has inaugurated the day of the Lord through his death and his resurrection, but he has not consummated the day of the Lord until he returns. And so we live in between these two moments: what Jesus has done and what Jesus will do. We live in between his first coming and his second coming. We live in between the time when he has inaugurated his Kingdom, but he has not yet consummated it. And so the promised future, the new age, has broken into the present. It's a current reality for us now, even as the old age is passing away, but it has not yet completely disappeared. So we live now in this tension between what the theologians call the already and the not yet. The Kingdom of God is already here, but it has not yet come in its fullness.

D-Day and V-Day

So here's a second analogy. We could use another analogy to describe what it's like living in the tension between the already and the not yet, between Jesus' first coming and the second coming, between the inauguration and the consummation of the day of the Lord. The analogy is that it's not unlike living in between D-day and V-day during World War II. D-day, June 6, 1944, was the day that the allied forces stormed Normandy. V-day, May 7-8, 1945, is when the war was formally ended. But if you had been there on D-day, you would have known that that was the decisive battle. That was the beginning of the end for those who had eyes to see. And yet it would not be evident to all that the war was over until V-day.

My grandfather participated in World War II. He was an engineer, so he was part of the Army Corps of Engineers. He was supposed to land in Normandy on D-day, but there was a problem with his ship, so he was delayed. He landed three days later. He arrived at night, and the first thing that they needed to do was take shelter, get through the night, and then figure out what to do once daylight hit. So he notices when he lands on the beach that there is a truck under which no one else is sleeping. So he makes his way underneath this truck and finds security and safety there, and then he wakes up in the morning and realizes why no one else had taken shelter under this truck. It was the artillery truck. It was filled with ammunition. But he actually made it through the night and made it through the rest of the war. He built bridges from Normandy to Berlin.

So those who had eyes to see knew that D-day was the decisive victory, even though the war didn't formally come to a conclusion until V-day. And in a similar way, D-day for us as Christians was the day that Jesus conquered sin, evil, and death through his cross and resurrection. That was the decisive victory. But it will not be evident to all that the war has been won until Jesus returns and consummates his Kingdom. So we live in these in between times. But how then are we supposed to live?

Jetlag

Well, here's the third analogy. If the day of the Lord has already dawned through the death and resurrection of Jesus — if the new age has broken into the present and is now a current reality for us — then that means we need to live as people of the day. N.T. Wright offers this idea, which I've slightly adapted. Imagine you take an overnight flight from New York to London. So you land in London at 6 a.m. The day has dawned, but because of jetlag, everything in your body is telling you that it's midnight and it's time to go to sleep. But it's not; it's time to be awake. And we also know one of the quickest ways to get rid of jetlag is to stay awake — to be awake, to be alert. And even if everybody else on that plane goes to their hotel and goes to sleep, the best thing to do is to remain awake and alert.

That is what Paul is telling us. The day has dawned. And everything in our body, everything among the people around us may be suggesting that it's nighttime, it's time for us to sleep. But it's not. It's time for us to be awake. You see, if we’ve put our faith in Jesus, we don't belong to the night anymore. We don't belong to that sad, drunken, deadly world. We don't belong to the old world of darkness and death and despair. No, we belong to the new world of light and of hope and of life. And that's why He tells us to be sober-minded, to be serious, to be awake, to be alert, because we are people of the day. That is who we are.

But that doesn't mean it's going to be easy. He knows that we're going to face challenges, we're going to face opposition, and therefore he tells us that we have to put on our armor. We have to gear up for this. But notice that the armor he tells us to put on is purely defensive. To put on a breastplate and a helmet — we're not supposed to wield a sword or a spear against the world around us. No, our armor is purely defensive. He tells us to put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. And as a side note, notice one more time here, Paul refers to that famous triad: faith, hope, and love.

The important thing to notice here is that Paul is not telling us to try to become something that we're not but rather to be who we already are. You belong to the day; now live as people of the light. And that's what motivates and inspires us to live differently, because the promise of the future has broken into our lives now. The problem, of course, as I said at the beginning, is that there are some people who would suggest that the day of the Lord, this promised future, is never going to come. It's never going to happen. This talk about final judgment, it's nothing more than a threat, a scare tactic, a fantasy. It's just a vain attempt to try to get people to behave.

Karl Marx famously took this view. He said that religion in general and Christianity in particular is the opiate of the masses. He said that Christianity is like a drug that fills people, especially the poor, with delusional thoughts. It at least temporarily causes them to forget about their pain and their suffering and inhibits their desire to seek real change in the world now by filling them with false hopes for a better world to come in the future.

But the Polish poet and diplomat Czeslaw Milosz actually turned Karl Marx's argument on its head. Milosz had witnessed the horrors of Marxism firsthand, and he said, no, Christianity is not the opium of the masses.

A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.

And that's right, we don't want to live in a world where people get away with injustice. We want to live in a world where we know that ultimately people will be held responsible for the lives that we live. We want there to be judgment. We want there to be accountability.

This is what the Oxford professor C.S. Lewis realized when he was reading through the Old Testament. See, at first he was surprised by the ways in which the psalmist and the prophets would speak about judgment, because they spoke about it so positively. In Psalm 96, for example, the psalmist says, “Let the heavens be glad. Let the earth rejoice, for the Lord comes to judge the earth.” Now this struck him as odd, because usually when we think about the judgment of God, we think of that as a negative thing, something we want to avoid that fills us with fear and trembling. Who would want to be judged by the Lord? But they view it not as something that causes discomfort but rather a cause for celebration. And why is that? Because many of them had experienced something that we often do not. And this is how C.S. Lewis put it. He writes:

In most places and times it has been very difficult for the ‘small man’ to get his case heard. The Judge (and, doubtless, one or two of his underlings) has to be bribed. If you can’t afford to ‘oil his palm’ your case will never reach court…We need not therefore be surprised if the Psalms, and the Prophets, are full of the longing for judgment, and regard the announcement that ‘judgment’ is coming as good news. Hundreds and thousands of people who have been stripped of all they possess and who have the right entirely on their side will at last be heard. Of course they are not afraid of judgment. They know their case is unanswerable – if only it could be heard. When God comes to judge, at last it will.

So in a world where people often do get away with things, we want to know that God ultimately is going to hold them to account. God is going to bring his justice to bear on this earth. He is going to set things right. But here's the catch, if you want God's judgment to fall on others, you also have to let it fall on you too, when you deserve it. And who of us could say that we haven't done anything wrong? What makes us think that we would be able to stand the judgment?

Salvation

That brings me to my third point, then, which is that the day of the Lord is not only the true source of our security and our motivation, but also our salvation. Because Paul writes that God has not destined us for wrath but rather to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we might live with him.

Now, a quick word about wrath. That's not a word we like, because to us, we imagine anger and fits of rage. And of course, that seems inappropriate of God, but that's not what the word wrath means. It doesn't mean that God flies off the handle or loses his temper or is out of control with his anger; it means just the opposite. The word wrath in the Scriptures means simply God's settled opposition to all sin, evil, and injustice. And of course, if God wasn't opposed to sin, evil, and injustice, he wouldn't be a god worthy of our worship.

So we should translate that word “wrath” as opposition. It's his controlled, settled opposition to all sin, evil, and injustice. But you see, in the Old Testament, people were looking forward to it. They wanted God to bring his justice to bear against all of God's enemies. But prophets like Amos said, not so fast. If you want God's justice to fall on your enemies, you also have to let God's justice fall on you when you deserve it. And so, in Amos 5, he says woe to you. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord, because the day of the Lord is not a day of light; it's a day of darkness. It's not a day of brightness; it's a day of gloom. But if that's the case, if it is inevitable and inescapable, then what hope do we have, honestly?

Let me show you something that perhaps you've never seen before, and this was also new to me. When Paul uses this language here in 1 Thessalonians 5 about the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation, he's drawing this imagery directly from Isaiah 59, which we read as our call to worship. In Isaiah 59, the prophet tells us that God assesses the state of the world, and he doesn't like what he sees, because justice is thwarted and righteousness is nowhere to be found. God says that truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness can't even get through the door. God looks for justice, and he can't find it, and he notices that those who refuse to do evil themselves become prey. It's a dog eat dog world. If you don't engage in evil, then you're going to get eaten alive. So he wonders, well, who can do something about it? The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice, and he wondered why was there no one who could intercede?

But in light of the fact that there's no one who can do it, God determines that he will rise to action. He will bring salvation by his own arm. Now listen to the language in Isaiah 59:17-19 that is used to describe God's action:

He put on righteousness as a breastplate,

and a helmet of salvation on his head;

he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,

and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

According to their deeds, so will he repay,

wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies;

to the coastlands he will render repayment.

So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west,

and his glory from the rising of the sun;

for he will come like a rushing stream,

which the wind of the Lord drives.

Righteousness, salvation — yes! — but vengeance, wrath, zeal, repayment? If God is going to repay us for our deeds, what hope do we possibly have for escaping? And so the question we have to ask ourselves is, is God a God of grace or wrath? Is he a God of judgment or salvation? And the answer is yes. The answer is both. But how?

Well 800 years after Isaiah wrote these words, all of God's vengeance, all of God's zeal, all of God's wrath against his adversaries, all of God's repayment toward his enemies was focused on one single spot. All of his vengeance, all of his zeal, all of his wrath was directed to one place: himself. As Jesus — God, in person — hangs on a cross on a little hill outside the city of Jerusalem, he absorbs into himself all the wrath, all the vengeance, all the zeal against our sin, evil, and injustice. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting our sins against us. And you see, the day of the Lord was not a day of light; it was a day of darkness. It was not a day of brightness; it was a day of gloom. Do you realize that when Jesus was hanging on the cross, the whole land was shrouded, literally, in darkness in the middle of the day, from noon until three in the afternoon, because this was the day of the Lord that the prophets were talking about, but it was so unlike anything that they were prepared to see. The day of the Lord was not just a single moment but an age. But that was the decisive battle when he conquered sin, evil, and death on our behalf, and he will bring the victory to its conclusion when he returns.

And that's why Paul can say that God has not destined us for wrath but for salvation through our Lord Jesus who died for us, so that whether we're awake or asleep, whether we're alive or dead when he returns, we might live with him. And so the day of the Lord offers us both a word of challenge as well as a word of comfort.

Challenge

First, the challenge. If you're not yet a Christian, or if you're not sure if you're a Christian, then now is the time to put your trust in Jesus and to take shelter under his cross, because the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. You're not going to know in advance when it's going to take place, but like labor pains coming on a pregnant woman, it will be unstoppable and inescapable. Therefore, now is the time to embrace the message of the gospel. And you see, the message of the gospel is this: that God is so holy, and your sin and my sin really is so serious, that Jesus had to die. He had to die. There was no other way. There was no other way for him to destroy sin, evil, and death without destroying you. And yet at the very same time, God is so loving and you are so valuable in his eyes that Jesus was willing to go to the cross for you despite what it would cost him — willing to go to the cross for you, and he would have done it even if you were the only one. That's the challenge.

Comfort

But along with that challenge comes this word of comfort. You see, this is why Paul wrote. He says in light of all of this — in light of the day of the Lord — encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. If you put your trust in Jesus, you will know that the ultimate day of the Lord is your true source of security. It's your true source of motivation and inspiration to live differently, because it is your true salvation.

Jesus said the exact same thing in John chapter 5. He says, “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” Do you realize Jesus is putting this in the past tense because it is as good as done? He who puts their trust in the one who sent Jesus has eternal life now. Eternal life begins now and never ends, and that person who is united to Jesus by faith will not come into judgment. You have already passed from death to life because you know how the story ends. You know that on that day, you already know what the verdict will be: not guilty, innocent, righteous — not because you haven't done anything wrong, but because Jesus died in your place. Jesus is the just judge who was judged in your place so that you will not be condemned.

Therefore, you have to do what the Thessalonians did. Everyone everywhere heard about the Thessalonians' faith because it was so startling and surprising. They turned from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven — Jesus, who saves us from the wrath to come. Whoever you are, whatever you've done, turn — make a turn, a decisive turn, from whatever false gods you have been living for, whatever your false sources of security might be — and serve the living and true God, and await for his son, to wait with hope, knowing that he has already delivered us from the wrath to come. And that's what motivates us and inspires us now to live differently — to live as people of the day, because the day of the Lord has already dawned.

Let me pray for us.

Father, it is so easy for us to regard Judgment Day, the day of the Lord, with a heavy dose of cynicism and skepticism, but help us to see that this is not a threat or a scare tactic or an attempt to just control behavior. This is the most true thing about our world — that the decisive battle has already been won, and though it may not be evident to everyone yet, one day it will be, that you have won the war against sin, evil, and death. And we thank you that that promised future is a reality now. So help us to live in light of it, knowing that Jesus is our salvation, Jesus is our security, and Jesus is our motivation to live as children of the light. We ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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