Waiting for the Son

We'll go ahead and turn your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians 1. You'll know that we've begun a series on awaiting

Christ in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and as Pastor Josh and I divided up the different texts and who would be preaching what,

I am thankful that I get to bring this one to you today because I think this verse is really definitional to 1 and 2

Thessalonians, and I think it's really going to define this whole series.

The idea is contained in this one verse. So if you're already there at 1

Thessalonians, I'm going to read verses 1 through 10, and then I'll preach specifically on verse 10.

Please stand for the reading of God's Word. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the

Church of the Thessalonians, in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our

God and Father your work of faith and labor of love, and steadfastness of hope in our

Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers, loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power, and in the

Holy Spirit, and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake, and you became imitators of us and of the

Lord. For you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.

For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything.

For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true

God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for the great gospel of Jesus Christ. We thank you for your Son who is coming from heaven to rescue us from the wrath to come.

I pray that as we contemplate what you have for us in your word, that these truths will become more a part of our reality in the way that we think and act.

I pray that we would be greatly encouraged by them as you care for your children with these precious words that you have given.

In Jesus' name, amen. How many people here have ever heard of a man named

Polycarp? Raise your hand. Okay. There's not too many.

So Polycarp is famous for being the first—I think the first, if not one of the first—sub -apostolic martyrs.

So sub -apostolic meaning the time immediately after the apostles, and a martyr being someone who dies for their faith.

So he was a sub -apostolic martyr. In fact, he was so early on in church history that it's recorded that he was a student of the

Apostle John. So this is very early on. Now being a convert in this new faith of Christianity, no doubt he lived a difficult life, but his life at the end became even much more difficult and discouraging when he was labeled an atheist by the

Roman Empire because he taught people not to worship the Roman gods. And so here he is, falsely labeled an atheist, and his life being sought after by Roman authorities.

At one point, they sent Roman authorities to his house, and they couldn't find him and so they took two youths from his house—you know, these are probably teenagers—tortured one, and the other, most likely, they didn't bother torturing because he simply denied

Christ. So then he wasn't able to hide, he wasn't able to run anywhere because he was betrayed by a member of his own house.

So just like Judas brought authorities to the garden, so Polycarp was betrayed by someone in his own house so he could not go anywhere else to avoid martyrdom.

And then during all this, he had a dream one night that his pillow was on fire and he decided that he would be burned alive, that this is how he was going to go.

Now all those things are quite discouraging, they would be quite discouraging if you were going through them, and yet Polycarp was pretty much unflappable.

He remained encouraged throughout this whole thing. He endured this entire trial without a hint of discouragement.

How is he able to do that? How is someone able to endure? We face discouragements.

I faced a lot of discouragements this week. I got a message earlier this past week that my grandmother went into a coma, and thankfully she's out of that, but she's had a lot of difficulties and we don't know what's next for her.

I got a very large bill that I'm not looking forward to paying, and then

Friday night I came in here and found out that the ceiling had collapsed. So this caution tape behind me is not a set design for our new sermon series on spiritual caution.

There is in fact a problem with the ceiling, and if you all know the headaches that Josh and I went through to make sure that this doesn't happen, you know what kind of post -traumatic stress this could trigger for me.

And I'm not the only one who has discouragements. I know you have your own discouragements in your life.

So the question is, how do we go about enduring? How do we go about living the Christian life?

Discouragements are something everyone faces, but there's a particular way that the Christian has to deal with discouragements, since we have particular hardships that we face in serving

God. And so Paul writes to the Thessalonians here, in 1

Thessalonians, to a people who are persecuted, to a people who are experiencing much hardship and similar losses to the ones that we experience.

They experienced loss of loved ones, and they were mourning over these things. And so Paul writes to encourage them with these words, and his answer to them is that they need to be looking to Jesus Christ, that the answer to discouragement is to be encouraged by the fact that the

Son of God is returning to earth. And if we have this great hope in mind, if we are focused on Christ and the glories of his gospel, which includes this great future that awaits, we can endure all discouragements, and we can be perfectly encouraged.

And so as we look at this, you'll notice if you're looking at an ESV or probably most translations, there are two commas in this verse, which separate it into three segments.

We're going to look at each one of these segments, and we're going to see that someone who is waiting for Christ is going to be someone whose thoughts are on heavenly things and not earthly things, who is looking forward to the resurrection and not fearing death, and someone who is more concerned with the wrath of God than they are the wrath of man.

So each of these things—heaven over earth, resurrection over death, and the wrath of God over the wrath of man.

Now, before we start digging into one of those segments, I'd like us to first consider this, that this verse is epexegetical.

Now, that's a very big word, e -p -e -x -e -g -e -t -i -c -a -l, epexegetical.

Now, if you've been here for a while, there's a good chance you've heard this word exegetical or exegesis, right?

It just means explanation, you know, deriving meaning from the Bible is called exegesis. Ep means in addition to, so an additional explanation.

So, for example, if I told you that tomorrow I'm going to cook a steak and I'm going to grill it to perfection, no one would have in mind that because I use that conjunction and,

I'm saying that I'm going to do two different activities. I'm going to cook a steak and I'm going to grill it to perfection.

No one understands it that way. Everyone understands that I'm simply by saying grilling it to perfection,

I'm describing how I'm going to cook it. So, an there does not mean two different things. It's simply a way of re -describing the previous thing.

So, the same thing is going on here. And this works in all the languages

I know of. You know, it happens in Hebrew, it happens in Greek, it happens in English, where sometimes an does not mean a second thing but re -describes the previous things.

It's epexegetical. Excuse me, exegetical. And so this verse, and to wait for his son from heaven, is describing how it is that they serve the living, true

God. They are serving him by waiting. If you want to serve

God, you have to wait for a son. And if you are waiting for his son, you are serving God.

This is, this is, if you take anything home with you from today, this is what

I want to because I think that everything else I'm going to say, while there are more important things I'm going to say, if you take away this key insight and come back to this verse,

I think you'll be able to re -derive anything that I'm saying without too much difficulty.

So, here we see that waiting is serving and serving is waiting. Now, there's a way that all waiting is serving and all serving is waiting because, you know, that's why when you go into a restaurant, you can call your waiter a server or your server a waiter, and those words are pretty much synonymous.

However, there is a special way that we wait on Jesus because he is absent for the time being and he will return.

And we are to, in a very literal and full sense, wait for his return.

Now, this, this idea that serving is waiting, this is not something that I came up with or even that Paul came up with, but this is something that Jesus himself said in Luke 12 when he described the task of living the

Christian life to being like servants who are in a house preparing for their master's return, waiting for him to return.

So, Jesus himself said that the task of serving God is simply the task on waiting for his son.

And, moreover, Jesus said in John 6 that the work of God is this, is to believe in the one whom he sent.

And if I could modify that a little for our purposes, I would say that the work of God is to believe in the one whom he is sending.

To believe in the one who was sent is also to believe in the one who God will send. This is the work of God.

This is service to God, is to be waiting for his son, to be believing that his son will return and to put your hope in that.

So this is, this is how one endures. This is how one remains unflappable, is by looking ahead to the son.

This is how you deal with discouragement, is through the encouragement of looking to Jesus Christ and looking to the great future that he has awaiting those who await him.

Now, let's go ahead and look at this first segment.

It says, "...and to wait for his son from heaven."

So, first of all, I'd like to begin by telling you that heaven is a real physical place.

It is not simply some spiritual, ethereal realm in some other dimension.

It is not simply a mythology. It is a real physical place. We know that because when

Jesus died and rose again, he rose again with a physical body. With that physical body, he ascended to heaven, and he is now with a physical body in heaven.

Therefore, heaven must be a physical place. So if you're used to thinking of heaven as just some kind of a spiritual, ethereal realm, think differently about it.

There is a physical aspect to heaven, and Jesus Christ is there and will come from there and return.

But now, why does Paul say this? Why does he say, "...from heaven"? Why does he say a lot of this?

He could just have ended the sentence there, "...and to wait for his son." He doesn't just say all these things because he likes repeating these different truths, but they are relevant here in this context.

He says that Jesus is coming from heaven to hint at where he will be taking us.

He will be taking us to heaven. Now, this is not to deny that there will be a new earth that we will dwell in, but that is not the focus of 1

Thessalonians. And you can see in chapter 4 that the focus there is on Jesus taking his people to heaven.

And so if we are—if Jesus is coming from heaven, if he will be taking his people to heaven, our mind must be set on heavenly thoughts.

There's another place where Paul addresses this. It's not too far away. If you just turn back in your Bible a couple of pages and you look at Colossians 3, 1.

3, 1 through 3. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

So if you are one of God's children, then your life is hidden with Christ in God.

And so our minds ought to be set on heavenly things. Now, what does that mean?

What kind of heavenly things should our minds be set on? First of all, I think there's a good reason to keep our minds set on the reality of the reward of heaven, that it is a wonderful place where there is no suffering, there's no sin, there's no despair, there's no sadness.

It is a wonderful thing to contemplate and to think of what that will be like. It's a place with high society.

You know, here, if you want to be around high society, you have to find some specific group of people, and you have to have some way to, you know, get into that group.

In heaven, everyone is perfectly rich. Everyone is perfectly important and perfectly interesting.

And there are the saints who have gone to be with the Lord there. There are the angels, and there is

Jesus Christ himself. Can you imagine being with all these people, being in this perfect environment?

That is a greatly encouraging thought. Now, secondly, we ought to be thinking of heavenly things as opposed to earthly things, meaning that we should think of what is not evil, but think simply of what is good.

And you can see that focus here in Colossians 3, where it says, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you.

So this is what it said when your mind is focused on heavenly things, on things that are above. It says, put to death what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

So we are to be thinking holy thoughts. We are not to be thinking of sinful things, but to be thinking of what is good and right.

Now, in addition to all this, I think we ought to be contemplating the peace of heaven. So, on this earth, because of sin, creation is at odds with its creator.

And you see that in the decay and destruction and sickness and death. These are all signs that creation is at odds with its creator.

However, there is a great peace in heaven, and the reason why none of these things happen in heaven is because heaven is a place where there is no… where nothing is at odds with the creator.

And one of the ways we can contemplate that peace is by recognizing that God has already granted us peace in Jesus Christ if we trust in Him.

If we trust in Jesus Christ, He's already satisfied the wrath of God so that we can be at peace with Him and no longer at war.

And even though there are consequences for sin here and that we don't fully experience that peace and we still see decay and destruction, we can begin to experience that peace knowing that we personally are no longer at war with our creator.

These are all various ways that we can have heavenly thoughts so we can think about what

God has in store for us. But how much time do we spend thinking of things that are earthly?

How much time do we spend being captivated by earthly priorities, being focused on sinful things, being consumed by worldly anxieties?

Keep your mind free from these things. You know, my grandmother, who

I mentioned before—some of you have already heard this story, but I'll just go ahead and repeat it—my grandmother, when

I called her a couple weeks ago and they found out she had some kind of mass on her brain, I was greatly impressed at how encouraged she was, the exact opposite of discouragement.

She was jovial, very, very upbeat, and she told me, if I don't see you again on this earth,

I know where I'm going and I'll see you there, just with utmost confidence. This is a woman who had her mind set on heavenly things.

And my grandfather, likewise, you know, he's certainly not happy about the prospect of losing his wife.

He becomes very saddened by it at times, but when he was talking to me, he was full of other kinds of thoughts.

He was full of thoughts of the world to come. He told me about how they recently moved, and he was trying to find ways of serving the church that he was able to and where he previously had lived.

And so how is he able to think these things when he has death surrounding him?

The answer is he has his mind on heavenly things because he is united to Christ, who is in heaven.

You can overcome discouragement, you can endure if you have your eyes set on Jesus Christ, who is in heaven and will come to heaven to take us with him.

And of course, you know, none of this is anything that can be had apart from salvation in Jesus Christ.

If you don't know him, if you are not united to him, trusting in his death and resurrection, none of these things are of any comfort because there is no guarantee.

In fact, there is an opposite guarantee, that you will not be taken with him, that he will not come for you.

You must trust in the Son, and if you do, if you have your eyes set to him, you can overcome all discouragement.

Secondly, in this passage, Paul says, And to wait for a

Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead. So whom he raised from the dead.

Now, once again, you have to ask yourself here, why would Paul bother saying this?

What does this add to this verse in this context? Is he just, you know, exploding in doxology where he's adding interesting facts about Jesus, or does this have something to do with the context?

And I believe it does. I believe he's telling us that, once again, in mentioning from heaven, hinting where we'll be taken, and mentioning that Jesus was raised from the dead, he's letting us know that we will also be raised from the dead.

One implies the other. Now, Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15, that if Jesus is raised from the dead, we will be raised from the dead.

He says this in 1 Thessalonians 4 .14 also. If you look at 1

Thessalonians 4 .14, it says, For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Those who have fallen asleep being the deceased believers. So because Jesus died and rose again, they will rise again.

You see, one implies the other, so he is not adding a random fact. But in Paul's mind, as he says multiple times in his epistles, one implies the other.

The resurrection of Jesus implies the resurrection of those who are united to Christ in salvation.

And so the one who waits for Christ is looking forward to the great resurrection and not fearing death.

You know, many people are wrapped up in the fear of death, and their whole outlook and the way they live their life is determined by the fear of death.

It leaves them not free to live in a way that would take risks and do great things for a great

Savior. Now, why is it that there are

Christians who are able to go off into the mission field and experience all kinds of hardship and loss of life, even?

Many missionaries have gone out and died and gone out knowing that it was likely that they would die.

How are they able to do such things? It is because they are hoping in the resurrection and not fearing death.

You know, if you are someone who does not trust in God, or maybe you can remember a life before you trusted in Christ, you can ask yourself, did you fear death back then?

And if the answer is no, which very well might be the answer that comes to mind, you really should have been, because there is no answer to death apart from Jesus Christ.

Death is not natural. Death is something awful and evil. It is a horrible thing.

But you have Christians who are able, because of their hope in the resurrection, to face all kinds of terrible risks.

You have people willing to endure all kinds of things, knowing that the end is not the ultimate end, that there will be a resurrection, that they will be raised from the dead because they are united to Christ.

Now, this is something that's really important. You know, when I was in college, one of the things

I miss about college is the semester schedule, because it didn't matter how difficult my classes were.

You know, there were classes where I felt like I was staying up very late all the time, never had nearly enough sleep.

But it was always the case that in just a couple of months at max, and then it would be over.

There would be no more. And so the end was always there. You see, if you don't have hope, you're not going to be willing to endure.

But if you're able to see the end, that there will be a resurrection, and your body, which is decaying here, will be taken up from the grave, made perfect, you can endure anything here.

John Calvin said that the hope of a blessed resurrection is the mother of patience.

You know, I really like that. The hope of a blessed resurrection is the mother of patience. If you want more patience in this life, if you want to be able to endure anything, the answer is in looking forward to a blessed resurrection.

Now, in this third segment, Paul says, and I'll just begin at the beginning of the first, and to wait for a son from heaven whom he raised from the dead,

Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. There is a great wrath that is coming.

On the day of judgment, God will destroy all his enemies through the hand of Jesus Christ. It's not an impersonal wrath of the universe, but a very personal one, because people have sinned against God, and God does not tolerate sin.

He might be patient with it for a season, but there is coming a great judgment where he will destroy all that has been marred by sin.

This wrath is something that Christians, something that those who are looking forward to the return of Christ, think about more than the fear of man.

So if you are looking forward to the end and being saved by Christ, you have to be also thinking about what he is saving us from.

He will be saving us from the wrath of God. Now, if you, on the other hand, fear man, that will dictate your actions.

You will not be free to serve God, but you will act in such a way as to keep other people happy and to make sure that you don't come at odds with anyone.

Now, for Christians, how often is it the case that you, or any other

Christian you know, have failed to share the gospel because of fear of what man might think? And how often are you unwilling to confess your sins to others because you're afraid of what they might think of your sins?

Fear of man is something that is crippling and restrictive and keeps people in bondage and in slavery.

And it's something that needs to be repented of. But if you trust in Christ, you don't need to fear man.

You can look forward to this great day when you will be saved from all those things, as well as the wrath of God.

But to fear God, as the Proverbs say, is the beginning of wisdom.

This is something that is far better than the fear of man. And as you are looking forward to this wrath of God, you might ask yourself the question, well, how does that, how does that give me hope?

How does that give me encouragement? If it is the case that, you know, if we're talking about looking forward to the sun being the way to have encouragement and endure all things, well, the wrath of God does not sound like something that is encouraging.

How does this fit in into encouragement? Well, if you have a good idea of what your real problems are, you will not be focused on the small problems.

If you ever witness a child who's upset because he can't play with a certain toy, you know, something

I witness all the time in my household is children upset over very small things, right?

Why is it that they're upset over small things and the adult doesn't, isn't concerned about small things?

It's because the adult has much bigger fish to fry. The adult has bills to pay. The adult has big problems.

Those small problems just fade away. And so if you have your mind on the big problem, which is the wrath of God, these small problems all fade away and don't cause anxiety because they are there as nothing.

Still, you might ask, well, I have a bigger problem. That sounds like more discouragement.

That sounds like a bigger discouragement. It's still not making sense. A bigger problem is only a bigger discouragement if there is no answer to it.

But the truth is that we have a great answer to the wrath of God. When Jesus Christ died on the cross,

He was not just suffering the wrath of man. He was suffering the wrath of God.

He was experiencing a torment as the wrath of God was being poured out on Him.

He did this so that all those who trust in Him, who are looking forward to His return, would not have to experience that wrath.

You see, this is a bigger problem, but it is not a bigger discouragement. It is a bigger encouragement because it has a perfect solution, an infallible solution, a solution in the perfect Son of Jesus Christ, who is never sinned, who lives a perfect life, and perfectly, as a high priest offering sacrifice on behalf of His people, has covered this problem, has covered the problem of the wrath of God, so that we don't have to be separated from God.

We don't have to experience an eternity of torment because that is what awaits everyone who is not at peace with God.

Everyone who is not looking forward to the Son has an eternity of torment awaiting them as they experience the wrath of God, but we have a perfect solution, and that perfect solution makes this great problem of the wrath of God something to look forward to and to be encouraged by, because it makes all the problems as nothing, and it itself is something already conquered by Jesus Christ.

To endure is to be encouraged, and to be encouraged sufficiently, we must look to Jesus Christ.

If you want to serve God, if you want to endure and serve Him, you have to be waiting on the

Son of God. To serve is to wait, and to wait is to serve. Now, of course, in this life, we walk by faith and not by sight.

We don't see these things. We don't see the Son in heaven. We don't visibly see anybody being raised from the dead.

We don't see the wrath of God, not in its fullest measure. And if we are to be looking to the

Son, we need to have our mind dwelling on these things. It is not sufficient to say these things, believe them once, and then not think about them frequently.

We have to think about these frequently. And so I'll give you some advice on how to do this. First of all, one of the ways that we can do this is doing what

Paul says multiple times throughout the letter, is comfort or encourage one another with these words.

Paul, when he speaks about the resurrection, then he says, encourage one another with these words. We ought to be reminding people, reminding each other of the great future that awaits those who are trusting in Christ.

We need to be comforting each other with the great gospel that Jesus has died for sin, so that we can be free from the wrath of God.

Now, this is not something that I'm very good at, and I know I have a tendency when I'm told truths like this to, to, in my heart, say, well, yeah,

I already know that. But it is so important and essential that we be reminding each other of this, no matter how basic it is, because it is not something we visibly see, and we as humans are frail and weak and tend to drop these things out of mind if we are not constantly reminded.

If you want this to not just be something you ascent to, but a core part of your reality that changes your actions so that you're able to serve

God as you ought and withstand all discouragement, we have to be reminding each other of these things.

None of us are strong enough to do this without reminders. Secondly, another way that you can be waiting for the sun.

If you aren't already participating in a home group, I would greatly encourage you to, because right now we are going through a book that talks about the future, that talks about what we are to expect when we die, when we are raised again, what heaven will be like, what the

Bible tells us. Of course, we don't have all the answers, but we have many details that many

Christians are ignorant of. If you want to be waiting for Christ, you can't do it with minimal knowledge.

You have to be doing it. It's impossible to wait for something you don't know, right?

If you don't know what it is you're waiting for, you can't really wait for it that well. The better informed you can be about what we're waiting for, the more you can be encouraged and be hopeful of that great future.

So I would encourage you to be part of a home group, or if you are a part of one and having trouble keeping up the reading, consider this as an encouragement to get through the reading, even if you have difficulty with it, because it is very valuable material that will keep you encouraged as you're looking forward to the return of the sun.

Another thing I would encourage you to do is when you pray, you know, like the catechism question that we looked at this morning, looked at 30 minutes ago, whenever it was, we need to be praying for Christ's kingdom to come.

We need to be praying maranatha. That means come quickly, Lord. We need to be praying for Christ to return.

So if you are not—if when you pray, this is not one of the things that you are making sure you pray for, pray for that.

Pray for that kingdom of grace to expand, like we talked about, and that kingdom of glory to hasten.

In other words, for Christ to return quickly. You know,

God gave us prayer as one of the ways of setting our minds on heavenly things. He gave us prayer as a way of aligning our thoughts with his will.

And so as we're praying and aligning our thoughts with his will, we ought to pray that Jesus come quickly so that we are thinking about his coming.

If we're not awaiting his return, we're not going to pray for this, and if we're not praying for this, we're not going to be awaiting his return.

So do pray for Christ to return quickly. And when he does, there is such a glorious future that awaits, and like I said, we don't have all the details, but it is going to be absolutely wonderful.

That parable that I mentioned earlier in Luke 12, where Jesus said the Christian life is like servants waiting on their master to return, how does that parable end?

The master arrives, he comes in, and he serves the servants. That is just mind -blowing that the

God of the universe, who owes us nothing, would have his son serve his people like that.

I once again, I don't know what exactly all that entails, but it is a wonderful thing, and we should have our minds set on these things that scripture talks about.

Our other problems fade away, our earthly anxieties melt, discouragement is dealt with, and we are perfectly encouraged through a perfect Savior.

You know, I remember I mentioned Polycarp earlier. Polycarp, he did end up going and being burned alive, and before he was burned alive, as he's supposed to be making a defense, and he did not make much of a defense, he simply said, among a few other very witty things, the proconsul's fire lasts for a little while, but the fires of the judgment to come that are prepared for the ungodly cannot be quenched.

This is a man who had his mind on the wrath of God rather than the wrath of man.

He had his mind on heavenly things and not on things of the earth, and he had his mind on the resurrection and did not fear death.

If you want that kind of encouragement, if you want that kind of courage to deal with any discouragement you have, the one who wants to serve

God must be waiting for a son. Must this mindset on Jesus and this glorious gospel that includes not only our salvation in the here and now, but this great future he has awaiting us.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, you are a great and awesome

God who is so gracious to your people who deserve nothing. We thank you for all that you have done and for sending your

Son to die for us so that we might be united to him and have this great hope of our resurrection and a future with him.

I pray that our mind would be set on these heavenly things, not on earthly things. I pray that we would be counted among the faithful, courageous people, encouraged and not despairing because of what you have in store for us.

We thank you for revealing much of your plan to us so that we can be encouraged by it, and I ask that everyone here today would repent of the fear of man, would repent of fear of death, and would look to Jesus Christ and to be encouraged by these words.