Daily Bible Reading - 1 Thessalonians 4

Well, good morning everyone. I wanted to take a moment, if I could, and just reach out to everyone today. I'm coming to you from my wife's office in our home here. And I wanted to just talk to you a little bit about our daily Bible reading.

If you're a member of Sovereign Grace Family Church, then you probably remember earlier this year, or actually the end of last year, we gave a daily Bible reading program out. And it's not a whole Bible reading, it's a New Testament Bible reading, and we gave the sheet out for everyone and we encouraged everyone to be reading together every day the New Testament.

It's only one chapter a day, and it doesn't even include the weekends, and that way if you're reading Monday through Friday and you miss a day or you get behind, you have the weekends to catch up. Now if you're interested in joining us for this Bible reading, you can go to our website right now at sgfcjacks .org and look at the latest post on our blog and you'll see a copy of the Bible reading program that I've put together.

Bible Reading Plan and Study Resources

And it's interesting because it's in chronological order in the way the books were written. We got that from Grace to You, the order that they believe the books were written, and we just use that. And so right now we are actually in the book of 1 Thessalonians, and it's kind of the reason why I'm doing this video today, is today's reading is one of the most important in regard to the coming of Jesus Christ, the second coming, and with everything going on in the world right now and all of the concerns that are going on, I thought this might be a good day to simply read this passage together, to talk a little bit about it, and to provide you with some resources that will help you to better understand when you're reading these passages what they mean.

So that's what I want to do first, and I do have a list of things that I want to go through, I made a little list. First I wanted to tell you about the Bible reading program, you can go to our website, you can get the Bible reading program and you can get it and use it.

But also I want to give you a few other things to consider. One of the things I recently came across was called Bible at a Glance, it's a program, it's a series of PDFs that you can download, and it provides you with information on each book of the Bible in a one page format, it's very simple.

And there is a cost involved, I'm going to link it in the description below once this video is finished, but it's $9, so it's not a huge expense, but I know that that can be expensive and some people can't afford that, so it's just a recommendation, if you can't afford the $9, a good study Bible will do the same thing.

The only difference with Bible at a Glance that I enjoy is that it's one page per book of the Bible, and so I have it brought up on my phone here for the one for 1 Thessalonians, and to give you an idea of what it looks like, I know it's going to be almost impossible for you to see this, but this is it, each book of the Bible at a Glance, and it says this is the 13th book of the New Testament, the writer is the Apostle Paul, it was written around 51 AD, it is famous in the fact that it talks about Christians meeting Jesus in the sky, that's the verse we're going to look at today in 1 Thessalonians 4, and this is what it says, it says Paul spent around 3 months in Thessalonica when it was a small new church, and he wanted to check up on their faith fearing that false teachers might have infiltrated their number, he sent back Timothy who gave a surprisingly good report, and that prompted Paul to write 1 Thessalonians as a letter of encouragement, then it goes on to say this, it says Paul uses this book to encourage the church in their pursuit of holiness, diligence, love, and hope, and he tells them to walk in the light and makes many mentions of the second coming of Jesus Christ, and so that's just a very, very brief overview, but I think it's succinct, it's good, it's useful, especially if you're learning for your first time, you're reading through the Bible and you just want to know a little bit about the book, I think Bible at a Glance is a very good tool, and like I said it costs a little bit, but it's not much, another good resource, and I'm going to link it below as well, is the Bible Project on YouTube, now this is absolutely free, because it's all YouTube videos, you go to the Bible Project, and every book of the New Testament I believe, and I think every book of the Old Testament now, but I know it's at least every book of the New Testament, there is about a 5 -7 minute introductory video that goes along with every book of the New Testament, now I don't know that I would agree with all of the theology that's mentioned in these videos, but I wouldn't agree with all of the theology of anyone, so when I give this, when I promote this, I'm simply saying take everything in, all the good information, if you hear something that sounds a little strange, ask a question, send me an email if you're curious, but I would encourage you to use the Bible Project, their videos are really good, and I'll link them below as well, so today's Bible reading is 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, I want to read it to you, and then I'm going to take just a couple of moments, make a few comments about it, and then I want to pray for everyone, so let's do that, let's read 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, and it's a relatively short chapter, reading from the ESV it says this, ìFinally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.

For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body, his holiness, and holiness and honor.

Not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. That no one transgress and wrong his brother in this manner, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.

For God has not called us to impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not man, but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.

For that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Holiness, Sexual Purity, and Brotherly Love in 1 Thessalonians 4

And now he changes to looking at a question, a concern, among the Thessalonians there is this concern about what happens when they die, and what happens to those who have already died. And so he begins in verse 13 with a very famous passage that many of you are probably familiar with.

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

For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 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, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left, 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. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

The Coming of the Lord and the Hope of Resurrection

Very powerful section, and of course a section which has led to really no end of debate in the history of the church, especially in the last 200 years of the church with the rise in the conversation about eschatology and what's going to happen in the end times.

Many of you are familiar with the different theories on something called the rapture. The rapture means to be caught up, and it refers to the fact that when Jesus returns, he's going to catch up his followers and they're going to usher him in as he comes back.

This is similar to what would happen in the ancient world when a king would return from battle as he was approaching his kingdom, his subjects would run out to him and would create an entourage, and as he's returning, they would return with him in praise to his glory and to the fact that he was able to be successful in his campaign.

That's the picture that we have here. Christ is returning, and he's returning not on his own by himself, but he's returning with an entourage, with those who are praising his glory, and it's those who are his believers.

They've been caught up together with him in the sky so that they might return and proclaim his glory. Now, again, I said earlier there's great debate about this passage because there are those who say that this is actually referring to something called the pre-tribulation rapture.

There are those who believe that prior to a seven-year tribulation on the earth, Jesus is going to secretly come in and take away the church, and that then the world's going to go through seven years of tribulation, three and a half bad, three and a half worse, and then at the end of that, it's going to usher in a millennial kingdom.

That's a very specific eschatology called pre-millennial dispensationalism, and it's also called pre-tribulational dispensationalism. There are different views on that, and where you stand on that would not cause me to break fellowship with you.

I mean, where we stand on eschatology issues should not be something that would divide us as brothers and sisters in Christ. I have my own views on the subject, and really that's not what I wanted to debate today.

What I wanted to simply point out is that whether you hold to a pre-tribulation rapture, a mid-tribulation rapture, as I know some people do, or you believe that this is the actual culmination of all things, and this represents in 1 Thessalonians 4 the return of Christ with His saints to set up the eternal state, however you understand that, here's the most important thing.

This passage tells us from the Apostle Paul and ultimately from the Holy Spirit of God that Jesus is going to return, and that when He returns, there is going to be a miraculous and an amazing change that is going to occur.

We are going to be with Him forever, and we're not ever going to die again. If we've already died, we're raised to life, we'll never die again, and if we're alive when He comes, then we're never going to die.

We're going to simply go from life to life. This morning when I was with my children around the table, we were talking about the Bible and their mother was giving a Bible lesson, and my son asked, why do we die?

And I mean he's 4 years old, and it's such a hard thing to have to answer for a 4 year old, but really the answer for a 4 year old is the same if you're 40, or whether you're 4, 14, or 40, it doesn't matter how old you are, the answer is the same.

We die because of sin. The Bible says the wages of sin is death, but it doesn't stop there. It says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's something that God gives us that we don't deserve.

Death is something we deserve because of sin, but grace is undeserved, and grace comes as a gift from God through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our gift from God, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

So my encouragement to you today, think about what 1 Thessalonians 4 tells us. One day Jesus is going to return, and when He returns He's going to return as the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.

For those who do not believe in Him, He will come as a judge, and for those who do believe in Him, He will come as Savior and Lord, and when He comes we will meet Him together, and we will forever be with Him, and we will have nothing to fear in the eternal state because we will have been saved, and we will have been protected in our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Prayer for the Church, Leaders, and Ultimate Hope in Christ

I want to pray for everyone now, I know we're all going through difficult issues surrounding what's going on in our world right now, so I'm going to take a moment and pray, if you want to pray along with me, I just want to pray for you all.

Father in heaven, I thank you for this opportunity to look at the Bible this morning. I pray that it's somewhat helpful to those who have listened, I pray that the encouragement to read is heated, and Lord that they would understand that there are many resources out there that can help them better understand the Bible as they read it.

I pray especially Lord for the members of Sovereign Grace Family Church, I pray that they would know that they are loved by you, and that they're loved by us, the leaders, the elders, and the deacons of the church, and Lord that they would know that if they have a need that they can reach out to us, and that we will do everything we can to be the arms and the hands of Christ in this difficult time.

Lord I pray for our leaders, your word tells us to pray for kings and all those who are in authority, so Lord we pray for those who are our leaders in government, Lord that the fighting and the partisan politics would be squelched, and Lord that people would rise up and do what is good, and do what is noble, and do what is right, and Lord that you would by your grace be merciful to us all through our leaders.

And Father most of all Lord that you would remind us in times like this that our ultimate hope doesn't come from government, and our ultimate hope doesn't come from our bank account, and our ultimate hope doesn't come even from our own health, but Lord our ultimate hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's in His name we pray, Amen.

Well may the Lord continue to keep you safe, may the Lord continue to sanctify you through all of this, until we are able to meet again physically, may God bless you all, Amen.