✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
1. Thessalonians 1,2-10 4712
14. Sonntag nach Trinitatis. 059
Gorgonius, Dorotheus and Peter, Martyrs at Rome 304 (Emperor Diocletian)
9. September 2012
1. O Lord Jesus Christ, we know that true Christian faith and hearty confidence in Your Name is the pure and noble gift of the Holy Spirit unto those who are love to Your Word. We thank You that You have also kindled this light in our lives, and granted that even we, though yet in great weakness, with such weak faith, may rest all our trust in You alone. Dear Savior, maintain and increase our faith within us. We do believe: O help our unbelief at all times. Let not the bruised reed be broken nor the smoking flax be quenched so long as we live; so that we may always embrace You in a believing heart, trust You without our whole hearts’ confidence, delighting always in the heavenly treasure of Your grace, unto our own peace and comfort and daily find our joy in You, even unto the end (Löhe 242-3). Amen.
2. 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 in 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.
3. The Apostle Paul devotes a good portion of his two epistles to the Thessalonians on the doctrinal topic of the 2. advent of Jesus. In today’s sermon text he writes: »we wait for God’s Son from heaven«. The return of Christ to this earth is a central Christian belief that is codified in the three Creeds of Christendom. These Creeds all confess that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead.
4. The Thessalonian Christians had an odd understanding of Jesus’ return. They thought that those Christians who died before His return would miss out on the event and only be present after it had occurred. Paul responds that this simply not the case. The apostle argues that those Christians who have died will first be resurrected to new life and will enjoy the Lord’s return at the same time as those Christians who are alive at the time. Paul writes: » But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, so 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« (1. Thessalonians 4,13-18).
5. In 21. century Western Christianity, it is all the vogue to read the signs and predict the return of Christ. Such date-setting always ends in futility and failure, as in the past 2000 yeas thee have been 200 predictions as to when the world will end; each one has been wrong. The most recent example occurred almost a year ago when Harold Camping predicted the return of Jesus in October 2011. I remember seeing the #166 buses traveling Broad Avenue with his end of the world advertisements. So also this year we have people declaring that Jesus must be coming back on 21. December 2012.
6. Paul commends the Thessalonian Christians on their prudence: they were not date-setters. »Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While 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. But you are not in darkness, brothers and sisters, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with Him« (1. Thessalonians 5,1-4.9-10). When we least expect it, Jesus will return and it will surprise everyone.
7. The apostle also deals with another concern expressed by many: Jesus’ return is to be greeted with fear and anxiety. It is easy to understand why this attitude pervades people’s thoughts: Jesus is returning to judge the world. Sinners focused on their sins will rightly greet the Lord’s return with fear and angst. Paul, however, comforts Christians with these words: » and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might, when He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed« (2. Thessalonians 1,7-10). Paul makes two important doctrinal points here: 1. Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come. 2. God the Father has destined us to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with Him.
8. The apostle makes the point that Jesus’ return is a joyous event for Christians. His return ushers in the final stage of or eternal salvation. Jesus justified us by His crucifixion. Jesus is the first fruit of the resurrection by His empty tomb. Jesus gives us the very resurrection of our body on the day He returns from heaven. That day is one to be eagerly awaited, for it brings us into the very presence of Christ for all eternity in holy perfection.
9. Paul does list one sign that alerts us to the return of Jesus. »Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not arrive, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders« (2. Thessalonians 2,3-4.9).
10. Paul is not specific here, although he had thoroughly instructed the Thessalonian Christians about this man of lawlessness. Nevertheless, we can gleam some things from Paul’s words. The apostle tells us that Christ’s return will not occur until a rebellion first arises. This rebellion is against Christ Jesus and His gospel. This rebellion rejects the gospel and replaces mankind’s justification by the means of the cross and empty tomb with a justification mingled with the works of men and women for the certainty of salvation. Paul encountered this in the Galatian churches who were adding to faith in Christ the adherence to Jewish circumcision and dietary regulations. The apostle replied with a forceful „no“. The Mosaic covenant does not save you. It does not even help save you in any way or make you a more justified Christian. Only faith in the crucified and risen Christ takes hold of God’s righteousness. After this rebellion against the gospel, a man of lawlessness will arise. Such a vile man will encourage others to reject the gospel of Christ crucified for salvation. He will direct all hearts to believe in him as the mediator of a new covenant of salvation, a covenant that denigrates Christ and the cross. To seal he deal, he will perform signs and wonders as proof that his false covenant is indeed one blessed by God and necessary if one is to be saved.
11. Such rebellion against the gospel, such lawless men and such deceiving wonders afflict our world today in the 21. century. Countless churches and preachers use scare tactics to draw people to a false comfort. They teach people to follow them and do the works they prescribe so that your burdened conscience may be soothed. O to be sure Jesus is in the mix somewhere, but you better send in a love offering, buy their latest book or have them pray for you if you want to be sure of your salvation. Such is the false gospel of the Christ clinchers. Other religions omit Christ altogether. O they may keep him as a good prophet or exceptional moral teacher, but they offer something better than Christ, a new prophet who fulfills what Christ failed to complete. They demand complete submission to God and new holy books that must be believed for they complete the incomplete Bible. In he end all they offer is a new way of self-righteousness that is achieved by doing x, y and z in your life.
12. Jesus and His apostles offer a completely new and radical way of salvation. There is no burdensome do this, and you will life regulation. The true path of justification and salvation runs through Christ. Jesus is the noun that runs the verbs for the direct object. Jesus paid the ransom price of sin for you. Jesus has done it all for you. Believe it Nd receive it in faith, for He freely gives you forgiveness and salvation.
13. Therefore, there is no need for you to fear the Last Judgment before Christ on His throne. He has born your judgment upon His own body and as such He has redeemed you and declared You righteous by His own merit. You may live each day in blissful security for before Christ will be Your Judge He was first Your Mediator. If you believe on Him, then you have eternal life, both now and on the day of Last Judgment, because Satan, the accuser of mankind before the Heavenly Father, has been judged, condemned and defeated by the risen Christ. The gospel will triumph over the rebellion waged against it. The man of lawlessness will be revealed as a preacher of false, discomforting promises. All his signs and wonders will be surpassed by the true sign of Christ returning and raising up life from bodies that are now dust and dirt in their graves. All creation will prosper when at the Last Judgment Christ casts Satan, his devils and all unbelieving sinners into hell while all believers in Jesus Christ will be welcomed into the joys of the new heaven and the new earth. Amen.
14. Let us pray. O Heavenly Father, who shows compassion to His children, help us to show compassion to our neighbors so that they see in us Your great compassion in Christ Jesus, they turn from heir sins, believe in Your Son and rejoice in the last day when Jesus returns to bring all His believers into heaven. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
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