CHRISTIAN CALM
Sermon Text: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (v. 13, 14, 18). But I do not want you to be ignorant … lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again … Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Lord, this is Your Word, and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. Lord, You are our Dwelling Place in all generations. As our Captain of salvation, steer us away from the thinking and the voices that are without hope or comfort, and keep us grounded in Your hope and comfort. Amen.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ, who is our Comfort and our Hope: Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
This is a text that is written to give hope, to calm anxieties, and to provide comfort and encouragement for Christians living in these gray and latter days. Now, obviously, it’s specifically directed to some realities about (1) death and (2) Jesus’ second coming. But we can also apply it more broadly.
The crisis St. Paul is addressing appears to be some anxiety that the young Christian church in Thessalonica was having about the future. They had learned from Paul about the resurrection of the body on the last day. They loved this teaching. They believed that Jesus was coming again, and took Him at His word that He was coming soon. They loved this part too. But their question was: What will be the order? Who rises first? Who goes with Jesus first? And what about those who are still living at the time Jesus comes back?
We should notice that it wasn’t just a curiosity, academic concern, or trivia. They have feelings of “sorrow” or “grief” about it. It may be a concern about loved ones. Or what it’s like in heaven. Or if their desires are right, or if their faith is even right. The devil reacts to these feelings and uses them against us to create doubt or discontentment, to give us distracted and worried minds.
So there are important answers here that God gives us through St. Paul about death and the last day. But especially God is here to calm and quiet your mind and heart. In this sermon, we’ll hear about (1) having hope, (2) how your mind and heart can be calmed, and (3) being comforted and encouraged so that we may comfort and encourage one another.
We aren’t like “others who have no hope.” The Gospel gives birth to hope.
St. Paul speaks about “others who have no hope.” In the original text, it’s one word: “the-not-having-hope-ones.” He says that’s not who you are. At least, not who we should be. Ephesians 2 says that to be “without God and without hope in the world” is a mark of how the godless, the pagans, unbelievers are. That’s how it is before you believe, how it is apart from Christ, without faith.
As St. Paul writes this, the context of it is dealing with death. You can feel hopeless if someone’s taken from you and you’re drowning in grief and deep sadness. God says we shouldn’t grieve like the unbelievers – as Luther says “as if that were the end of them and there were no resurrection.” It’s not that we shouldn’t grieve though. In fact, here God actually commends and praises our grieving, but just says that there should always be hope in the picture.
What if you feel hopeless? Satan uses this feeling to make you condemn yourself and increase the doubts. Satan attacks your hope. He gets us to hope in things God didn’t promise. It may be your own wishes. “My life is supposed to look different,” you think. We aren’t only saints but also sinners, we struggle against the flesh. So you put your hope in people, who let you down. People put their hope in government or election results. You put your hope in your own abilities to reach your goals. The devil has many ways to destroy your hope; when he does so it reveals that you’re building your hope on the wrong foundation. Just know, feeling hopeless doesn’t mean you are without hope.
The reason you need hope is due to the devil’s attacks. It’s actually great to be honest and confess that you’re operating without hope. It’s hard to confess this. It has its own special brand of despair: you despair of despairing. You think it shouldn’t be like this for you; you’re a Christian! But hope can’t be produced through pressuring yourself, or trying harder. How hard it is to keep the 1stCommandment! – to rely on Him for everything, even for hope.
Hope is faith battling. Hope battles the storms. Faith is about what you learn and know about Christ and God’s truth; hope is the encourager when trials come. The devil attacks your faith, he uses sorrow and sadness, danger and threat. This is when your faith has to become hope.
Hope must battle defensively against sadness, faint-heartedness, feeling defeated or discouraged, and against fear and anxiety. Hope says “no!” to such things. But hope also goes on offense and battles – says “yes!” – to such things as joy, courage, patient endurance, being comforted. Hope is what says in you: “Be brave! Keep going! Look for better things! Be ready to see what God is doing that you can’t see yet! The fog will clear, the sun will shine!”
The hope you need – the true Christian hope – comes from the Word, specifically the Gospel. We know faith comes from the Gospel – “faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17, ESV). But also hope comes from the Gospel. Romans 15:4 says “that we, through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope.” Taking hope away is what Satan does, but God uses this feeling of lacking hope for His own purpose: it drives you to the Scriptures, to His promises, to get resupplied for the battle.
We hear the Gospel to receive faith but also to receive hope. The Gospel is powerful to produce this hope in you. The Gospel gives birth to hope in you.
The Holy Spirit calms our anxious heart. Christian calm comes from Him.
Isn’t this what we’re seeking, especially right now? Peace. Calm. If there’s a Christian calm, a calm and repose Christians have, why do we so often lack it? We want what the evening hymn prays for: “O may my soul on Thee repose,” and: “that with the world, myself and Thee, I, ere I sleep, at peace may be” (ELH #565).
Just the phrase St. Paul uses when he says, “until the coming of the Lord,” is enough to give a person an anxious, worried and unquiet mind, when you think of that moment arriving. We as Christians are looking forward to it! But to imagine what it’s going to be like in those days is not peaceful.
We heard in the gospel lesson what Jesus says about how things are in the time when He comes. In the part we heard, Jesus speaks about disturbances inside the church, with false doctrine taking hold. People will reject the parts of God’s Word that don’t make sense to them, or will join in condemning those who confess God’s truth. Earlier in His discourse about the last days, Jesus speaks about disturbances in the world and with governments, wars and instability. He speaks about disasters in nature. He speaks of the world’s aggression against the church and against Christians – persecution.
Then the Lord Jesus will return. In Jesus’ own words, and in 2 Peter, that day is compared to when the worldwide flood happened in the days of Noah. It’s horrific to think about what that was like, and Judgment Day will be even more fearsome. 2 Peter 3 says “the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat,” and it will come all of a sudden. Although Christians look forward to Jesus’ coming with joy and not fear, it will be hard not to have some fear and insecurity with that going on!
I’m afraid that as Christians we are not the calmest individuals around. We take on the attributes of the world that surrounds us. We don’t respond with strength of spirit, with steadfastness and calm, confident in the Lord. Instead we get anxious and fearful, frustrated and angry, restless, depressed and nervous based on what’s happening around us and how people treat us. If there’s instability in our world, if the latest news isn’t good, if life in our extended family is chaotic, if it seems that the church is retreating before the world and godless religions are on the rise, then rather than looking to Christ and His Word, and how He has preserved the Church in all ages and even promises that His Church shall never perish, you feel rising inside you fear and apprehension and anxiety. Your mind and heart struggle to find peace.
This peace and calm can’t come from inside you, from your own resources. It comes from outside you. From the revealed. Word of God. It’s found in the message Paul gives us here: “the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.”
Although this is a scene with such awe and glory, too great for our minds to handle, with a Jesus who seems so “other” than us, the truth is that He is the same Jesus and He is for you. It will be as if He comes back just for you, although it’s all believers, for He loves you personally. While He forgives all sins He forgives yours. While He raises all the dead He raises you and transforms your lowly body to be like His; you’ll see Him with your own eyes. St. Paul says “thus we will always be with the Lord [Jesus.]”
Doesn’t this give you the calm you’re looking for? That’s because Christ’s second coming is the Gospel. It’s the fulfillment of all God’s promises to you. All that He promised you comes true. In the creed we say that we “look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come,” and here it is!
This calm is produced by the Holy Spirit, through His Word. St. Paul prefaced all of this with: “This we say to you by the word of the Lord.” The Holy Spirit puts this calm into your heart. He calms and quiets your heart. Again, it’s through His Word, the Gospel, that He does this.
This is how you have calm as a Christian. It begins with the quiet heart that the Holy Spirit gives you through the Gospel. When Jesus was speaking of the last days He told His disciples not to worry about being arrested and brought before worldly authorities – “but whatever is given to you in that hour, speak that; for it is not you who speak but the Holy Spirit” (Mk 13:11). The Holy Spirit settles your heart so that what comes out of you come from a mind and heart at peace with God, with yourself and with others.
He gives us good comfort and encouragement. We give this to each other.
St. Paul ends by saying: “Therefore comfort one another with these words.” We are in need of comfort and consolation living in these times. He gives it to you. He gives you hope. He gives you peace of heart. This is the comfort of the Gospel. He wants you to benefit from it.
But He’s put you into His Church. He places you with others who need it as you do. He gives us to each other. “Comfort one another.” That means, “be a soft pillow for each other, not a hard shell.” Find someone to comfort. Someone in your family. Someone in the world. See everyone you meet as someone who needs to be comforted, especially “with these words” – the words of hope, the words that calm the heart, the words that comfort. Amen!