I'd like to invite you now to turn with me to our text this evening, or this morning, rather, for the sermon. We are turning to the book of 1 Thessalonians. Chapter 4, you can find this on page 987 of your Pew Bibles, page 987. We are in the middle of a five-week sermon series entitled, What's Next?, in which we are exploring what the Bible has to say about life after death. What the Bible teaches us about some of the greatest questions that face us as human beings. We started the series in Romans chapter five, exploring the biblical teaching that death comes to all through the sin of Adam. Death has spread to all of humanity, not as a part of nature, but rather as the curse and the punishment of God for rebellion against him. Last week we saw that though all die, there is one who is the victor over death. And we saw that on Easter Sunday, when Christ rose from the dead, he defeated death. He is the victor over death, and he now freely gives everlasting life to those who believe. Today, We're going to look ahead. The past two sermons have been looking at what happened in the past, what happened with Adam in the garden, what happened with Jesus at the tomb. Today we're gonna look ahead, and the last three sermons are looking forward to what the Bible says about the future. What we're looking at this morning is the return of Christ. The title of this sermon is Waking from Death, as we consider what the Bible says about those who die before the return of Christ. Our text is the classic text on this theme. It is 1 Thessalonians 4. I'll be reading verses 13 down through verse 18. Give your attention with me now to the reading of God's holy and errant and inspired word. 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. Sends the reading of God's word, what he writes truth on our hearts. Go to him again in prayer. Lord, as we turn our attention to our own mortality and life after death, we pray that you would speak clearly to us this morning. that your spirit would open our eyes to understand your word that it would instruct not only our minds but our hearts as we consider our own deaths. Lord, there is much in your word that we can debate and be confounded with as it regards your return. And I pray that we would understand with clarity the simple truths in your word that we, too, would be encouraged and that we would be a people who do not grieve without hope. Lord, assist us by your spirit to understand and apply your word. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. In our culture today, there seems to be somewhat of a growing obsession or at least interest with life after death, with not only the questions of what happens at death, but what happened after death. You see this in one of the most expensive holidays in the year, and that's Halloween. Holiday that in some sense is just an innocent day of children getting dressed up and eating candy and having fun with their neighbors. But we all know that lots of those costumes on Halloween reveal a bit of the darker side of the holiday. The idea that it is a day very much with the thought of life after death. That's what mummies and skeletons and ghosts and vampires and all sorts of things are ideas about what happens after death. Even, it's not only Halloween, it's throughout the year, there's all sorts of novels and TV shows and movies in the last 10 years or so about zombies. about these people that come back from the dead. Even one of the most popular TV shows is called The Walking Dead, all about zombies, all about this life after death. There's this interest in what happens. And it's not only in the culture, it is infiltrated the church. We heard a reference to this in Sunday school this morning, but there has been a growing type of Christian book that have been labeled heaven tourism. They are stories of people who have died, who have had some sort of vision of heaven or afterlife, and have come back to life to write a story about what they have seen and experienced. And sadly, some of these have been debunked, and they have brought shame on the church and on the name of Christ. People have actually only been about making money from this experience. Of course, today, The obsession in our culture and our church is not new. We see that it's thousands of years old. The Thessalonians, in this letter, this is one of the first of Paul's letters, they also struggled with doubts and confusions and questions about life after death. They understood the biblical teaching that Jesus was gonna come again for his own, but they were worried. He hadn't come yet. It had been a few decades and he still hasn't come. What about those Christians who die before he comes? Are they going to miss everything? What's going to happen to them after death? Because we thought Jesus was going to do away with death. So they wonder what's going to happen to those who die before he returns. We find some clear teaching in this passage. We find that Jesus, in fact, is alive. Paul asserts for us God's Word, asserts for us that Jesus is alive. In fact, He is even now reigning in heaven. We saw last week His resurrection, and then after 40 days He ascended, and that's where He is right now, at the right hand of God. God's Word tells us He will return. When He returns, people who have died and who have been buried Paul uses the word here, sleep. We'll come back to that in a minute. They will be brought back to life. Their souls, which have departed their bodies at death, will be reunited with their resurrected body to go and meet the Lord. Jesus will return. He will raise the dead and he will reunite the soul with the body of all who have died. This is a certainty in God's word. What Paul wants us to see, what I want you to see this morning in this passage, is that the certainty of the return of Christ and our own resurrection transforms how we approach our own death. If this is true, we approach our death in an entirely different way than if this is untrue. If it is true that Jesus is returning, if it is true that the dead will be raised to life, if it is true that their bodies will be reunited with their soul to live with Christ forever, that changes everything, doesn't it? about how we approach not only our own death, but our own life. So what I wanna show you in this passage are three life transforming truths about the resurrection. Three life transforming truths about the resurrection. We're gonna see the pattern of the resurrection, we're gonna see the plan of the resurrection, we're gonna see the purpose of the resurrection. Begin with me at the pattern of the resurrection in verse 14. pattern of the resurrection. Simply put, we saw this last week at Easter, but that Jesus's resurrection is the pattern for our resurrection. If we want to know what will happen to us in the future, the best place to look is in the past. The best place to look is to the empty tomb at what happened with Christ. That is the pattern for our resurrection. Look what Paul writes in verse 14. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again. Notice this introductory statement. This is the bedrock confession of the church. We, that's the church, believe that Jesus died and rose again. There are many things that Christians can disagree about and still call one another brother and sister in Christ. This is not one of them. This is a bedrock theological confession of the church that Jesus died and rose again. Paul's entire argument is based upon this truth. If we take this truth out of the equation, everything else falls apart. This is bedrock, this is a quintessential confession of the church. Notice how he begins it though, he uses kind of a qualifier word, for. That is, and then the second word, for sense we believe. That word sense can also be translated if. If we believe this. It's not saying if this is true or not, but as if you believe it or not. It transforms how you believe and approach the return of Christ and your own death. He goes on to explain that without this belief, according to the Bible, there is no hope. Without the resurrection of the dead, based upon the pattern of Christ's resurrection from the dead, there is no hope. What causes us great consternation, of course, is that this is a pattern that none of us have seen. Not even the eyewitnesses to the resurrection truly knew how the dead body of Christ was made alive again. We know that he was put into the tomb, taken down from the cross, declared dead, truly dead, put into the tomb, the tomb was sealed, and then three days later, the tomb is unsealed and the body is gone. Nobody saw that part of it. They were eyewitnesses to the rest of the events surrounding it. But how exactly was that dead body brought back to life? We don't entirely know. It causes consternation for us that we look at this pattern, we're not exactly sure what that means for us. What we do know is that there was a body that was dead and was brought back to life. That is the hope. for the Christian of the resurrection to come. It is his resurrection that is the pattern. The second thing we see is that our resurrection will follow that pattern. Look at the second part of the verse. I'm sorry, 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 are in Christ, united with Christ by faith, will die and then will be raised again. I've used this illustration before, it's worth repeating. You can imagine a group of hikers that are hiking across a particularly treacherous part of a mountain. And the group of men and women have linked themselves together with ropes, so that if one of them falls, the others can help them, so they won't plummet all the way down the mountain. They have roped themselves together. In our union with Christ, we are in a sense roped with Him. And as He goes down into the grave, we all too will go down into the grave. But just as he goes down, he also goes up, and we are united in him. We are roped to him in faith, and so his resurrection is then the promise of our resurrection. We saw last week, it's the first fruit. We see, even as we go down into the pit, we see on the other side, Christ, our chief, our head, our captain, has been brought up from the dead. We are united with him. We, too, have the promise of resurrection. There's much discussion that has been had about this image used at the end of verse 14 and then again at the end of verse 15 about falling asleep. What does this mean? Because it sure looks like when people die, they actually die. They're not asleep. It's a metaphor that Paul is using. Paul, of course, knows what death is. He knows that Jesus was not asleep. Jesus experienced true death. But this metaphor is used in Scripture, I think in part to show that death like being asleep and resurrection is like being awoken from that sleep. Being brought back to life is as easy for God as it is for us to wake up somebody who is asleep, bringing the dead back to life. You see the pattern, it is simple and yet it is profound. Jesus was dead, he was alive, and he goes up to heaven. That's the pattern for us. That's even more than that. It's the promise for us who are in him by faith. Dead, alive, go up to heaven. We sang Last week, the great Easter hymn, vain, the stone, the watch, the seal. You know that line that all of the human efforts to keep Jesus into the tomb are vain, they're pointless, they're worthless. God can overcome that to raise Jesus to life. His tomb was empty. The same thing is true for us. The coffin that we will one day go to will also one day be empty. The coffin is simply a waiting room, simply a holding room. It will one day be empty. If you look at the empty tomb, it's the promise that our tomb will one day be empty as well. That is the pattern for us in Christ. What will it look like when the tomb is empty? That's the second thing I want you to see in this text, is the plan of the resurrection. The pattern of the resurrection is that we will be raised like Christ, Verse 14, the plan of the resurrection, verses 15 to 17. Look at verse 15, Paul's main point here is to tell his worried Thessalonian hearers who are afraid that they will die before Jesus comes back, that they won't miss anything. He tells them when Jesus comes back, those who are dead will be raised first, so that they will not miss anything. I don't think it's this case anymore. It used to be like this often when mothers were going into labor in order to numb or to dull the pain, they would be given the option of being put to sleep through the procedure. And maybe some of you had this option, and maybe some of you responded, well, I don't want to miss it. This is kind of one of the greatest moments of my entire life. I don't want to be asleep during this. That was the concern for the Thessalonians. I don't want to sleep through the return of my Savior. And Jesus assures them that they won't miss anything. Not only will they not miss the resurrection, they won't miss I want you to see, I'm not going to go into too big of a detail, but there's four steps here in the second coming of Jesus in verses 16 and 17. There are four steps to assure the living that if they die before the return of Christ, they will not miss anything. Look at these four steps the Bible outlines for us. First, we see the first step is that the Lord will descend. He will descend. He has ascended. He was resurrected from the dead to life. And then he ascended into heaven. The pattern of his ascension, if you remember from Acts chapter one, is that it was in clouds. So he will descend here also in clouds. This is a kind of puffy spring meadow clouds. These are thundering clouds of glory. This is the Shekinah glory of God as his son ascends and then descends for his people. And as the Lord descends, it will be noisy. We need to read here of three noises, worldwide noises at the return of Christ. Noises that literally wake the dead. You hear that word literally all the time but people don't actually mean it. Here I actually mean it. The sound will literally wake the dead. Three sounds, each their return is with, number one, a cry of command. Cry of command, what's the command? The command is to come to life. This is the Lord's command. We read in John 5, 28, all who are in tombs will hear the voice and come out. This is pictured for us in John 11 with Lazarus. What does Jesus say to Lazarus, to the dead body of Lazarus? Lazarus, come out. It is the cry of command. from our Savior, from beginning of end of God's word. The most powerful thing that God uses is his word. This is what he does at creation out of nothing. He speaks and the world comes into existence. He brings Adam from nothing, from dust, into existence by the mere speaking of his word. This is what Jesus does with the spiritually dead. He speaks his word over the spiritually dead, and we are brought to life in Christ. We should not be surprised to find there on the last day that what brings the dead to life is the voice of our God, the powerful word of our God speaking over the dead to bring them back to life. That's the first sound of the Lord's return. The second sound, also there in verse 16, is the voice of an archangel. We don't really know what this means. Is it maybe the voice of Michael who has spoken in other places in Scripture? Is it maybe the same as the noise to come, the noise of a trumpet? I don't know, but it's going to be another noise. The third Sound is that of the trumpet of God. The trumpet, of course, is used to announce the coming of the king, to announce that the presence of the divine in their midst, the ringing forth of this pronouncement that the king has returned in his kingdom for his people will be trumpeted forth. A cry, a voice, and a trumpet. None of these things can be missed. This isn't like some secret dog whistle that only certain people will hear. This is a worldwide cataclysmic event. The sounds are either the greatest thing you'll ever hear or the most terrifying thing you'll ever hear. The blasts, the cry, the voice. That's the first thing that God tells us will happen when His Son returns. The second thing He tells us, and this defies belief, but it is truth, it is God's Word, at the end of verse 16, the dead will rise. The dead will rise from graveyards, from the depths of the ocean, from the very ends of the earth, thousands and thousands, if not millions upon millions will be raised to life. What a scene. We read in 1 Corinthians 15 that it happens in a moment, in the twinkling of the eye at the sound of a trumpet. The dead will be raised to life. This assures Those Thessalonians who believe their death is imminent, that upon the return of Christ, the first thing that will happen is the sound that will raise them from the dead. Look at the end of verse 16. And with the sound of the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. There's their assurance. They won't miss anything. Next comes the third step in the plan of the resurrection. And that's the beginning of verse 17. All will be caught up Then, sorry, verse 17, we who are alive, who are left, that's those who have not died, you get that? You're with me? All who have died will be raised to the dead. Those who have not yet died, when Christ returns, those who are left will be caught up together with them. So now those who have just been raised from the dead and those who are alive will be caught up together. They will be snatched up, as it were. They will be seized up. as it were, and Paul tells us, to meet the Lord in the air. What a strange phrase, to meet the Lord in the air. I want you to picture this is the Lord Christ coming down in clouds from heaven and the people being raised up, not only from the grave to be amongst the living, but now the whole multitude into the air to meet there with Christ. They're going out. We will be going out to meet the king to come back to usher back into the world his new kingdom. In the history of our country in the early 18th century or late 18th century, the great celebrity of the day was George Washington. He was the victorious general who had had freed his people from England and before he became president and he would travel around the country and he hated traveling around the country because he could never make it through any cities without being mobbed. He was a celebrity of the day and so he would often times try to wear a disguise or sneak into cities at night because he could never get anywhere because everyone wanted to see him and to shake his hand and touch him. They would actually send, they would hear he was coming and they would send out a greeting committee to go out to meet him. Children and old soldiers and a band will go out of the city. They would meet George Washington, their conquering hero. They would form up behind him. They would escort him back into the city. That's what's going to happen. The people of God, redeemed by the work of God, go out to meet the conquering king, to join him, to usher in the new heavens and the new earth, to bring that kingdom to bear back now in the world. And that leads us to the final point. All Paul tells us here, at the end of verse 17, And so we will always be with the Lord. We're gonna see the next two weeks as we look at the themes of heaven and hell, what that looks like. But here we are assured, people of God as they think about death are assured they will be with him forever. We want to know when this is going to happen. The Bible does not tell us when this is going to happen. We wanna know where it's going to happen. The Bible doesn't tell us where, but it tells us who. That's the greatest hope for the Christian, is to be united with our Savior. It's not about geography or chronology, it's about our relationship. You know, the cliche of a young couple in love, say it doesn't matter where we live or how much money we have as long as we're together. How long does that usually last? The concern here is not where or when, but it is who, body and soul, reunited to greet our Savior, to always be with the Lord. Is that not a comforting thought? That's in fact the very purpose of Paul's teaching about the resurrection. And that's what I want you to see thirdly, the purpose of the resurrection. All of this theological meat here, all of this wonderful, almost hard to believe reality of the future is all intended to comfort the people of God. And I want you to see that from verses 13 and verses 18. I make a big deal out of this, when we look at a passage of Scripture and it begins and ends with the same theme, the author is telling us something. If it is bookended with the same thing, we cannot miss that theme. Look at the bookends of this of this passage. Verse 13, 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. Paul is concerned about the grieving experience of the Christians there in Thessalonica. Verse 18, the end of the passage, therefore encourage one another with these words. He wants us to be comforted and encouraged, given courage. based on the reality of the resurrection. It's his purpose and he outlines for us very briefly in this passage two types of grief. There is grief with hope and then there is grief without hope. Christians grieve over the death of Christians in a different way. You hear this quoted often at funerals. We do not grieve of those who do not have hope. I want you to notice Paul does not say that Christians don't grieve. Tom just prayed we mourn with those who mourn. Christians certainly grieve. There are deep hurts and pains of life that are unavoidable regardless of who your God is. There are things that we, even as Christians, will carry with us our entire life, but that grief is balanced out and overcome with hope, with the hope of the resurrection. We are called to encourage one another with these words, and I want to encourage you with these words, to strengthen you with these words. We read in the Psalms, precious in the Lord is the death of his saints. Do you feel death, your own death, on the near horizon? Are you well aware of a recent loss in your life? You are to be given courage to endure and to persevere based on the truth of the resurrection. the enduring, hope-giving, life-restoring, joy-enabling truth, that the tomb, your tomb, your beloved's tomb, will be empty. The purpose is comfort. But there's also another type of grief. There is a comparison made here that everyone grieves, but those who believe in Christ and this resurrection, believe with hope. According to Paul, those who are not believers in Christ do not have this hope. There is no solace, according to God's word, for those who are facing death outside of Christ. The non-Christian The unbeliever does not find comfort in this. They may think this is not true. They may think this sounds crazy. They may think this sounds silly. But it is not of comfort. And yet God's word tells us that there is another pattern. The pattern is that all die. The pattern is that all are made alive. I want to read from you from Matthew chapter 25. I'm going to cover this in a few weeks. Begin with it here, Matthew chapter 25, verse 31, when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. There is a separation of judgment that God's word promises at the return of Christ. The purpose of the resurrection, if you believe in Christ, is comfort. The purpose of the resurrection, of hearing about it this morning, if you do not believe, is that you might repent, that you might place your faith in Christ and know this true and enduring comfort. It is offered to all people through Christ. We read a story in Mark chapter 5, a telling of a man named Jairus and his daughter who becomes sick. He's desperate. He sins for Jesus. He hears this man who can heal the sick and Jesus comes. He is delayed, if you remember, by the woman in the crowd. He arrives, but he's too late. He is greeted with the sound of people weeping and wailing because this little girl has died. And do you remember what Jesus says to them? He says, she's not dead, she's sleeping. They laugh at him. They laugh at this idea that the one who is dead is asleep. They have no idea the power of this man, of this God and his victory over death. People laugh at this idea today. They scoff at it, they roll their eyes at it. We go back to the original truth that if Jesus is not resurrected, then he has no power over death and none of this matters. If the tomb is not empty, none of this matters. We're playing a foolish game and we are, among all people, most to be pitied. We worship a God who's not even there. But if this is true, If he is resurrected, if the tomb is empty, then he does have power over death. He is the victor over death and all of a sudden everything he says matters. And even if this text sounds somewhat far-fetched to our rationalistic minds, it is from the very word of God who is the victor over death and we take it as gospel truth that Jesus died for sinners upon the cross. He was raised by the power of his father on high from the dead. And with that comes the promise that all who believe in Christ by faith too will be raised from the dead. And when Christ returns with the sounds of the trumpet, with the cry of command, with the voice of the archangel, we will go to be with the Lord forever. Brother and sister in Christ, you grieve with hope. because you believe that he has died, that he has rose again, and that he is coming soon. Take encouragement in these words. Let us pray. Our Lord and our God, it is indeed hard truths to believe that this indeed is how this world will draw to an end and to a close. We rejoice that you have given us such comfort. The death has no power over us, and the power it exerts is only temporary. In fact, you have guaranteed and secured us to an everlasting inheritance. I pray, oh God, that your word would bring comfort to all who are here this morning, that your spirit would turn our hearts to believe in you. I pray, oh God, that you would do that work for your own glory in our hearts. And I pray that you would comfort the saints, those who are experiencing the reality of an impending death, those who have experienced deep mourning in the past, that you would comfort us in your word and your great assurances of the great and glorious resurrection of the dead. And we pray, oh God, with great earnestness that you would send your son, that he would come, he would come quickly. In his name we pray. Amen.