So we're gonna look at chapter four of 1 Thessalonians today, and I've divided that text into thirds. So we'll look at three sections, one at a time. It's just the way the chapter kind of naturally divides. But let me pray for the word, and then we'll look at our first section. Our Father and our God, we pause to ask your blessing on your word, Lord, as we sit under the authority of scripture. And Lord, we pray that you'd enable us, Lord, with opening our ears, opening our hearts, opening our minds to receive your truth. And Lord, we thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen. So we're getting sort of into the practical application section. If you know Paul's writings, and you do, many, many times Paul will go through doctrinal truths. And the second half of a letter like Romans, he'll get into more like practical application. And that's kind of where we are here. So it begins with Paul's plea for purity in the church. And that's verses one to eight. So let's read that. Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God. For you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God. your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such. as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore, he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us his Holy Spirit. Did you notice when we read that together that Paul is telling the church, I already told you these things? You see in verse 1, just as you received from us, Verse two, for you know what commandments we gave you. Verse six, as we also forewarned you and testified. And in a minute, when we get to verse 11, he says, as we commanded you. So he's really bringing back to remembrance what he had already taught them when he was there with them. But he was only there for a short time. And it seems pretty clear that when Timothy comes back to report that, brother, they're in the faith, They're in the faith, and they long to see you, that he also mentioned. But there's some problems in the church, and they need to be addressed. And that's what Paul's dealing with here. There were some issues that had to be dealt with, and Paul deals with them here. John Stott, in his commentary, says, within a few weeks or months, he had taught the young Thessalonian converts not only the essence of the good news, but also the essence of the good life. not only about faith in Jesus, but also about the need for good works, by which saving faith is shown to be genuine, and without which it is dead." Right? Stott, of course, has James, I'm sure, the book of James in mind there. So that's what he's doing. He's bringing to remembrance. And there's, I think, four or five points here that he's conveying to the church. Before I get into living the pure life, which is what he's really driving at in chapter 4, I want to park on verse 3 for just a second. Because so many people in my life, my ministry, my friendships, they are looking to try to find what the will of God is. for their life. And usually when I hear that, they're talking about who they should marry, or where they should live, or what job they should take. And I've struggled with that myself. I had a time in my life where I had three vocational opportunities. I had three offers. And that's hard. You're trying to decide, well, Lord, which one of these should I take? It's difficult. And so sometimes we're talking about those type of things. Like, what is God's will for my life? Well, here in verse 3, it's pretty plain that primarily God's will for our lives as Christians is to be sanctified. are sanctification. And sanctification is that process, that lifelong process of being made more and more like our Savior Jesus Christ, right? We're not perfect, but we're to grow in all these areas, in purity and holiness. And we're to strive to grow in these areas. And ultimately, it's a God at work in us. I mean, God's at work. And sometimes we grow greatly through adversity and trials and all these things that come into your life. Well, God's will for you, beloved, is your sanctification. And he's working that out in your life. For this is the will of God, your sanctification. And I like to couple that with Jesus and his prayer in John 17, where Jesus prays to the Father and says, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. So if you want to know where you're really going to grow in the Lord, be in the Bible. Be studying God's Word. He will grow us in His Word. So we want to be in our Bibles. John MacArthur wrote a great little booklet. And when I was reading this, I was surprised I could find it. I got this little booklet years ago. Just a little teeny thing. And the title of it is, Found God's Will. And he kind of labors in that booklet what I was just talking about, that primarily God wants us walking in purity. He wants us being sanctified to be more and more like our Savior. Everything else will fall in its place, right? Then pick the job. I mean, if you're really walking in an attitude of wanting to please God every day, then you really can't make the wrong choice. And God will lead and direct and guide. But in that booklet, John MacArthur says, I just thought this was well written. He says, some apparently think that God's will is lost. At least they say they're searching for it. To them, God must appear to be a sort of divine Easter bunny who has stashed his will like eggs somewhere out of sight and then sent us running through life trying to find it. He's up there saying, you're getting warmer, you're getting warmer. And MacArthur's point is that God wants us to walk in purity, to be in His Word, and to be living a life of sanctification. That's God's primarily, primarily His will for our lives. Those are the things, you know, that we actually read one of them in the reading today about God's will, that we would be a thankful people, that we'd be walking, you know, in tune and in step with our Lord. So getting to the meat of what he says here in chapter 4. And beloved, these things may not be a struggle for you. When I was a young man, these things were struggles for me. But our struggles change as we mature in age. But if you have anybody in your life that's maybe struggling in the area of sexual purity, It wouldn't be a bad thing, rather than preaching to him, just say, you really need to read 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. You might want to just sit down and read that and see what God's word says about sexual purity. So he tells them to abstain, I wrote, from fornication. Fornication, sexual immorality, he tells the church. In the Latin, this word fornication comes from a root, fornix. in, you know, F-O-R-N-I-X, fornix. And fornix in the Latin is an architectural term, which I found interesting. It's actually, if you look on the side of the church and you see the arch, almost like an arch doorway kind of thing, that's a fornix in architecture. It's an arch area. And the reason why that became synonymous, and actually the fornix became the word for a brothel, was because prostitutes in ancient Rome would hang out in these doorways to allure men. And then they would go to little rooms underneath these entryways where they had vaulted ceilings, also like they would call that a fornix room. And they became brothels. So we finally kind of derived the word fornication to mean sexual immorality. I like studying words, so I found that interesting. The word here is porneia, where of course we get our word pornography in the vernacular in our country. And it'd be things such as prostitution, fornication, which is sexual relationship outside of marriage, adultery, incest, homosexuality. These would all fall under the umbrella of this word porneia. So they were to have self-control in all areas of life, but especially in the area of their sexual activity. It's confined to a marriage. One man, one woman. And it's a beautiful thing. It's a gift from God. It's not a bad thing at all. But it's to be contained in the marriage. And that's what the Bible teaches. So he says in verse 4, and this is my new King James, that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel, and the idea in my translation is your own body, that you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. We're to be self-controlled in all areas of life, right? That word, and I'll just go down a little study with you for a minute, that word, this translated vessel in my translation, in some translations, it's going to translate, because that same word can also mean wife. Right? And you might not have known that, but it can. So like the old Revised Standard Version, the RSV, translates that verse like this, that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor. And both are good teachings, right? Because Paul does cover that idea about having your own wife. If you're burning, don't burn with water. I mean, get married. And that's where that can take place. And he covers that in 1 Corinthians chapter 7. If you want to go read that. on your own. I personally think, I prefer the translation, to possess his own body, which has to do with being self-controlled in the area of sexuality and all areas of our life. It has to do with a lot. When you say, well, what does it mean to be self-controlled in that area? Well, one that the church doesn't talk about very much anymore is how we dress. How we dress. I like Nancy Lee DeMoss. She's a teacher to women. Sometimes I would eavesdrop because she's on the radio and I would listen to her a little bit. She's really primarily teaching women. And one of the things that she said that I thought was really a good way of putting it, and she was teaching younger ladies and saying, one, you don't realize what you're dressing in and how that impacts men. And secondly, she would say, when you get dressed, ask yourself, am I dressing to just look attractive, which is not wrong, or am I dressing to attract attention? And there's a difference. And I think we know when you see somebody, and men can do the same thing. They're wearing the little muscle shirts and whatnot. And it's like, are you dressing just to kind of look nice, or are you dressing to attract attention from the opposite sex? And that's a good filter to run through when we decide what we're going to put on for the day, I think. Controlling what we do with our bodies, I think that's primarily what he's talking about here. But to be self-controlled in all areas of life, the Bible talks about over and over again, also, and this is a little bit outside of what he's talking about, but drunkenness, gluttony. And usually in the Bible, when you see those two terms, they're usually together. a gluttonous drunkard. You'll see that language, that we're to be in all things in moderation and all things contained where God says to contain things. I mean, that's really the teaching of the Bible. Along the lines here, one of my favorite teachings, I went and dug it up, and it's one of my favorite books. And if you have not read it, I'd really encourage you to get it and read it. It's Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. It's just a great little book. It's actually a transcript from a radio series that he did in England many, many years ago, probably right around the time of World War II. And it's been transcribed into a book. And he was just trying to reach out to his fellow Englanders on the radio, without really bringing up a lot of scripture verses, and just logically come to a conclusion, not only is there a God, but he sent his Savior, our Savior, Jesus Christ. And in that book, he writes about this area of self-control. And he says this, If anyone says that sex in itself is bad, Christianity contradicts them at once. But of course, when people say sex is nothing to be ashamed of, they may mean the state into which sexual instinct has now got is nothing to be ashamed of. If they mean that, they are wrong. I think it is everything to be ashamed of. There's nothing to be ashamed of enjoying your food. There would be everything to be ashamed of if half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips. And he's trying to apply that logic and lay it over in the sexual realm and say, there's something wrong if people are looking at pictures of this, using up their time to do that. They're obsessed with sex. There's something wrong there. But if you didn't know, we live in a society that's absolutely obsessed with sexuality. I mean, you can't go by a billboard half the time driving down the highway without seeing something. It's just the way our country is. So thirdly, subdue your passion. He says in verse 5, "...not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God." In other words, you know, I don't expect those that don't know the living God to live this way, but you're Christians. He's going to tell them, you have the Holy Spirit, you need to live in purity, right? The word in the Greek here that's translated for passion refers to a strong, intense desire, craving, passionate longing. Its meaning can either be positive or it can be negative depending on the context in which it's used. So, for instance, our Lord said in Luke 22, 15, the same word in a positive way. He says, with fervent desire. That's our word passion. With fervent desire. I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. That's the good use of the word, but here it's in the negative, right? Not with passion of lust. Romans 13, 14b, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. 1 John 2.16, for all that's in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is of the world. In order to subdue these passions we have, have self-control over the passions we have, redirect them into holy places. We can do that with God's help. Because, it says in 1 Corinthians 6.18, that we're to flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. And then fourthly here, don't take advantage of people. He says, don't take advantage of people. Verse six, he says, that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. Some translations take this section and say, well he's not only teaching about sexual immorality, he's also talking about how we conduct ourselves in the business place. And so if you have a translation that's kind of going down a path a little bit more like, you know, don't defraud people when you're conducting business. That's why. It could go down that path, which is also a truth. We should be upright in the business world as well, living with integrity, being known as a people of integrity. But I really do think here he's talking in the sexual realm, where defrauding a brother would be taking somebody beyond your spouse and taking somebody else's wife or taking somebody else's husband. That would defraud a brother. I think that's what he probably has to say to us. The word that's translated here, defraud, literally is the word more to have. The two words stuck together, more to have. And to take advantage of here in the original language is to overstep. So if an athlete was racing and they crossed that line, that finish line, they overstepped the finish line. Here he's talking about boundaries that God has set for us. And so to take advantage of somebody would be to step across the line, the boundary that God set for us. And so your translations are trying to translate that. And mine translates it to take advantage and defraud, to overreach, to exploit, to covet. something that's beyond the boundaries that God set for your life. So it's a willful act of crossing a line. I use the language in my day-to-day job of, stay in your lane. Just stay in your lane. Because I work with other managers in other disciplines on a claim. I've got one little piece of it. And I try not to cross over and start fiddling around with what somebody's doing with another piece of it. And I'll call a manager and say, hey, look, I know this came up. I'm just going to stay in my lane. That's probably a good interpretation of the same language here, to stay in your lane. And the lane is what God set forth for us, with boundaries. And the Bible says that the Lord is the avenger, and added here for clarity, of all such. Anybody that would do this, God is the avenger. And we don't want to deal with that. And you say, well, I thought once saved, always saved. I don't think he's dealing with that. He's talking about the ramifications if a Christian decides to willfully cross these lines. There is going to be consequences. And my mind immediately went to probably one of the more famous illustrations in the Bible, which is David, King David, when he took to himself Bathsheba. And he crossed a line. He deliberately crossed a line. And God brings Nathan to him, who is speaking on behalf of God. And when he's called out for the sin, this is what God says through his prophet. This is 2 Samuel 12, beginning in verse 9. He says, why have you despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? You've killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, you've taken his wife to be your wife, and you've killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. Now he says that because he sent him into battle and told the troops to pull back and just let him die in battle. So David murdered this guy. He just did it in battle by commanding his troops what to do. And he basically killed him. David killed this guy. He says, now therefore, now here's the ramifications. David didn't lose his salvation. Read Psalm 51, that great prayer of repentance. But he says, now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me, God said. God took this personal. You despise me. You've taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife, he says. And he called him out. He didn't just smooth it over. He said, David, this is a horrific thing you've done. And if you read the rest of the book of Samuel and the life of David, the sword never did depart from his household. He had his own children rising up against him on one night. It was really quite sad. And David always knew that that flowed out of his decision to take another man's wife and actually had that man murdered. And for those who don't like these rules, somebody says, I'm a Christian, but I don't like this. I want to live my life the way I want to live my life. You know, stop being so heavy on me here, pastor. Well, then verse eight, it's a good verse where it says, therefore, he who rejects this, He means this teaching. He who rejects this does not reject man, but God has also given us His Holy Spirit. In the Greek, to reject, in the original language here, it literally means unplace. In other words, living your life as if God's not on his throne. He's not watching what we're doing. And God says, basically, you're not rejecting men. You're not unplacing just the teaching of man. When you don't listen to the apostle, you're unplacing and despising the living God. And that's not a good place for us to live, guys. We don't want to live there. Jesus conveyed the same thought when he taught, and he was teaching his apostles, that they were going to go forth, and eventually much of the Bible comes to us through the apostles, right? And Jesus said, and this is Luke 10, 16, He who hears you, he says to the apostles, hears me. He who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me, the Father. So to reject the apostles' teaching is to reject Jesus. And to reject Jesus is to reject the Father. It's serious. It's serious. When we know these truths, and then to purposefully reject them and walk in other ways, it's not a safe place for us to be. And there's always ramifications from it. Always. Even if a Christian doesn't lose his salvation, there's always going to be consequences you're going to carry in this life for having left the boundaries and crossed that line. He ends this little section here by saying that he's given us his Holy Spirit. And that's the same thing he reminds the Corinthian church. In 1 Corinthians 6.19, Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who's in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." You've been bought with a price, the precious blood of Jesus, His life, His death on the cross, He purchased us. We're His, we belong to Him. So He says, and He's also gifted you with the Holy Spirit, therefore live righteously and holy in these bodies that we have, that have been redeemed by God. Second section we'll look at is Paul's blueprint for Christian living. And I love this passage. I love it. And let me just read it. Now you'll see why I love it. I just think it's so practical. I just absolutely love it. But this is beginning in verse nine. I'm gonna read it down to verse 12. But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. And indeed, you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more, that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands as we commanded you, that you may walk properly towards those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing. So he tells them to love the brethren. He says, it's well known that you love each other. As a matter of fact, he says, it's so well known, it's not just in Thessalonica. All of Macedonia, the entire region, has heard of your love. If you read the church fathers, and they'll talk about, even some that are outside of the church in the first century, one of the things they'll speak of is the Christian love ethic, that those people love each other. We don't know anything. I mean, they talk about this God that died on a cross. You know, we don't understand all that, but I can tell you this. They love each other. And that's the hallmark of Christianity, isn't it? Jesus said that. They'll know you're mine because they're going to see your love for each other. And that's one of the things that just drew me into the church, was when we first started going to church, we were just enveloped in the love of the congregation. And it's never changed. It's always been a beautiful... Even the Bible talks about those that are a problem in the church congregation. The Bible says they're a blemish at your what? At your love feasts. They're fellowship meals. And so they even called the fellowship meal a love feast in the first century. So it's a hallmark of Christianity. And this is kind of a paradoxical statement that the Holy Spirit has Paul write here, as he's giving these blueprint ideas of Christian living. He says that they are to strive. My translation says aspire. Strive to lead a quiet life. And a lot of the commentators were saying, you know, you really could translate that, strive Not to strive. It's a paradoxical statement, but it has to do with our volitional wills that we're really aspiring, we're striving towards living quiet lives. Quiet lives, right? Let me read you this. The Greek word is a verb that means to be quiet, to be still, to rest, to cease from activity. The concept it represents is not merely the absence of noise, but a deep inner state of tranquility and calm that can lead to spiritual or restful renewal. It is not getting caught up in gossip and public conflicts. We avoid that stuff. And that's something that God had to work on my life. I was not a calm, quiet life kind of guy when I came to the Lord. And even more so, and I'm sure you've experienced this, because as we mature as Christians, we more and more so, I think, live this way. Just quiet lives. But for me, it was hard. I was not studious in school. I had a hard time staying in class. I didn't like school. And so I left class a lot in high school. But for me to sit down quietly with the Lord and study for six, seven, eight hours, that's not the way I am in my fallen flesh. I was not like that at all. And God had to do a work in me to where I could just calm, have a tranquil setting. And now I love that. You know, I bring this up all the time, but I so look forward to my study day, because it's just calm. I'm not dealing with customers. And it's just me and the Lord, and all these wonderful books and commentators, and me learning about my Lord Jesus more and more. And I love that. God had to do a work in me for that, because that's not who this guy is in the flesh. I can tell you that right now. But that's the idea, is that even in crazy, hectic... Have you ever been in somebody's household and it was an absolute madhouse? Because I used to go to like three people's houses a day to do insurance claims. And every once in a while I'd get some house. I thought, how can you people live in this place? Of course I didn't say that, but I just thought, this place is an insane asylum. Everybody would run around, just crazy. And I'd think, I couldn't wait to get out of there. That's not how the Christian is to conduct themselves. be in a family where that's going on. But you yourself should have an inner peace in the midst of all that chaos. You should be the voice of tranquility and speak peace into a situation. That's what the Bible is talking about with that verse. It talks about, Peter talks about women, not just the outward adorning of the hair and whatnot, but he talks about how you should have a quiet spirit. That's the same idea. Just a woman with a quiet spirit. Gentle spirit. That's the idea. I love that the Bible says, and this is my translation, that how's the Christian supposed to live the life? Well here, try this. Mind your own business. So to the point with that, it's like, well, what are you really trying to say, God? I'm trying to say, mind your own business. I just love that. This is what I was talking about. Stay in your lane, you know, mind your own business. Let me read this. In the biblical context, As seen in the word's appearance in the New Testament, this is one's lifelong pattern of behavior described by this word. It's the sum of all the doings that define a person's character. John Calvin reminds us in his commentary, he does not mean, however, that everyone shall mind his own business in such a way as that each one should live apart or having no care for others, but he merely has in view to correct the idle levity. A levity means like treating a serious matter with humor, which makes men noisy, bustlers, and public who ought to live and lead quiet lives in their own homes. I think it's good. So we shouldn't be noisy bustlers, causing trouble and strife. The Bible talks about that a lot. Sometimes it's just good to say, you know what, I'm just going to mind my own business on this one. It doesn't mean we don't speak to somebody if it's like, hey, can I give you a little advice on that? I mean, I won't if you tell me not to, but I think I've got a little bit of truth for you. And that's OK to do. But generally speaking, we shouldn't be getting up in everybody's business. That's just what the Bible says. I just love it. It's so practical. And then he says that we're to be Christians that work with our own hands. Work with your own hands. This is going to come up, this subject's going to come up again in the letters to the church in Thessalonica. Somebody wrote, just as a craftsman's quiet, honest work brings respect from outsiders, a Christian's diligent work ethic and peaceful conduct can provide a witness to those outside the faith. It shows that faith is not just about grand gestures, but also about the quiet, consistent work of living a life that is respectful and earns a good reputation. I've always said, and this isn't getting into this, but the Bible does teach it, that I think the Christian on the job site or at the workplace should be the most integrity, should be the hardest worker. I've always felt that way. that you should be known. That's a witness. It's funny, one of the guys who works for me, and he's not a Christian. Quite the opposite, actually. Trying to have some influence on him. And me and another guy are kind of working on him. But every time I hire somebody, he'll call me and go, I called so-and-so you just hired. I told you you're a pastor. Larry's a good guy. He's a pastor. So everybody, I don't ever tell them that. But they all know. So what does that mean? That means everything I do is a representation of my faith, how I treat them, my calm demeanor. Am I a hard worker? Do I help them? Do I support them? Because in my mind, they're going to see beyond just, oh, this is Larry. It's like, oh, this is Larry, and he's a pastor. He's a Christian. And I try to, not that it's forceful, because the Holy Spirit wants to work these things on us anyway. But we should all, not just me, we should know that the world's watching us. We want to conduct ourselves, work with our hands, have an inner spirit of peace and tranquility, speak wisdom in situations where we find opportunity, and the world's watching us. And that's what he says. He says in 1 Thessalonians 2, that you may walk properly towards those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing. That's probably verse 12. I didn't jot that down, but that we'd walk properly towards those that are outside the church, that we may lack nothing. The lack nothing, some of the commentators say, well, part of working with our hands is that we're not the people that the community has to take care of because we're hard workers. We're taking care of ourselves. The Bible tells us to take care of our own families. The pastoral letters cover that, that we're to take care of our families and we're to be providers for our families. And we shouldn't be the ones that have to get a handout from outside the church. Sometimes the church has to help out and that's fine. The Bible talks about that too. So third section. This has got to be one of the most wonderful passages in the entire Bible. I read this passage, I think, I'm not misspeaking here, at every funeral I preach, I usually begin with this passage. So let me read it. This is verse 13 down to the end of the chapter. But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who are asleep. For 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. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words." I love that. I love that he ends that and says, this is the comfort you have. It's really the only comfort we have in this life. And especially as we attend beloved family members and friends funerals. If they knew the Lord savingly, this is our hope. This is our comfort. I remember when my aunt died. And my mom was still alive. My aunt died first, and my mom was pretty distraught. And I came to her and I said, I said, Mom, we have hope because of Jesus. We have hope. We have a living hope that we'll see her again, and we'll see our Lord as well. I love, and I just want to mention here, because we just breezed past it, but this is not really how people speak. Christians speak this way. The Bible speaks this way of somebody sleeping. Somebody's sleeping. And the Bible uses that language over and over again. Those who die in the Lord sleep. I do not believe in soul sleep. You might have heard some teaching about soul sleep, that your soul sleeps. I don't believe that. Because, Paul said, he kind of has a section where he talks about it's good to be in the body, it's better to be, but the best is yet to come when we get our new bodies. But in that, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The book of Revelation, there's the souls under the altar. They're not sleeping. They're asking the Lord to avenge their blood, their martyrdom. So I believe when we die, our souls go to be with the Lord. The Bible doesn't paint a perfect picture of all this either, by the way. There's little tidbits, but we don't know exactly. I think it's because God wants to surprise us. I think we get to glory and it's going to be like, oh man, I didn't know it was going to be all this. I really think he has more treasures and gifts to show us when we arrive in that realm. But the Bible just says that their body is asleep. Right? We put their bodies in the ground. I preached Bob Bollinger's funeral. I think we were in Pennsylvania. Big church. There was like 150 people there. And I was out by the casket, which was out in the vestibule. And Norma Jean came up, and I was there by Bob and Bob's body. And Norma Jean kind of tapped him and said, hey, honey, hey, Bob. She goes, oh, you're not here. She goes, you're with Jesus. And I could not speak this passage more eloquently than that for a widow, a grieving widow, to say, you're not here. You're with Jesus. His soul was with Jesus. But our bodies will rise. That's what this passage is talking about. The Lord is going to come with a shout, the archangel, the trumpet, and call our bodies out of the grave. I want to read you a couple of quick verses here. When Stephen is martyred, he's stoned to death in the book of Acts. It says, this is Acts 7, 60. It says, Then he knelt down, cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. In John 11, 11, when Lazarus dies, says about Jesus, Jesus says, our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up. Now there's people that have died and been risen back to earthly life again, but they weren't given glorified bodies. They eventually died again, right? Lazarus died again. But our Lord Jesus, being the firstfruits, He rose from the grave with a glorified body. The Bible says never to die again. And that we will be raised bodily, reunited with our spirits, to never die again. Right? And Revelation has a beautiful picture of all the glories of heaven. He wipes our tears away. There's no more pain or death, suffering. All that's gone. Right? When we're reunited with our bodies and enter the celestial city. So, we sleep. Right? Remember that. The parousia, that's a word that means his arrival. So it's synonymous with the second coming of Jesus. So I use that language once in a while, but the parousia is his arrival, his second coming. So the parousia gives us hope that death is not the end. That's the point of the passage. Existentialism teaches that while life may be inherently meaningless, one can find liberation and create their own meaning by facing the absurdity of life and death with courage. So that's all I got to say about that. I was in a class in high school, they were teaching me existentialism, so I know that a little bit. Stoicism, the Stoics such as Seneca, Marcus, Aurelius, they practiced memento mori, remember you must die, to reframe death not as a tragedy, but as a natural part of the universe. This awareness motivates living a victorious, meaningful life in the present. Epicureanism, remember Paul bumped into these people when he was in Athens. Epicureanism says death is the cessation of consciousness and therefore cannot be an experience. According to Epicurus, the fear of death is irrational because where we are, death is not. And where death is, we are not. These are all these philosophies outside of Christianity. Buddhism has its repetition of rebirths over and over again that's kind of guided by karma. But Christianity alone says, no, no, no, no. In reality, death itself's been conquered by Jesus Christ. And he conquered the devil and death itself. He holds the keys. Because he went to a cross and died, he was buried, but he rose again the third day. And he has conquered death for all who repent and put their faith in him. Your soul goes to be with Him. Your body will be raised at the Second Coming at the Parousia. And we'll be with the Lord forever. And that's my last point, is this glorious reunion. This glorious reunion. I want to see Jesus. I know you're like, I want to see my Lord. I want to see my Jesus. But beloved, I've got loved ones that I want to see. My little granddaughter came to me this morning, and she was talking about my wife, who's grandma to her. And I said, I had a grandma. And she said, you did? She didn't know that. I said, yes. Yes, I had two of them. But my one grandmother was kind of special to me. She used to give me lollies. Because that's what she calls candy. I said, my grandmother used to give me lollies when I was crying. So of course, I'd always get crocodile tears. So grandma would give me lollies. And she said, well, granddad, where's your grandma now? And I said, well, she lives with Jesus. And that was it. You could see her little furled face like she had never heard that before. I said, yeah, she's living with Jesus. And one day I'll see her again. And that truth is contained in this passage we're in. I long to see some family members. I have friends that died in the Lord. I mean, I've been in ministry for a number of years. I've known a lot of Christian friends that are with the Lord now. That's our reunion party. Can you imagine what that reunion party is going to be like? I mean, of course the Lord's there, but we're going to be around the throne together, worshiping the living God, you know, Jesus, the Lamb of God. But my family is going to be there that know God savingly, and much of them did, and they went to glory. So I'm going to end. I found a song that I had never heard before. I will not sing it to you, but I like the lyrics. And this is a hymn by A.H. Erickson, who was an Advent Christian minister. I don't promote his theology, I just like this poem. And he wrote, In the crimson-tinted morning, when the sky is all aglow, shall we hear the trumpet sounding, and the voice we long to know? In his kingly power and glory, shall he come, the great church head, with his train of holy angels, once again the earth to tread? In the new days, noon days, burning splendor, mid the beauty of the scene. Shall we hear his blessed footsteps? Shall we see him as we're seen? Shall the earth give up its treasure, and the sea give forth its dead? Shall the joy beyond all measure, waiting hearts to be comforted? Or it may be in the evening, when the setting of the sun When the toil of man is ended and the night has just begun, that in glory earthward speeding, on his chariot wheels sublime, he shall come, earth's final monarch, claim his glory throne, divine. Hark, dear soul, and make thou ready, for thou knowest not the time. Should he come at noon or midnight, canst thou meet the Christ divine? Keep thy lamp well trimmed and burning, be thou faithful, watchful, true, so that at the Lord's returning he may say, well done to you. I'll end with that. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your word. Oh, Lord, what a glorious passage of scripture that we ended with today. And Father, I pray that these thoughts would just resonate within us. Lord, what a great hope we have because of Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for the gospel. In Jesus' name, amen. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Go in the peace of Christ Jesus to a world that desperately needs to hear the gospel. In Jesus' name, amen.