Well, good morning, church. I trust you were able to float in through the parking lot. I stepped out between first and second service and almost didn't step back in. I was washed away. So, well, we are, it's a delight to be together. It's wonderful to come together to worship the Lord as his children. It's a great weekly reminder to us that one day we will be forever with the Lord and nothing will ever separate us again. I'm looking forward to that. I would invite you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter five. 1 Thessalonians chapter five as we continue on through this wonderful short epistle. These believers in Thessalonica have proven to me to be very encouraging as young new believers, very affectionate and desirous of following the Lord, very eager to learn and grow and devote themselves to God's work And I'm very encouraged as I read the words of Paul and Silas as they're writing to these believers and the things that they're saying, the encouragements that they're giving, the affection that they have as older men in the Lord, writing to these younger believers. This is good for us, isn't it? To read these things and to be washed in these things and to, Lord willing, become more like them ourselves. First Thessalonians chapter five, let me pray. Father in heaven, we come before you, the everlasting God, the one who resides in the heavens, who is seated above all thrones and dominions and powers and authorities. You have given your son all authority and he is the rightful ruler and Lord and master of this earth. And we as his children, as his followers, we who know him and love him, desire to be submitted to him. We thank you that you have given us your word. We thank you that you have given us your spirit to lead and guide us, to teach us, to aid us in our worship of you. And I pray that now your spirit would be our teacher, that you would draw us into deeper truth, that you would chase away all of the things in our hearts that are clouding our vision of you. May you give us, Lord, pure hearts. May we be fully devoted to you this morning, and may your word edify us and strengthen us and equip us for every good work. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Being together on Sundays, for me, is such a great reminder of the simplicity of this life. It is that simple. We just wanna do what God wants us to do. I just want to be fully devoted to Christ in every area of my life. To even put it more simply, I just want to please the Lord Jesus Christ. And for some reason, Sundays are a great reminder to me that life really is that simple. Life can be complicated. In fact, think about this passage and how simple it is in the way that Paul presents it versus how our world thinks of our surroundings. Our country and our generation have complicated so many things. And they've divided us in so many areas. We have Republicans and Democrats and independents. We have men and women and whatever else they've come up with. We have children and adults. We have people of different races and different ethnicities. We have all kinds of dividing lines that separate people in this world. Nationalities and likes and interests and dislikes. But the reality is that though our world sees many distinctions, God sees only two. God sees two categories of people. When he looks down from heaven upon all of his creation, when he looks upon all of humanity, he sees two categories of people. They're not classified as men or women. They're not classified as children or adults. They're not classified as rich or poor. there is one distinction, two categories, that is the most important thing. And it is boiled down to this, you were either a child of His or you were a child of the devil. You either belong to Christ and have been born into His kingdom, the kingdom of light, or you are still in Adam, our ancient ancestor, and you are dead in your sins, and you are destined for hell. That's the clarity by which Paul speaks to us in this passage. The world would not receive that. The world would flat out reject that. The world would say that's too simplistic and too exclusive. But heaven is not concerned with acquiring the likes and the dislikes of people on this earth. The agenda of heaven and the agenda of heaven's messengers is to tell people the truth. In fact, when Jesus was here as the prime messenger of heaven, the one who spoke on God's behalf, the one who was and is God embodied in human flesh, He said that I did not come to bring peace upon the earth. I came to bring division. I came to bring a sword that would divide a family between family members. A husband from a wife and a wife from a husband. Children from their parents and parents from their children. And you might hear that and think, what in the world? This does not sound like Jesus. But what Jesus is saying is this, there is a message that is coming from him out through his apostles and down through the ages. It is the gospel message and it is a gospel of faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, in his work and in his person, who he is and what he has done that separates people from one another. The Gospel, as it did in Thessalonica, comes into a community and it confronts people in their sin. It is not a suggestion. It's not a helpful list of ways that you can better your life. The gospel comes into a community as a command from heaven. And God is saying, be reconciled to me. I have provided all that is necessary for you to be reconciled to me. But if you will not be reconciled, then you will be destroyed. You can say it in a lot of different kinds of ways. You can say it with different words, but essentially, that is the message of the New Testament. And the world has rejected it. The world has suppressed it. The world has explained it away. But all the while, God is seated in heaven, and He says, this is My Word. For 2,000 years, that message has been circling the globe. calling on men and women, boys and girls, to repent of their sin, to put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, to receive his gift of salvation, and to wait for him as he returns from heaven. As Peter says in his short epistle, it seems like he's a long time coming. And that was less than 100 years. Here we are 2,000 years later, and we can say with even more emphasis, it seems, God, like it's been a long time coming, like we've been waiting for so long. The Thessalonian church have questions. They have questions about the end. They have questions regarding what about those who have already died? You come to church and you find out a week later that someone has gone to be with the Lord, that someone has perished, that someone has died. What do we make of that? What about them? Have they missed the second coming? Have they missed the kingdom? And these questions make their way back to the Apostle Paul, and now Paul in this letter is addressing that very concern. He wants these young believers to thrive. He wants them to do well. He wants them to finish the race with great hope and expectation. And so in chapter four, verses 13 to 18, he addresses that very specific question. What about those who have died? Or specifically, those who have fallen asleep, he uses the euphemism. Paul says, don't worry, in the end, they will be raised. When Jesus returns, when Jesus comes, they will be raised to new life. Their bodies will come up out of the graves, and they will be standing alongside all of those of us who are left, who are still alive, and then we will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air, and there we will be with the Lord forever. We will be with the Lord forever, never to be separated again. That is our great hope. But then Paul, in his very simplistic and very careful but very easy to understand way, says there is another group of people that should be aware of this coming. Because as we look down the corridors of time to the future, the still distant future, whether it's a day or 100 years, there are two categories of people that are facing an end. The believers are gonna be caught up with Jesus, and they're gonna be with Jesus forever, and that is our great hope. We look forward with hope and anticipation and excitement. But there's another category of people and those people are described in chapter 5 verses 1 to 3. They are the people that are Anticipating the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is that theological phrase that is pregnant with biblical meaning. It means the judgment day. That great final cataclysmic day of the Lord. Not necessarily a 24 hour period, but a season of judgment at the end that's going to culminate in God wrapping up all of human history. It's going to be characterized by darkness and destruction. In God's wrath. Of those people in that day, we are told that they will be caught by surprise. Sudden destruction will come upon them just as they are singing peace and security. Everyone's doing great. All at once, sudden destruction, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman. God will have his day of vengeance. Throughout human history, people have mocked God. From the days of the garden, when Adam and Eve went astray, when they walked in rebellion to their Creator's commands, mankind has walked away from its God. And in every generation, there are atrocities. In every generation, there are deeds of wickedness and evil. And in every generation, God has been merciful to stay back His wrath. We do have specific examples in the Bible where God lets loose a portion of His wrath, and He annihilates a community, or in one case, with a great flood, all of humanity except for one family. And those are to us examples that God will have a final day of judgment. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be proper. It wouldn't be righteous for God to ignore sin and let it persist forever. God is a just and righteous God. And He will have a final day of judgment, and that is known as the day of the Lord. Paul talks about those in that day that they will be caught suddenly. We will be with the Lord, but they will be exposed. They will be sudden destruction. And then in the end of, after that portion in verse three, then Paul changes gears again. He's just laid out two categories of people and two final concluding acts. One that brings salvation to God's people and one that brings destruction to all those opposed to God. Those are the categories that you should have registered in your brain as you look forward to the final day. We can talk about details and how those things play out, and that's a different conversation. But you need to have in your brains these fixed categories that are unchanged, that are based on God's word, and that you can have firm convictions about. Jesus will come for his own, just as he said he would. And Jesus will come to destroy his enemies, just as he said he would. But you, verse 4. But you are not in darkness. Now Paul comes full circle back to talking about those who are going to be saved at Jesus' coming. He's talking about brothers and sisters here. He's talking about Christians. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day, We are not of the night or of the darkness, so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night, but since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation, 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. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. This is how Paul wraps up this section. After setting these two fixed categories firmly in place, these theological realities that will culminate in human history, yet in the future, Jesus is coming for his own and Jesus is coming for the destruction of his enemies. Now there is a comparison. Two categories, two camps of people. And he's drawing attention back to the believers there in Thessalonica, and he wants to instruct them and teach them based on these two realities. And he says, but you brothers, you brothers and sisters are not in darkness. For that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. Paul, as he's categorizing these two groups of people, says one is categorized by the title, the children of darkness. And one is known as the children of the light. Light and darkness throughout the Bible are metaphorically used to refer to truth and lies. That the truth is the light. It comes and it exposes. It makes known what is in the darkness. And the lies are like the lack of light, the absence of light, that we are blinded by the darkness around us. We cannot see that we grope about and try to find our way. The darkness is the absence of God's light, God's truth. And so one people are known as the people of light and one are known as the people of darkness. And then Paul goes on from that metaphor to talk about children of the day. We are children of the day. I think what Paul's doing here is he's using this metaphor of a thief, like the sudden destruction that's going to come when the thief comes in the night, this sudden unexpected arrival. And he's using that picture and he's taking that and then drawing out implications from that. The thief comes at night. The thief doesn't come at midday. The thief comes when people are asleep, when people are unsuspecting. That's what Jesus says. But we're not gonna be surprised by that thief because we're people of the day, he says. We're not of the night or of the darkness, so then let us not sleep as others do. The first thing we draw out of this text in verses four and five is the nature of the children of light. As children of God's kingdom, people that have been brought from darkness into his marvelous light, we are therefore belonging to another king and another kingdom. We have a new nature. That's why Paul can say, if anyone is in Christ Jesus, He is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. It's what Jesus is referring to when He says to Nicodemus, you must be born again. You are still dead in your sins and in your trespasses, but God, being rich in mercy, has made you alive together with Christ Jesus. This is the great reality of the Christian gospel. This is the message of the New Testament that in Jesus, when we put our faith in Jesus, when he confronts us in our sin and calls us to himself, that we are made new and brought into his beloved family. We are adopted as children of the king. This is our nature. And Paul does this thing here in 1 Thessalonians, which he does often in many of his letters, not just Paul, but the other writers as well. He moves from the indicative, which is that is this is who you are. This is what is true to the imperative, which is this is what you ought to do with that because of this, then this. And Paul is going to move these young believers from the realities of who they are, their new nature in Christ, their new nature as children of light. To what they ought to do with that. Look at verse six. So then. Because these things are true. Because you're not of the darkness. Because you're not of the night. Because you are children of light and children of the day. Therefore, so then, let us not sleep as others do." Admittedly, this is tricky. Because Paul uses the word sleep in three different ways in this passage. He's already used it back in chapter four, verses 13 to 18. He's used the word sleep as a euphemism for death. They have a question about those believers that have fallen asleep, not meaning they're taking a nap in church. Some of you need to learn that lesson. But anyways, that's another sermon. Paul is talking about those who have fallen asleep, meaning those who have died. And then here in this text, in verse six, he says, so then let us not sleep as others do. Paul is drawing on the idea here of day and night, and it's natural and right for people to sleep during the night. In fact, this is normal and right. In fact, this is something that I love. You should love it too. That after a long day and after a productive day and after a fruitful day, that you get yourself ready and you climb into bed and you lay your head on the pillow and you drift off into sleep. It's beautiful. It's a reminder to me often when I'm dozing off, when I'm lying there thinking about the Lord and I realize and I remind myself, I am not God. He alone does not sleep or slumber. As this side of the world dozes off into a sleep and it goes into darkness, the other side of the world comes alive with wakefulness. And God is still the sovereign one ruling over them all. God alone does not sleep or slumber. The mightiest of men has to go to sleep. The smartest of women have to go to sleep. All of us. It doesn't matter who you are, how great you are, how rich you are, how anything else you are. You have to sleep. It's God's humble daily reminder. You are not like me. So it's normal, this is the normal usage of the idea of sleep here. Paul is just drawing on this reality that was true for people in the first century, and it's true for people, really super advanced, smart people in the 21st century, we still have to sleep. So then, let us not sleep as others do. So there's three categories, there are three ways that Paul's using the word sleep. The first one is talking about death, those who have died in the Lord. The second is the as others do, which is just a normal sleep pattern that happens at night with all humans. but then there's a spiritual way that Paul uses the word sleep, and that's what he's gonna emphasize here, as he's drawing out the implications of who we are as children of light and children of the day, he's saying, therefore, let us not sleep. And if you read that and go, I already have trouble sleeping, this is gonna be really hard, that's not what he means. Here Paul is using the word sleep as a metaphor for spiritual lethargy, for a spiritual stupor that comes over people who stop giving themselves to the Lord. In fact, probably if you've been a Christian for any length of time, you have names of people in your head. You have faces and images. You still have friends and family members who would fit into this category of people who at one point in their life were very awake and vibrant for the Lord Jesus Christ. They were very excited to read their Bibles and to gather with God's people. They might have even been excited to tell other people about Jesus. And when you talk to them today, they have no sense of spiritual wakefulness for Christ. They have dozed off. They are asleep. They are, as it were, spiritually unconscious to the Lord. That's the danger that Paul is addressing here. It's a very real danger. In fact, there's this vivid illustration in my mind of a real scenario that happened with me. Let me just give you a caveat and say, if you are sleepy when you're driving, pull over. OK? But now here's my story. I was a young man in my early 20s, and I was working with a youth group, and we had an overnight event, because that's what stupid young people do. We had lots of Mountain Dew and other things, and so I thought I would be fine. And we made it through the night, and there's lots of fun activities and lots of excitement and all that stuff, and then we cleaned up at the end. The sun is back up now. I haven't slept one ounce all night. And I had a short 10-minute drive home, and I thought, no problem, I can make it another 10 minutes. And I got in my car and I'm driving through town to go to the other side of town to go to my bed to go to sleep. And I could feel this weightiness in my eyelids. It was like lead weights just dangling from my eyelids and I was struggling to keep them open. Going one night without sleep had taken its toll on me. And though I tried with all my might to keep my eyes open and to stay alert and to stay awake, I found myself, all of the sudden, woken up on the side of the road, still driving 40 miles an hour, on the shoulder, a wide shoulder, and there in front of me, maybe 50 feet in front of me, was a bicycle with someone pedaling in the same direction as me, away from me. They didn't know I was there, and just a second before, I didn't know they were there. And it's only by the grace of God that I didn't run that poor bicyclist over and kill them because I was asleep at the wheel. Brothers and sisters, some of you need to be woken up this morning. Some of you need to have the grace of God to wake up to come out of your spiritual stupor, to wake up to the things of God, to stop playing games and stop courting the world and stop going after your own desires. God has made you alive and now you have fallen asleep at the wheel. This isn't uncommon. In fact, this is the exhortation of Jesus in Mark chapter 13. Let me just read it for you. He says it in Matthew and John and Luke as well. As he speaks to his disciples about the end, as he speaks to them about these very events, about his coming, he says, but concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard. Keep awake, for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning. lest he come suddenly and find you asleep, and what I say to you, I say to all, stay awake. Do you know some people that are asleep at the wheel? They would claim to be Christian, they've claimed to be Christian for a long time, and yet when you look at their life, they're like in a spiritual dormancy stage. They're like a bear in winter, they're just hibernating. Totally unproductive, totally unfruitful, maybe not even a genuine Christian at all. God knows the difference between a believer who is dozed off and an unbeliever who has no signs of being wakeful at all. The New Testament is quite clear that spiritual sleepiness is not a mark of the mature. It's not a characteristic of those who are walking with Christ. We see even in the garden how Jesus asked the disciples to keep watch and to pray with him as he went off to pray to the Father on his own. And after an hour's time or so, he came back and found them sleeping. So he woke them up. And he said, keep watch with me. And then he went off to pray again for another hour or so, and then came back and found them asleep. That was a literal sleep, but it is figurative of how we are often. The Lord calls us to keep watch and to pray in our own desires, in our own appetites, in our own affections. lull us into sleep. Brothers and sisters, we need to be vigilant, to stay awake, spiritually speaking. But not only that, we also need to be sober. Paul uses the idea here of wakefulness and sobriety to characteristically identify who the children of light are and what they're like, what their fruit is, their behavior. Because based on your nature, you will have certain behaviors. If you were to come over to my house and I was to take you out into our orchard and point you to a tree and say, please enjoy one of our pears. And you were to reach out and grab it and take a bite and realize that's not a pear, that's an apple. You would quickly learn and realize that I don't know what I'm talking about. I know the difference between a pear and an apple. But the point is, the tree is known by its fruit. That's why Jesus uses that picture so often. The tree will be known by its fruit. Christians will be known by their fruit. Those of the world will be known by their fruit. You can identify as a Christian all you want, but if your life is producing non-Christian characteristics, then you are not a Christian. God alone knows the difference. You are not fooling him. He knows the difference between a pear and an apple. He knows the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. He knows the difference between a man and a woman. And so should we. Listen to some of these other verses just cherry-picked out of the New Testament. In Revelation chapter 16, verse 15. Behold, I am coming like a thief. Sound familiar? Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed. Blessed is the one who stays awake. The one who falls asleep is ashamed by his sleepiness. Peter uses both of these metaphors as well, three times in 1 Peter. First one is in chapter one, verse 13. Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. sober-minded, meaning not under the influence of anything in this world, not under the influence of even your own appetites and desires, that you are self-controlled and alert and sober in your thinking. Secondly, in 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 13, Peter says this, then the end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self-controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. I wonder if Peter had in mind that night in the garden. And how when we start to doze off spiritually, one of the first things to go is our prayer life. It's hard for us to commune with God because our spiritual eyes are drowsy and heavy. So he says, wake up. Be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. And then lastly, in 1 Peter 5, verse 8, be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. This is not just a passive thing where we're trying to keep our eyes awake, but we're also vigilant and alert because we recognize that there is an enemy out there coming to get us. I remember the short season when I played football and the coach would talk to the linebackers and he would say, keep your head on a swivel. You gotta be watching always. You can't be planted and not paying attention. You're gonna be taken out. Keep your head on a swivel means be watchful, be ready, be alert, be vigilant. These two metaphors I think are super helpful. These commands to be awake, to keep awake and to be sober. I think what's being encompassed there is this, that there's sometimes we can just wander off from the truth. We just wander away, we become uninterested. We stop meeting with God's people. That fire that is raging in our hearts for the Lord begins to trickle out because we're not feeding it and fueling it, and we just kind of doze off spiritually. It's not like an outright rejection. It's not like we're saying I hate God now and I reject Jesus. But I just don't go to church, I don't read my Bible, I don't pray, and yet I want to go to heaven, spiritually asleep, no sense of wakefulness towards the Lord, and then sober. The opposite, obviously, being drunk. And even still in our world, most people that get drunk get drunk at night. There's something about the cover of darkness that allows us to expose our shame more willingly. People get drunk at night. but we are to be sober, meaning to have our appetites and our desires under control, to not come under the influence of appetites and desires and the lusts of this world, but to be sober-minded, to be ready in our minds and watchful and thinking and clear-minded. How is it that we stay sober-minded? Verse seven, for those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night, but since we belong to the day, meaning that is our nature, therefore this is our behavior. Let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love. Paul now transitions to another metaphor, kind of like Peter did when he said, the end of all things, no, be sober-minded and watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion. The watchfulness and the readiness and the sober-mindedness that we have over our own lives protects us against the advance and the attack of the enemy. And so Paul here uses a defensive metaphor. The military gear that would have been worn that would have protected against sword thrusts and arrows. Put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. Let me just back up, this verse has a lot in it, but let me say this, in verse 80 says, but since we belong to the day, and you can ask yourself the question, Paul, how do you know these believers belong to the day? How do you know their nature? And you just have to turn back to chapter one. When Paul prays for these people, in verse two he says, 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. Paul says, I've tasted that fruit. I've seen the fruit in your life. I have watched the transformation take place where you went from worshiping lifeless idols to the living God. I saw your families transformed. I saw your communities begin to be transformed. I saw the effects of the gospel take root in your life, 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. Is your salvation that obvious? Is your relationship with God invisible? Or can other people point to things in your life and say, that person loves Christ? The only reason Paul can say this in verse 8 of chapter 5, but since we belong to the day, he includes himself because he knows his own heart. He knows his own life before the Lord. His conscience is clear, but he's also seen the evidence of Christ's work in these people's lives. And so he can say, we belong to the day. Do you belong to the day? Are you a child of the light or are you still a child of the darkness? Is your heart marked by darkness and evil and wickedness and desires only to please yourself? Since we believers in Christ Jesus, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. This beautiful triad that Paul has already talked about at least two other times. Remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope. Now he brings it up again as defensive armor that protects against the onslaught of the world and the enemy. Faith and love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation, these two pieces of equipment that protect the vital organs of the body. You can take an arrow to the arm and still be able to make it, but you cannot take an arrow to the heart and keep fighting. And so there are vital organs in our spiritual lives that need to be protected. And Paul would say faith and love and hope are those three vital organs. Faith is that organ that attaches ourselves to those historic realities that God has accomplished on our behalf. Who the Son is and what the Son has done for us. and we attach ourselves by faith, and then as we attach ourselves, or we are attached to him, the expression of that faith is love. Immediately, it's born in us. We love God, and we love our brothers and sisters. Someone that tells me they love God, but they don't wanna get together with God's people, I say, that's like a pear tree trying to produce apples. That doesn't make sense. That's not in keeping with the New Testament. To say you have faith but you have no love for your brothers is hypocrisy. Faith and love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. Do you long to be with him? Do you long for him to be with you? Is salvation just a get-out-of-hell-free card that you keep in your back pocket to protect you against future calamity? Or do you actually love Him and want to be with Him? For God has not destined us for wrath. moving from the nature of the children of light to their behavior as children of light. Now he moves to the destiny of the children of light. Where are they going? What were they made for? Where will they end up? For God has not destined us or ordained us for wrath. In the end, when God comes, when Christ comes to wrap it all up, there's going to be a category of people that are received into eternal glory, and there's going to be a category of people that are wiped away in utter destruction. They will be cast forever into a lake of fire, never to be snuffed out, never to be burned up, always to be suffering. We in Christ Jesus are not destined for wrath. The wrath that we deserve because of our sins was put upon the son and he absorbed the wrath of God on our behalf. He took on the curse of being hung on a tree for our curse. We weren't destined for wrath, but rather to obtain salvation. Notice Paul adds that word obtain. He doesn't just say we weren't destined for wrath, but for salvation. That would almost even be easier to say, but he says to obtain salvation, because there is still a sense, theologically and literally speaking, in which we are waiting for our salvation. We have not obtained it. It is, as it were, given to us as a promissory note that we know it will be obtained in the future. He has given us of his Holy Spirit, which is a down payment, a guarantee of his future coming. But we're here and he's there. I'm still encased in a body of sin. I'm still surrounded by people who sin. I'm still a part of a world system that is dominated by Satan and selfishness. I long to obtain salvation. To have Christ come. To have a new body that matches the spiritual life He's given me on the inside. In that day, we will obtain salvation. We will take possession of it. We will experience all that God has made us for. That's the goal. That's what we're aiming at. That's what he is drawing us to. But there's the goal and then there's the agent. How will we get there through our Lord Jesus Christ? The Lord Jesus Christ, the one who came from heaven and now draws us back to heaven, the one who gives us a connection with the Father, the one whose name was given among men by which men can be saved, and there's no other name. Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life, that through Jesus we can know and love the Father. Through Jesus we can experience salvation, and it's only through Jesus. Well, pastor, that's pretty exclusive. Yeah, I know, I'm not making it up. It's not the message of Mike, it's the message of Paul. If you have an issue with it, go to Paul and he'll direct you to Jesus. There's no other name under heaven by which men can be saved. That's what the apostles told the religious leaders of their day. Jesus is the agent. He's the agent of God's creation, creative work. He's the agent of salvation. He brings us to the Father. He comes from the Father. He brings us back to the Father. It's through Him who died for us. This is the means. How does Jesus bring us back to the Father? He died for us. What was accomplished when he died for us? He laid down his life on behalf of sinners, a vicarious death, a substitutionary atonement, his life for mine. This is unbelievable. The goal is salvation, the agent is Jesus Christ, and the means is his death for us, on behalf of us. And then what's the reality? The reality is so that whether we are awake or asleep, and Paul now harkens back to his original metaphor of those who have died in the Lord, those who have fallen asleep, Whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him. He's talking to believers. He's telling believers about their future hope, but he's also telling them about what the world will experience. But then ultimately, his primary goal and objective here is to encourage them about what is true and real. If you are in Christ, if he has died for you, to bring you to the Father through himself, so that you could obtain salvation. If all of that is true of you, then we will be, that we might live with him whether we're awake or asleep. This is good stuff. Verse 11 ends it and brings it full circle. Much in keeping with the way he ended the last paragraph in chapter four, verse 18, there he says, therefore, encourage one another with these words. And now in verse 11 of chapter five, he says, therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. This is the goal of eschatology. to remind us that His coming is real, that it is sure, that it'll come unexpectedly, that we need to be prepared always and so that we can encourage one another. When life gets difficult, when pressures and sorrows and all kinds of things mount up against us and we're tempted to fall asleep or we're tempted to go astray, There we pull our brothers and our sisters aside and we say, keep going. Don't you remember what Paul told us? Just a little while longer and he will come for us. And then all of this will be made better. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you are wonderful. It's through your gift and through your death that we can have life. We pray now, Lord, as we transition to a time of communion, as we come before your table and reflect upon our own lives and what you have done for us on our behalf, pray that you would gently lead us, that you would restore us, that you would build us up and tear us down, whatever it is that we need, Holy Spirit, meet us where we are. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.