Sermon Notes, May 3, 2015
Hope in a Troubled World, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11
In light of some of the grief and loss that some have faced in the face of the death of loved ones, and we as a congregation have
faced in the loss of friends and loved ones, I’ve been thinking a lot about hope and encouragement. There are those that are
struggling with serious illnesses and needing real, genuine hope.
In the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw, Poland, a ghetto imposed because of the terror of Hitler, etched in a wall there by a young
Jew were these words: "I believe in the Sun even when it does not shine. I believe in love even when I do not feel it. I believe in
God even when I do not see Him." Those, believe it or not, are very close to real words of hope. They are based in reality. They
are based in fact.
We have a problem in the English language. All too often we use the word 'hope' and ‘wish' and ‘dreams' interchangeably.
But there really is a difference. Biblically, there is an enormous difference. There is a difference between sort of a cockeyed
optimism and a sure assurance.
Eugene Peterson has expressed it better than I can. I know he has. This is a long quotation, but it's well worth reading about
the distinction between 'wishing' and 'hope.'
Let me just give you a couple.
Wishing is something that all of us do. It projects what we want or think we need in the future. Just because we wish for
something good or holy, we think it qualifies as hope. It does not. Hope desires what God is going to do and we don't yet know
what that is. Hope grows out of our faith in God. Hope is oriented toward what God is doing. Wishing is oriented toward what
we are doing. To cultivate hope is to suppress wishing; to refuse to fantasize about what we want but live instead in anticipation
of what God is going to do or opening our eyes to what God is doing now. When people say they've lost hope, what usually has
happened is they've given up wishing. Hope, by contrast, Paul tells us in Romans 5:5, is never disappointed.
Jacques Ellul was a French theologian, devout Christian, philosopher and author. He began researching for a book in the
late '60's. The book's title was going to be The Age of Abandonment because as he looked at the world he saw nothing but a
sense of despair, a sense of futility and frustration in people, in government, in the world. As he did his research there was
ample proof that the voice of reason as well as the voice of truth had been abandoned in this world and it had led to a spirit of
defeatism.
Yet an interesting thing happened during the course of writing that book. Jacques Ellul found all kinds of evidence and
reason for despair. In fact, his analysis of society and of the world didn't change. But over and over he continued to see God
was at work in the world and He was not finished with the world and God was going to fulfill His purposes. He didn't get that
by looking at the world, he got that out of a conviction about the word of God and what God had already done in history. His
hope was based on the reliability and faithfulness of God and on God's word, God's purpose and God's promise.
The book that he finally wrote was not called The Age of Abandonment after all; it was called Hope in a Time of
Abandonment. It has become a classic work on hope. The premise of the book, interestingly enough, for you and for me, is
that the #1 agenda for the church in this age is to preach hope, to practice hope, to become a people of hope as God intended us
to be. In a sense he's saying that Christians are the only ones that have a viable and verifiable message of hope to offer the
world.
As the Apostle Paul writes to the church in Thessalonica he is encouraging them in the same way. Paul's theme in this
passage is hope. There are two concerns that these believers in Thessalonica had.
The first one was what happens when we die. What's happening to the people that have already died? After all, Jesus hasn't
come back, so what's happening to them? In other words, what about the future that Jesus promised us in heaven and all that?
But the second question is a more practical one; it's the question that, "Well, Jesus hasn't come back and we don't seem to be
winning the battle here. Paul, what is it we need to do? What's the point of going on? Is there a purpose in living if we don't
seem to be winning?"
Notice how Paul answers. He doesn't sing about a rainbow or life on the other side of the rainbow or even about gritting your
teeth and hanging in there, doing the best you can. He doesn't even promise that it's all going to be better by and by. Paul talks
about hope by rooting it in the LIFE and DEATH and RESURRECTION and CERTAIN RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST. He talks about
hope by rooting it in history.
For Paul, life is filled with all kinds of troubles, and for Paul, death is not less real, but Paul takes it for granted that Christians
should face all kinds of troubles, even death, not with despair, but with hope—a hope in what God will do, grounded in what
He has already done!
What he says to them in the first instance is that we have a future because of what God has already done in and through
Jesus Christ. You can look at that. We believe that. That is our hope. And so the future is secure. So the anxiety about death
and what happens on other side is taken away by belief and faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Joy is at the heart of God’s plan for your life. But you need to know that hopelessness is the opposite of joy. Paul knew
that life, as we wait for Christ to return, is not all hearts and flowers. Life isn’t like that. Look at Romans 5:3. “We rejoice
in our suffering because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. And
hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”
Or this from James: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers & sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you
know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and
complete, not lacking anything.”
Clearly, it’s possible to have joy during whatever trouble and suffering comes into our lives. The reason we can have
that joy during those times is because of our hope! We have hope because of what God has already done in and through Jesus
Christ that we have taken ahold of by faith.
1 Thessalonians 4:13 really helps us to understand that the opposite of joy is not sorrow, but it’s hopelessness and
despair. It says Christians do grieve, “but I do not want you,” Paul says, “to grieve as those who have no hope.”
Isn’t that interesting? Because there are those that think Christians shouldn’t grieve. That’s not what Paul says. He
says Christians have a different kind of grief. Christians rub their hope, their hope of the future, the hope of their salvation;
they rub it into their grief the way somebody rubs salt into meat to keep it from going bad. Christians rub their hope into
their grief so that it keeps it from pulling them down into the pit of despair.
Every time I serve communion, I conclude with the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 11:
"As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you are proclaiming, you are proclaiming, you are shouting about, the Lord's
death until He comes again."
You see, as Christians, as believers, we understand that it's His death and His resurrection and so He's coming again. The Lord’s
Table is a symbol for us of many things. It is here that we experience the love and grace of Jesus Christ poured out for us in His
sacrificial death for our sins. But this Table is also a symbol of hope—a reminder to us that we proclaim the Lord's death until
He comes again, which means God isn't finished yet—that His purposes aren't over and done.
As bad as the world is, as awful as it appears to us with our human eyes, there's hope. Jesus is coming again. And that's not
just wishful thinking. We celebrate hope around the Lord’s Table. Hope that is rooted in history. Hope that is rooted in God's
purposes from the beginning of time and demonstrated very clearly in a physical and personal way in Jesus.
Paul continues in the fifth chapter to make it more applicable. He encourages them to keep on keeping on and to be faithful
in what they're doing and to know what they're doing is not in vain. He calls them to live life to the fullest. He's saying though
others may despair, because all they see is the world and their hope is in the world, but our hope is not in the world or the things
of the world.
C.S. Lewis said this about hope:
“Hope means a continual looking forward to the eternal world, but it does not mean that we leave the present world as it
is. In fact, if you read history you will find that the Christians, who did most for the present world, were just those who
thought most of the next world. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they've become so
ineffective in this one. Aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in; aim at earth, and you will get neither.”
Hope is what God is doing. Hope is seeing what God is doing; acknowledging what God is doing and rejoicing in it. Hope is
not finding it in the world, but finding it in the Lord of the universe.
Paul concludes this section in a way that I think is appropriate for you and me—both the section on the Second Coming
and then the section in the fifth chapter where he encourages them to remain faithful. The words are simple:
At the end of chapter 4, "Therefore encourage each other with these things." Encourage each other because Jesus died and
rose again and He promised to come back. And we will be with Him forever.
And then in vs. 11, chapter 5, "Therefore, encourage one another." As with the previous one this refers back to what has
just preceded it.
Why should we encourage one another?
Because, vv. 4-5, you are not in darkness anymore, but you now belong to the light,
And vv. 9-10, you were appointed to receive salvation through Jesus Christ who died for you so that you might live together
with Him. Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up. Encourage one another because we do lose our
perspective. I don't know about you, but I need the encouragement of others to keep my hope, to keep my perspective, to keep
pointing me back to my real hope that is in Jesus Christ. I need to be reminded and challenged that God has called me to be a
person of hope. It's one of the great gifts of the Gospel.
When you participate in this Table I want you to remember that as often as you eat this Bread and drink this Cup you are
shouting a word of hope.
That word of hope is all about the Lord's death and resurrection and coming again.
If by faith you have put your whole trust in the person & work of Christ you are people of hope. Be a person of hope.
We need it. The world needs it. And Jesus has given enough hope to you to share.