1 Thessalonians 4 | The Comfort of Christ’s Return

What is the will of God?
What does the Bible say about the second coming of Christ? 
How does Paul encourage self-sufficiency in 1 Thessalonians 4? 

1 Thessalonians 4 centers on Paul’s practical guidance for Christian living, urging the Thessalonians to pursue holiness in both personal and communal matters. He highlights the importance of sanctification, calling believers to abstain from sexual immorality and live in purity, with self-control, and respect for others. Paul emphasizes that this is God’s will, and disregarding it is not just defying human advice but dishonoring God. Holiness, according to Paul, isn’t about achieving earthly success but about becoming more like Christ through daily growth and dependence on God.

The chapter also explores the concept of love within the Christian community. Paul encourages the Thessalonians to continue loving one another, but he also stresses the need to live quietly, mind personal affairs, and work diligently. He wants them to be self-sufficient and not reliant on others, which reflects a broader Christian ethic of responsibility and stewardship. In this way, their lives would reflect integrity and garner respect from outsiders, furthering the witness of the gospel.

A key focus of the chapter is the Thessalonians’ confusion and grief over the death of believers before Christ’s return. Paul reassures them that those who have died in Christ will not be forgotten. He teaches that when Christ returns, the dead in Christ will rise first, and then the living believers will join them to meet the Lord in the air. This hope-filled message serves to alleviate their fears and offer encouragement about the future.

Paul's reference to the Lord as an “avenger” reminds the Thessalonians of the seriousness of living holy lives. God’s judgment and wrath are real, but so is His love and provision for those who remain faithful. This warning reinforces the urgency of Paul’s call to holiness and his appeal for Christians to live according to God’s will, striving for spiritual growth rather than being swayed by worldly desires.

Finally, the chapter concludes with Paul’s comforting words about Christ’s second coming. He encourages believers to look forward to this event, not with fear, but with hope and joy. This assurance, meant to encourage the Thessalonians as they grieved their losses, reinforces that the ultimate hope for all believers lies in eternal life with Christ, a future to be embraced, not feared.

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Transcript

 1 Thesalonians 4

1 Thesalonians 4

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome to God's plan. Your part year two, where this year we're reading through and studying the entire new Testament one chapter at a time. Thanks again for joining us in discovering God's plan and your part in it. Hey everybody. Happy Monday. Today we are looking at first Thessalonians.

Chapter four, we are quickly closing in on the end of the book of first Thessalonians. And I think with that comes the kind of the structure of what we're looking at here with chapter four and five, Paul is definitely trying to leave some closing thoughts. He starts out with some very tangible closing thoughts about how we should live our lives as believers.

Uh, and then he also circles back. I mean, this has been a constant thread, but he circles back to include some encouragement for the Thessalonian. Believers regarding those who have unexpectedly died. Remember, that's kind of a key thing that Paul is addressing here, trying to bring hope and encouragement, and you will see him do exactly that in chapter four.

Yep. So just some final wrap ups, some nice little [00:01:00] tidying up to do before the end of the letter is definitely what I took away from this, um, final encouragements. And like you were saying, I was actually a little confused by the second half, um, because I had assumed that there was like questions of. just like what the end times would bring, um, or like what the rapture was like, or would be like, I suppose.

Um, but it is referring more to Just kind of the hardships that they've faced prior. So that was good that you cleared that up for me. Rapture is an interesting word to use. And if you've listened to a lot of our episodes, particularly the ones surrounding the end times, uh, rapture is kind of a loaded word.

Um, that kind of refers to a specific way of looking at end times. Uh, so I actually invite you guys to read the chapter for what it's worth and maybe. Try not to throw in some of those rapture thoughts and see what you think. So we'll, we'll get to that in a second. I definitely got confused there. Cause I was like, wait, were they like having some of the same issues that other churches were having?

Cause he does [00:02:00] call that out in other books, but this is referring more to their hardships of lost friends and other believers with them. So, all right, we'll get there in a second. No, I don't need to linger there. I'm just, I'm just clarifying. So at the top of the chapter, I think what's interesting, um, and I, I feel like I've been talking about this a lot, but I guess I'm talking about a lot because Paul's talking about a lot of Paul is teaching the Thessalonians that when you are saved and when you are representative of Christ, there is a specific way that you are called to live.

And what's interesting to me is if you look specifically at the language in verse three, for this is the will of God. Your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to honor and control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.

And then he keeps going and it's worth looking into what he keeps going. Um, this is kind of a hot take from Paul, uh, because many times if you ask someone like [00:03:00] what is God's will for your life or how does God want you to live or what does God want for you. That very pointed answer in verse three is probably not the word that you would normally answer with like Paul saying, Hey, this is the will of God that you be sanctified for seven kind of wraps it all up in one little thread for God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness, right?

And I feel like a lot of times, and I fall for this too. A lot of times, uh, in our modern culture, you might. Think that God wants you to be successful, or God wants you to be cared for, or God wants you to be wealthy, or God wants you to be happy, but here, um, Paul's saying God wants you to be sanctified, and sanctified to me is like this progressive idea of becoming more and more and more like Christ every day, and at least in my mind, that has this implication of like, Difficult things and trying things and things that stretch you, uh, so that you learn to rely more and more on Christ.

[00:04:00] Certainly what pops into my mind is not, um, easy and simple and successful. Uh, but I am curious what you think about that, Jenny. Well, I guess I was actually going to focus a little bit more on the next verse too, um, and maybe that will guide more conversation. I don't know. But it says, whoever disregards this, meaning disregarding the need for holiness, what God called us to, disregards not man, but God, who gives the Holy Spirit to you.

So it's just, it's kind of like this equation in my mind, like the more that we disregard the need to be holy or desire to be holy, like God is holy. It's like, The Holy Spirit is not going to be revealed to you in like the same ways as it would if you were desiring him. So, or desiring holding holiness, because like.

We're, we're simply just desiring like what the flesh wants, what men want, uh, what man wants, I suppose. And so, I don't know, I just like, it's this weird balance thing that's in my head. Certainly if you [00:05:00] disregard, uh, this call for holiness, you will hinder and impede the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Uh, I do think if you're a believer, um, and you're genuinely a believer, I don't know that the Holy Spirit is going to be taken away from you, but I think you can very easily be. Hinder and impede what the Holy Spirit is trying to do in you and reveal to you. And I think a caveat there too, is if you are a genuine believer and you truly do desire to live and follow with Christ, you're not going to ignore the Holy Spirit.

You're, you know, you might have, I guess, slip ups or something, but I even. Like, I don't know. I feel like we take advantage of that language even, um, but it's going to be a motivating factor in your life to honor Christ and do what the Holy Spirit is asking you to do and respond to what the Holy Spirit is revealing.

And so the call to a Christian is to become more and more holy as Christ is holy, as God is holy. Uh, God says, be holy as I am holy. And so that's a, that's a lot of holy, there's a lot [00:06:00] of holy going around. Uh, and Paul lays that out clearly here, and I would caution anybody that is trying to walk that back, um, because I just, I think it leads us to a place that is less satisfying for us and less honoring of Christ.

Almost see, like, like, the balance picture of my mind was, like, somebody, like, If you turn your back, like, if you start turning your back towards, like, the Holy Spirit, what God is doing in your life, and you continue to turn to what man wants, like, there's still glimpses, but it's less and less and less. And eventually, at a certain point, if you continue to allow yourself to follow after the desires of your flesh, or the desires of men, um, Your back's going to be completely turned.

The light will still be, like, there, but you can, I, I think in my mind, you can still continue to walk away from it, so it's like this, this weird picture, like, it's still kind of there, but it's not as much as it is if you don't have your, your full self, like, focused and aimed towards, uh, holiness and what God is saying.

Leading you to. I [00:07:00] almost forgot to point this out. I was about ready to move on to the point about working. We'll get to that in a second. But if you look at another sort of odd description, if you look at verse six, I guess, I don't know if I should pick it. I'm trying to think of where to pick it up. I guess I'll pick it up in verse five, right in the middle.

It's not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, but Because the Lord is an Avenger in all these things. As we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. How, when was the last time you heard the Lord described as an Avenger?

Um, what's hilarious is it makes me think of like Iron Man and Captain America and stuff. Um, but this is actually the, like Paul's, Saying like if you are not striving to be holy as God is holy the Lord will avenge you Which is like a warning of God's judgment and it's I mean, this is not subtle. This is very stern Well, it also says in our study Bible those who ignore the Christian sexual ethic will face [00:08:00] Jesus's wrath That's yeah, it's like when's the last time you thought of Jesus that way now granted those are like Footnotes, but still like thinking of Jesus as being, uh, or as having wrath to, well, that is like, yikes, the district, the description of the Lord as an Avenger is not in the footnotes at all.

Like that's literally Paul's language. And I think it's really interesting because again, if you think about. How Paul delivers this message to the Thessalonians. It's like, Hey, be holy, because if you're not holy, you will come under God's wrath. Now, obviously that's not exactly how he said it. That's me paraphrasing it.

Um, but I think that is a good message for us to hear and to know our motivation is not a fear of God's wrath, but, um, we should be aware of it, I suppose. And we should certainly live a life that is holy so that we are honoring Christ in our lives. So then we move on to verse nine. This is kind of where you were headed.

It like kind of starts, it's still, I would say talking about like [00:09:00] good solid Christian living. It's just like how to, but it's like a little bit of a pivot. So it's, it kind of caught my attention earlier when you were reading. It says to love one another because that's what they've been doing through for the brothers all throughout Macedonia.

And it says, but we urge you to do this even more and aspire to live quietly. So I guess, like, what's his angle? Because it's almost like, stay out of, like, stuff you shouldn't be into, but keep encouraging people. So, like, what was the The angle, was there an angle, I guess? The angle that I see here is stewardship, ultimately.

He's thanking them, I think, for his support of the ministry that's been going on in Macedonia. Paul is obviously very thankful for that in general because he's mentioned it in other books. Um, but I think he's also encouraging them, Hey, like, Strive to take care of yourself. So one, um, I guess I would say like very pointedly, like one, make money, use that money to support God's [00:10:00] ministry, but also use that money to support yourself.

And before we started recording, I talked about like these, like, I don't know, like, I guess kind of this pendulum idea where to the extreme one side, you have, um, just living off of the church like living off of the generosity of the church doing nothing to the extreme other side. You have just working very hard and building up wealth and doing nothing with it.

So somebody who's very wealthy and does not support the church, somebody who has an extreme lack of wealth and does not support the church. Um, this is, This is really interesting to me. It did get my attention as we read over it because Paul's saying like, yeah, be generous. I'm so thankful that you are generous and also make sure you're raising enough of your own support to care for yourself because ultimately you should care for yourself.

And I think this is something that we sometimes. Also fail to recognize that is held in tension like, yes, 100 percent we want to care and support other believers, but also, yes, 100 percent we want to see [00:11:00] those believers that we are caring for and supporting learn to develop the skills and and do the work to To support themselves.

It's not a bad thing to ask somebody to work to support themselves. It's not something we should be afraid of or ashamed of. Actually, it's a good thing to encourage somebody to work hard and support themselves because ultimately, if you continue to work hard and support yourself, You'll generate enough income to use to support God's kingdom.

And if we believe everything that we have comes from God and is for God, then we actually should be driven to make as much as we possibly can so that we can support God's mission as much as we possibly can. That's something I've been thinking through a lot. Recently, and I was exposed to by, um, a book by Bob Loddick.

I think his last name's Loddick. I'm not exactly sure how to say it, but he's a Christian finance guy who's saying like, you know, for a long time, um, we've been encouraged to like live very simply, but I think we should be encouraged to live very simply and also make a ton of money so we can give away a ton of [00:12:00] money and even, even saying that out loud makes me feel a little bit weird, like, I don't know, should Christian strive to make a lot of money?

Um, but I think if your motivation is to support God's kingdom and God's work, it's not a bad thing and it's not something we should be embarrassed by. Perhaps making a lot of money, but nobody actually know it based on how you live. It's not so that you can prove your own wealth, it's so that you can show actually God's wealth and support what God is doing and how God is moving and show the, the kind of compassion that this church was lauded for and how they were compassionate to the Macedonian churches.

So, Paul in normal Paul dad fashion. finishes out this chapter by reassuring them, like, hey, the stuff that's gone on, the people that you've lost, don't worry, like, don't, don't worry about them. Obviously, grieving is okay, but don't, like, get lost in your grief that you can't continue to function and serve, um, God's purpose for your life.

So, he is giving them just a little bit of encouragement about, like, what it will be like for them. I'm [00:13:00] assuming, like, And for eternal purposes, like, you will not be always, like, separated, like, we're all alive in Christ and we will all be with him for eternity. Scholars seem to support pretty strongly the idea that the Thessalonians were very aware of Christ's return and expected it to come imminently.

Uh, in fact, I've, I've seen some research and stuff that said, uh, one of the reasons Paul might've been encouraging these people to work and support themselves is because they thought his Christ's return was so imminent that they quit their jobs and just sat around and waited for Jesus to come back. So it's very possible.

And I think it's, I think it's sound that Paul's motivation here is The Thessalonian believers were experiencing these unexpected deaths, and they assumed that because people had died before Jesus had returned, that they would miss out, essentially that they would like stay dead and they would not enjoy Christ's return.

And here Paul is encouraging [00:14:00] them and pushing them toward hope by reminding them that even the dead in Christ will rise and actually when Christ returns, uh, that the dead in Christ will rise first, but the current believers who are living will also rise with him. So I, I, I would be. Hesitant to say that this is like a full scale, uh, rapture end times theology piece.

I think it's very important to read all of these things in context and understand the context of what the broader Bible teaches. Uh, that's why I pushed back on, on you saying rapture earlier. Well, I only said that again. You're not wrong. Clarify myself here. The only reason I said that is because I know there was confusion in other letters in the past of what that looked like.

So I was wondering if they were facing similar confusion, but I think it wraps it really like it wraps up really well in verses 17 and 18 because it is again referring back to those who they have lost or are grieving. It says then we who are alive, who are left. He's [00:15:00] referring to himself in this church.

will be caught up together with them Referring to those who have been raised. 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. So, like, it's, again, he's encouraging them with this, like, remember this promise, like, this is what Will happen.

We will all be with the Lord together. So encourage each other as you're grieving through this. Exactly. And so he's reminding them that they do have hope and they do have a future. Even those who have passed away, have a hope and a future. Uh, and I think it is worth noting, perhaps, in how he Close this up.

Um, sometimes the idea of the return of Christ, I don't get this, but it can be like really terrifying and very unsettling and scary, but actually Paul is teaching this church about the return of Christ to bring them hope and encouragement because it's not something to be afraid of. It's actually something to look forward to.

Um, so I think that's a [00:16:00] helpful thing to be reminded of. Maybe it's a great way to start your week, I suppose. That spending eternity with Christ is a good thing. It's certainly not something to be afraid of. It's certainly not something to be shy about. Um, because as believers, obviously we have a unique relationship with Christ.

Uh, we will be ruling and reigning with him forever. For eternity. And that is not some mystical, crazy, fake encouragement. That is something that will actually happen to us. Uh, those of us who are believers. So always read this chapter for yourself. Look over it. Tell me what you think. Um, but we'll be back again tomorrow with first Thessalonians chapter five.

We'll see you then. Thanks for listening to today's episode. Before we get to the reading, I want to recommend another podcast that I'm a part of called God's whole story. This year, we're releasing one episode a week on Monday mornings, overviewing one book of the Bible each week. So God's plan. Your part is a deep dive chapter by chapter where God's whole story is taking it one book at a time.

If you enjoy this podcast, [00:17:00] you'll enjoy that one. Go check it out. Now, here's the reading. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4 Finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.

For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man, but God, who gives His Holy Spirit to you. Now [00:18:00] concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for as you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. For that, indeed, is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia.

But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. 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 [00:19:00] 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 also be with the Lord.

Therefore, encourage one another with these words. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of God's Plan, Your Part. Don't forget you can find us on just about every social media platform. Let us know what you thought of today's episode. And if you have any questions, go ahead and post them there.

You can also reach out to us directly at godsplanyourpartatgmail. com. As always, if you don't have a Bible, or if you'd like to use the one that we use, uh, reach out to us via email and we'll be happy to send one to you. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you again [00:20:00] tomorrow.