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“Meet
the Lord”
a sermon by
Thomas L. Jenkins
Text: 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18
For
the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and
with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead
in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be
caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air;
and so we will be with the Lord forever.
Dear Sisters and Brothers, maybe one of the most fascinating subjects,
and also one of the most difficult subjects to fully understand, being
taught in the New Testament, is about the second coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ. In the Old
Testament times, all the Prophets, the Israelites, and other people
around the whole earth, lived here before a person of God was born into
our humanity. Every author
in the New Testament lived during the first coming of our Savior, sent
by God, to be in our lives. Finally,
for about 1,975 years, millions of Christians have been living and dying
during the times between the first and second coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Obviously, the Apostle Paul is using his new understandings of deaths,
resurrections, and the eternal life, to truly reach out and minister to
his Christian Sisters and Brothers who are suffering through a misguided
grief about the death of their loved ones.
We all experience a time and procedure of grief when a loved
family member or a dear friend passes away.
One of the beautiful gifts that we are being given through the
death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus is real hope during our times
of grief.
According to God the Father, who’s being is above time, because He,
His Son, and Their Holy Spirit created time, there is going to be the
creation of a new heaven, and a new earth, in eternity, not being
limited by time. Avery
important event in this whole procedure is the second coming of Christ
Jesus.
In the Apostles Creed, which we use every Sunday to proclaim our faith,
the first sentence says, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker
of heaven and earth.” For
many Biblical teachers and preachers, their favorite Bible book is The
Gospel of John. The
first three verses in John are:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He
was in the beginning with God. 3All
things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came
into being.”
Much of the thinking within the Church, which led us to believing that
God is the Holy Trinity, came from faith being open to reason, and
working on making sure that Bible verses, and authorized Church
Doctrines do not contradict each other.
We certainly do believe that God the Father is Almighty, the maker of
heaven and earth. In
John’s gospel, close to these first verses, it is also very clear that
who he is referring to as the Word, is the same person he calls the Son
of God. If in these first three verses, we substitute “Son of God”
for “Word”, and “God the Father” for “God”, this is what we
will have: “In the beginning was the Son of God, and the Son was with
God the Father, and the Son was completely united with the Father.
The Son was in the beginning of creating heaven and earth, with
God the Father. All things came into being through the Son, and without him
not one thing came into being.”
God lives in eternity. Eternity
is not really to be defined by time. God, in eternity, created time.
One beautiful part of the Gospel of Christ that I love sharing
with you is that the Son of God [the Word of God] became one of us with
the purpose of connecting to us, so that he could take us back to be
united with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, for all eternity. We are already united with Jesus Christ, and in a spiritual
sense, we are already with God the Father, through the love of God the
Holy Spirit.
We believe that Jesus died, was raised back to life, and then ascended
back to God the Father. That
is a great part of Jesus’ victory for us.
The Son of God has been with his Father, and their Holy Spirit,
for all eternity. And now,
because time, the universe, the earth, and the humans were created, the
Son of God was able to become a human.
Yes, because of human sins, manipulated by the devil, the Word of
God being human knew that if he was murdered and then be brought back to
eternal life as a human, this would accomplish human salvation.
Now, that all this has been accomplished the Son of God is back with his
Father; and he is back, for eternal life, as one of us, a human.
The Son of God who has known and loved the Holy Spirit, and God
the Father from eternity, is now back into eternity loving them with a
human mind, human emotions, human sensations, human decisions, and human
resurrected abilities.
We are, here and now, already with Jesus in the Christianity that he has
led us into. With
Christ’s second coming, that will be a major step in finishing God’s
ultimate desire and plan; to create a new heaven and a new earth, where
we will live wonderfully in the love of God in eternity.
In the second coming of Christ Jesus, regarding the people still alive
here, God is going to use miraculous powers to open their eyes for
seeing Jesus. We are being
given a gift of hope.
We do not know when Christ is coming again.
Jesus didn’t know. Obviously, Paul thought it was going to happen soon in his
time. Well, here is our
hope. If I die before you
do, and you are sad, then if Christ returns during your life, he will
bring me up to him first, then you.
We will all be filled with joy, meeting our Lord.
Let us pray …
Amen.
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