1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this 25th Sunday after Pentecost is taken from 1 Thess. 5:1-11, it’s entitled, “Not of Darkness,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. They just can’t seem to help themselves. Every few years, someone just must predict when the world will end. Some even go so far as to predict the month and day that time will end, and Jesus will come for his second advent. There was even a book written in 1988 entitled, “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could be in 1988.” It’s interesting listening to some of the Issues, Etc. episodes in which Pastor Chris Rosebrough plays voice clips of some of these predictions. Most of these “end time prophets” make their predictions somewhat unclear so that they can be explained away when their predictions don’t come true. Just why is it that some feel the need to try to make such predictions? It might well be summarized by one word of our text: “darkness.” For some of them, it might not be total darkness, but it certainly is a near-dark setting in which they live spiritually. St. Paul writes our text today to reassure us that we don’t live in this kind of darkness. Instead, for us who believe in Jesus, because of Christ, the darkness of sin and death is gone.
3. The concepts of light and dark are used rather often in Scripture, and it’s no surprise, then, that Paul would continue with that imagery. Just what is it that is meant with the usage of darkness and light? It means that those of the light are those with faith and those of the darkness are unbelievers. Knowing that, so much makes sense as to why those words are used to illustrate faith or lack of faith. Let’s look at it this way. In the dark, not only can’t one see where he’s going; he can’t see danger, danger either in his path or coming toward him. He simply doesn’t know much about what’s out in front or surrounding him. On the other hand, in the daytime, all can be seen. There’s no question about the path on which he walks. And if danger comes, he can see it and make moves to avoid it. In the light, one can have great confidence about himself, about where he’s going, and where he’ll end up.
4. So, with faith, it’s as though all confidence has been given. Faith in Christ, the faith God so graciously gives in Baptism, allows one to know, without any doubting, that he belongs to God. Faith in Christ allows one to know that the path he walks in life is a God-given path, walking in the manner of Jesus—serving others, honoring God in all one does. Faith in Christ allows one to know, with certainty, that he will be with Jesus in the glory of glories when this life is over. This is most certainly being in the light!
5. But in the darkness, it’s the opposite. St. Paul warns in 1 Thess. 5:2-3, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.” The only certainty in darkness is uncertainty. One may deceive himself that there is some certainty, but if one in darkness can actually be honest, he must admit there’s none. Oh, yes, one could say that there will certainly be death. But even that doesn’t answer the question about what happens after one dies.
6. This is the reason for Paul writing the words of our passage for this morning, to give greater certainty to the believers of Thessalonica. He writes in 1 Thess. 5:1-2, “Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” When Paul begins with the words, “times and seasons,” he’s adding information from the previous chapter in 1 Thess. 4 in which he describes the future glory for those who believe in the Christ: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the 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 always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16–17). This, we and the Thessalonians know.
7. Now Paul is addressing the normal questioning nature of wondering when that glory will come. He addresses this question for two reasons, both addressing the sins normally committed in this arena. One is that our sinful nature just doesn’t want to trust without having some concrete evidence. No, we just want the Lord to give us some specifics so that we can plan accordingly. If we know the specifics it lessens our need to have faith in the words of Scripture, our need to trust in God’s perfect providence for our future, or even our need to trust in what God did in Christ to save us. So, if we know the day and time, we could say, that faith isn’t really required.
8. The second reason for Paul addressing this question about the day and time of the return of Christ is that if we knew, then we’d think we could live however we want until then and clean up our act just before Jesus’ arrival, should that actually be possible. But, Paul knows that scheme, 1 Thess. 5: 6–7 says: “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.”
9. It may well be that we each are thinking at this moment that that’s not what I’d do if I knew the day and time of Jesus’ return. We want to say strongly, “I will not quit trusting in what God has done for me, and I will not, by any means, stop living my life to the honor of God in everything I do.” It’s wonderful when you think that. But you know that our real tendency is to think and do that which pleases self and not God, to avoid caring for others and instead try to get out of it. That tendency is something that crops up its ugly head rather routinely, and it’s certainly a tendency we each have to fight quite regularly. That’s one of the reasons why Jesus gave his life—to forgive all our sin, but especially, the sins to stop trusting and to live in a less-than-honorable manner.
10. So, we really have to say that it’s a great gift not to know the day or the time or the season when Jesus will come again. You see, what we do know is quite enough 1 Thess.5:1, 4-5 says: “Concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. . . . 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.”
11. By not knowing, we then focus on what really counts. The two things that really count are, first, that we believe—and believe with all our hearts—that God has made us children of the light. He did so by buying us back from the clutches of Satan and our sin: “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” (1 Thess. 5:9–10). And God made us children of this wonderful future by giving us faith through the Word and in our Baptism. We really are his very own children, and we will be such for now and for all eternity.
12. The other thing that really counts is that without having to keep looking toward some day or date or season in the future, we can just let Christ live in and through us. By letting that be the truth of our lives, those around us will see us as different from those who live without the light: “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. . . . Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thess. 5:8, 11). Being children of the light changes what life is and what life is all about. One no longer lives for self, but for the Christ who saved us and for the people with whom we are to share God’s love. That is the sum and substance of being no longer of the darkness but being children of the heavenly Father. Or as the hymn by that name says: “God His own doth tend and nourish; In His holy courts they flourish. From all evil things He spares them; In His mighty arms He bears them. Neither life nor death shall ever From the Lord His children sever; Unto them His grace He showeth, And their sorrows all He knoweth.” (LSB 725:2–3)
13. By not being of the darkness, by being children of the light, we truly belong, to God the Father, God Almighty. In that most precious status, he has removed all the sins we have and ever will commit. God particularly forgives our sin of wanting to know the exact day and time of his return and the sin of not living as children of the light. And what’s more, he lives in and through us so that we become and are lights to the world around us. If it were not for believers in the world, it would indeed be the dark ages all over again. Praise God for having come to us to make us his children of light. Praise God for living in and through us, making us alert and sober about this life and knowledgeable about what is to come in the next life. Yes, we have so much for which to praise God. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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