Jesus prepares His disciples for His departure by giving them a new command to love one another, promising to return for His people, and declaring that He is the way, the truth, and the life. Our love for one another should set us apart and show the world that we belong to Jesus. We can live with hope and confidence, knowing that Jesus will return for His Church. Because Jesus is the only way to the Father, we can trust Him completely for our salvation and eternal future.
As we wrap up this Series on Revelation these final verses highlight how Jesus-followers ought to respond in light of Jesus’s return. We all have a reaction to one degree or another when someone we are looking forward to finally arrives at our house. But what if that someone was the One, and He wasn’t just coming to our house from out of town but to all the world from heaven. What would we do?
In Part 1 of 2 in Thessalonians 5:1-11 we looked at “His Return”. This week in Part 2 we’ll consider “Our Response” and the perspective/attitude His followers ought to have in regard to His return.
This entire passage deals, in one way or another, with the “day of the Lord” but there is far too much to preach on in one sermon. This week is Part 1 of 2 that we look at the nature of Jesus’s return and how it will be unpredictable as well as Inescapable.
One day … God will set, as NT Wright loves to say, “the world to rights.” This passage speaks of that most glorious day! Interestingly, we actually know a bit about that day. Has that “day” been fully realized. No. But in the coming of Jesus, we have a foretaste of that day! It is in a sense both now and not yet.
So we start fresh in 2023 hopefully with some realistic and stretching expectations to direct us in our day-by-day life journey with Christ. Heed His promise as the One who is in control of each step on that pathway. BE all those things He expects of you and desires for you as you expectantly pursue Him. Be…. Informed, Concerned, Ready and Faithful
(Mathew 24:14/Revelation 21:1-4/Acts 1:9,11/Zechariah 14:9/Isaiah 11:3b-5/Ephesians 2:13)
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As we begin the season of Advent together, we take time to remember the way God’s people waited for the Messiah in the Old Testament, and how we continue to wait in hope for our Messiah to return.