Truth For Life

Alistair Begg: Welcome to Truth for Life where we are wrapping up our study of the end times and the return of Christ. His death on the cross secured victory over sin and death, but does that mean we can live however we want while we wait for His return? What are we supposed to be doing in the meantime? Alistair Begg tackles these questions as we study from 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

Until a person understands their predicament, there is no reason for gratitude at someone coming to save them. You remember I told you years ago how in the middle of the night in our previous house, all the fire brigade and ambulances and police cars from who-knows-where came and came battering on our door in the middle of the night.

And I ran downstairs and answered the door and was confronted by flashing lights and sirens and policemen. And the policeman said, "Yeah, we've come to rescue you." And I said, "But I don't need rescued. There's nothing wrong here." He said, "Oh, we must be at the wrong house." And then he went up the street to rescue somebody else.

But if it had been the other way around, that I was sound asleep and the house was burning around me and I was in danger and I was unaware of my predicament, I might just the same have said, "I don't need rescued." And the man would have said, "Don't you smell that burning? Don't you see those flames? Don't you see your predicament?" I said, "Oh, goodness gracious, yes, I do. Save me."

Now you see, this is what had happened to the Thessalonians. First of all, someone had come, namely the Apostle Paul, and said, "You know what? You have a predicament. And there is no possible way of getting yourself out of it. There is only one way to come out of it and that is as a result of the intervening work of God, who in His great mercy has appointed you to salvation which you will notice you received through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Why is it that men and women do not cry out to be saved? Because they don't know there is anything from which they need to be saved. And when we remove the wrath of God from our preaching, we denude it of its importance, of its emphasis, and of its authority. And all we're left able then to say is, "You know what? I think it'd be a good idea for you to believe in Jesus. I think you'd really like it. I mean, I think you're lonely and you could go somewhere. I think you're upset and you could get calmed down. I think there's peace in this and there's joy in this."

And a person says, "Yeah, I know, but there's peace and joy other places. I can get calmed down other ways. I don't think I want to get into this." So they pass it by. But that's not the message the Bible brings. The Bible doesn't suggest it. The Bible says, "Listen, you're in deep trouble. And I've got good news for you. God," he says, "didn't appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ."

He came to his own, says John in his opening prologue, and his own received him not. But to as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. So that's what it means to be an evangelical Christian in part. It is to say to people, "Listen, because Jesus died on the cross, it doesn't mean you're automatically forgiven. You're not. That's why you don't feel forgiven. That's why you still feel guilty. That's why you go and do religious things and it doesn't meet the longings of your heart."

Because Jesus died on the cross, it doesn't mean you're automatically set free. What do you need to do? You need to come to Him personally, acknowledge your predicament, and ask Him by His mercy and His goodness to remove you from your predicament. He appoints, we receive. And there is no other way to go. There is no other person to whom we may go. There is no other philosophy that can deal with the guilt and the stain of sin that needs to be removed.

And all of this on the basis of His death. You will notice that. How do we receive salvation? Through our Lord Jesus Christ. And how does our Lord Jesus Christ grant salvation to us? On the basis of His death. He died for us, he says. Now, Paul doesn't work out the whole doctrine of the atonement here; he does it elsewhere. But when we compare scripture with scripture, we understand that Paul's clear emphasis is this: that the death of Jesus was on our behalf and it was for our benefit.

Romans 6:23, "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." So do you want to continue to live your life drawing the wages of sin, or would you like to come to God and find the benefit of the gift of His eternal life? And the life that we now enter into is on the basis of His death. And the life into which we are brought is a life lived together with Him. That's verse 10. He died for us so that, whether we're awake or asleep, we may live together with Him.

Loved ones, this is a tremendously important truth in scripture. It's absolutely crucial for us as we seek to live our Christian lives. It was summarized and sung so helpfully for us together in the words of the great hymn, "My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less Than Jesus' Blood and Righteousness." And yet many of us have lived another week relying on the shifting, sinking sands of our own performance or our own feelings.

So we determine how well we're doing in relationship to God on the basis of how we happen to be feeling, or how well we've been reading our Bible, or how many people we may have witnessed to, as if somehow or another by our good deeds, albeit Christian, conservative, evangelical religious deeds, as if somehow or another by these things we make ourselves Christian and we ensure ourselves for heaven.

It is on the basis of the fact that God has intervened in our lives, shown us our predicament, brought us to Himself through the power of His Son, died for our sins, raised for our justification, sent His Spirit to live within our lives that we are able to say, "I understand it now. My Christianity is based not upon who I am or upon what I do, but it is based upon who Jesus is and what He has done." And there's all the difference in the world.

It is a dreadful tyranny to seek to live a Christian life based on who I am and what I do, because who I am is wretched and what I do is worse. And if I take the performance of the last few days and base my hope of heaven on my performance, what solid ground is that to face eternity with? Not a lot. For we have erred and strayed from His ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, and there is no health within us.

So what are we going to do? We're going to plead the only thing we can ever plead. "Bold I shall stand in that great day," said Count Zinzendorf, "for who ought to my charge will lay, while through His blood absolved I am from sin and fear and guilt and shame." And what do you do as a believer when sin comes into your life? What do you do as a believer when you are confronted by your guilt and by your proneness for rebellion and the pressing urgency towards disinterest in the things of God?

To where do we run? There is only one place to which we might run, only one person to whom we might run. And this, you see, is the emphasis here. He's encouraging these dear threatened Thessalonian believers to understand: "When from the dust of death I rise to claim my mansion in the skies, even then shall this be all my plea: Jesus has lived and died for me." The ground of our salvation is what Jesus has done upon the cross. The evidence of it is the outworking of it in our lives.

I wonder, do you understand that? I wonder, loved ones, are you wearing your helmets? Or are you flying down the freeway of your Christian life with your hair blowing in the breeze, susceptible to every bump on the road and terrorized by the thought that you may fall off? Because if you fall off, you know if you hit your head, you're a goner.

And every magazine article that comes your way and every new theory that blows across your brain box and every idea that comes walloping out of somebody's bookstore, you don't know where you are. I'll tell you why: because you're not wearing your helmet. The devil comes to you, sows a thought in the back of your mind. It appears from nowhere. You say to yourself, "Goodness, what a heinous thought."

While you're recognizing you have this horrible thought in your mind—a murderous thought, perhaps, even the thought of your own suicide, perhaps, even the thought of spiteful hatred towards someone that has come from nowhere to you—and while it's in your head, he comes to the front door of your head and he says, "Hey, excuse me. I believe you call yourself a Christian. How come you're having these dreadful, heinous thoughts?"

What do you say? This is what you say: "I'm having dreadful, heinous thoughts because while sin no longer reigns in my life, it remains. And because you, stinking devil, are around with your hordes and your fiendish schemes and your fiery darts and your devilish thoughts. But here's my answer: Yes, I had the thought, but the ground of my salvation is in what Jesus has done upon the cross. He defeated you at the cross. He died for my sins. He deals with that thought, and I look not to my own performance, but I look away to Jesus Christ."

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee. Let the water and the blood, from Thy riven side which flowed, be of sin the double cure, save me from its guilt and its power." All right, well our time has gone. Let's just go to verse 11 and wrap this up. What's the progression of his thinking? Verse 8, he says, "Since we belong to the day, it is imperative that you stay awake, guard your heart, and keep your head."

Why? Well, he says, because God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation. And He died for us so that whether we lie in the grave in our bodies or whether we are walking the streets when He comes, we may live together with Him. There is nothing that can thwart the purpose and plan of God within our lives. Sickness may come, premature death may take us from a human perspective, all kinds of things may cross our path, but for the believer we are safe.

"Neither angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor sword, nor persecution," says Paul in Romans 8, "can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." It is the only relationship in all of life that is eternal in its dimensions. Neither marriage, nor parenthood, nor childhood, nor sibling relationships will last in the way that our relationship with the Lord Jesus will last.

So what then is the implication of this? Well, he tells us in verse 11. What are we supposed to do with all this information? He says this is what you're to do: "I want you to encourage one another and I want you to build each other up." Some of you may have a version where the word "edify" is found. *Oikodomeo* is the Greek word. It means to build up. It's the same word that would be used for putting a building in place, constructing all those 2x4s and making sure that it stands fairly and safely.

Or from fishing, the mending of nets to put them all back so that there will be no holes when you go fishing the next time. Or from orthopedics, the resetting of broken and fractured bones so that growth may proceed from there. "Now," says Paul, "I don't want the news of the coming of Jesus to be a source of embitterment or a source of confusion, but I want it to be a source of encouragement and a source of edification."

Oh, you say, "Isn't that an amazing conclusion?" I mean, you would think after he'd gone all along in these things there would be some big, dramatic punchline. "Jesus is coming back. I want you to understand this and this and this. Now, therefore, encourage one another and edify one another." Is that it? Yeah, that's it. Do you think that's good? Couldn't you do with a little bit of encouragement? Wouldn't you like to be built up a little bit?

The world's a tough spot to live, isn't it? Which of us comes in here this morning without some kind of battle scars from the week that has gone? Which of us emerges from the race of the Christian life without a few spikes in the shins, without a few bruises when you take your shirt off and see your rib cage as the result of elbows? What do I need? What do you need? Encouragement.

Where are you going to get encouragement from? From whom? Notice: from one another. Who's "one another"? The guy sitting next to you, the lady sitting behind you, the person sitting in front of you. My task is to teach the scriptures so that I might edify the saints so that you might do the works of ministry. When that starts to happen, I start to get real obsolete, and so do my colleagues.

And we like that. Not because we're lazy, but because the penny is beginning to drop and people are beginning to discover what's supposed to be happening here. That they don't have to go and see "the man" or "the man." They just need to see one another if we're going to do what the Bible says: encourage one another. There's people around you this morning who are frankly flat-out discouraged. They are discredited, they are misunderstood, they are maligned.

They feel as though they were attached to a combine harvester with a long rope and dragged through a hay field for about four and a half weeks. They have emerged bloody and bruised into the company of God's people, and they're not probably going to go away real strengthened as a result of "How are you?" "Fine." "How are you?" "Fine, fine, good, fine, good, fine, fine, fine, good, fine." Forget it!

Now, it doesn't mean we're all going to run out and trip over one another and say, "Excuse me, could you just stand still here? I want to edify you for a moment. Excuse me, here comes some encouragement is about to come your way." But what it does mean is this, in simple ways and not as a result of an elite group retaining the prerogative: we can reciprocate the necessities of life to one another.

Supporting, caring, encouraging, comforting are ministries which belong to all the members of Christ's body. Don't tell me you don't know what to do in this church. Don't tell me you can't find a ministry in this church. That is absolutely bogus. I'll give you a ministry right here. And when you finish this one, you come back and I'll give you another one. Okay? As of today, commit yourself to being an encourager in church. That will be my ministry.

Well, what will I do? You figure it out. Where will I go? You figure it out. Who will I do it to? Anyone you want to. And you've got a whole group to work with. How are you going to do it? Well, you can smile, that would help. Some of you can hug. Cards, squeezes, slaps, shakes, milkshakes, tears, listening.

But let me tell you how you really do it. Back in verse 18 of chapter 4: "Therefore encourage each other with these words." These words. People say, "Well, why am I supposed to read the Bible? Why do I have to read the Bible every day?" Well, it's food for your soul; no army can march on an empty stomach. It's a lamp for your path; you shouldn't go out without a map, you'll just get totally lost.

It's the way that God has decided to communicate to you and declare His love and guidance and faithfulness to you in your life. Therefore, it's imperative that you hear Him speak to you on a daily basis. And also it is the source of your instruction and edification in the lives of other people. So we are to encourage one another with the word of God. So when we read the word of God, one of the ways in which we can appropriate it to ourselves is simply to say, "Here's something that I can use to encourage somebody."

I read Psalm 46, let's say, and I opened it up and it said, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed and though the mountains be cast into the depths of the sea." And at 11 o'clock somebody phoned up and told you that their daughter found a tumor in their uterus and they were going to have a test on Monday. Now, what are you going to say to them?

You see, if you never read your Bible and you never read Psalm 46:1-2, you're sure not going to use that. But if you did, you might just say, "You know what? I can encourage you. Psalm 46. Let me read it to you on the phone." It strengthens. It builds up. It encourages. The Thessalonians' needs were like our needs: they were personal, they were pastoral, and the answer to their needs theological.

The true pastor must always be a good theologian. I get worried when I hear guys tell me, "You know, I'm not a theologian." I know what they mean by that, I think. But if they mean by that, "You know, I'm not getting into Christian doctrine and explaining the Bible and stuff," we ought to be really concerned, because I have nothing else to say to you except Christian doctrine and theology.

If you come and ask my advice, my encouragement, the only reason to listen to me is if it comes out of this book. You want to be a Christian counselor? I'll tell you how to be a Christian counselor. You know what a Christian counselor is? It is someone who is able to skillfully understand and apply the word of God to the needs and longings and hopes and aspirations of people around them.

And the reason that we have fleshed out so much in the way of professionalism is not solely due to the depth of the needs of people—although I recognize there are many and there is need for skillful care in many cases—but it partly is because maybe we need to do a little better on 1 Thessalonians 5:11: "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up."

"Now, you know, I don't think I'll come to the communion service tonight. I just don't feel like it." Yeah, I know you don't feel like it, but 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says you're supposed to encourage one another and build one another up. And this would be a good chance to do that. "Yeah, I think I'll be there." "I don't know who the people are getting baptized. They don't know me. They don't need me." Yeah, they do.

And since you've been called to encourage one another and edify one another and build one another up, you wouldn't want to miss a chance like that, would you? You wouldn't want to miss the chance to take somebody who has been brought from darkness into light, has been made a child of the day, is struggling to make their way through life, is coming out of the buffetings of a week, is trying to find their understanding of the scriptures and make progress, and as they put one foot in front of the other, they fall down on their faces and they're looking around for somebody just to pick them up and set them on. You wouldn't want to miss a chance to obey the Bible, would you?

Loved ones, God's word has been given to us not simply to increase our knowledge, but to change our lives. And the emphasis here is real clear. The Jesus who is coming back is the same one who died for us and rose again. The coming King is our crucified and risen Savior. Therefore we've got nothing to fear. And the ultimate reason for boldness on the day when He comes doesn't lie in who we are, but lies in who He is.

You'll never know who you are till you find out who He is. And some of you are spending all your time trying to find yourself, and then you'll go look for Him. I want to tell you: meet Him; you'll find yourself.

You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Today's message concludes our study in 1 Thessalonians. If you enjoyed listening to this study, you can visit our website at truthforlife.org to listen to Alistair teach through the Apostle Paul's entire first letter to the Thessalonians. We just wrapped up Volume 2, but there are three volumes in total and all the sermons are free for you to stream or download and share with others.

On our website, you can also read about the book we are currently recommending. It's a brand new release from Alistair titled *We Will Be Changed*. It teaches you how the fruit of the Spirit is being developed in you and what true Christian joy looks like in all seasons of life, how to overcome obstacles that keep you from experiencing God's perfect peace. Ask for your copy of the book when you donate to Truth for Life. You can also give online at truthforlife.org/donate or call us at 888-588-7884.

Bob Lepine: I'm Bob Lepine. How can we be certain the Gospels are historical fact and not simply fabricated stories like Greek mythology? We'll hear the evidence tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.