The Manifestations of a Good Church: Part 7 - 1 Thess Lesson 11

1 Thessalonians 1:10

Expectant Living

Thanksgiving 2024

 Many times through the years as I have preached verse by verse through books of the Bible, it happens that as we come upon a holiday celebration, and I want to focus on the occasion, that the verse we encounter in the book we are studying is perfectly appropriate for the occasion to be celebrated. This Thursday we will celebrate Thanksgiving. Over the years, on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, I have preached many messages on thankfulness. I select a passage that deals with the subject and we look at what it teaches. Well, today, we don’t have to go anywhere other than the verse we come to next in our study of 1 Thessalonians.

 We are at the end of Chapter 1. In Chapter 1 we have been looking at the marks of a good church, the making of a good church, and the manifestations of a good church. In verse 10 we find the last of those manifestations. We have been looking at these manifestations in verses 6-10. Stand together with me and let’s read verses 6-10 and then we will focus on the last verse. Having done the work to make the church, as described in verses 4-5, God having chosen those who are beloved by Him, and sending Paul to preach the gospel, and the gospel, coming not in word only, but also in the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul describes the results. Read verses 6-10.

 A good church will manifest itself as genuine converts to Christ become imitators of the godly examples who presented the gospel to them, and imitators of the Lord Jesus Christ. A good church will receive the word of God, even though this brings tribulation. The word is received with the joy of the Holy Spirit. This produces the next manifestation. These genuine converts will be examples themselves to everyone else. Then, the word of the Lord will be sounding forth from their lips, and will be confirmed by the faith toward God exhibited in the way they live. Their faith speaks for itself. Last week we looked at the manifestation of genuine conversion. A good church will manifest itself because its members will be genuine converts, who have turned from idols to God, to serve a living and true God.

 The final manifestation is described in verse 10 and it can be summarized as expectant living. Genuine converts who make up a good church will show themselves to be those who live expectantly. The Thessalonians had turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, “and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.” The Thessalonian church manifests itself as a good church because its membership lived with the expectation of the return of Christ, whom God had raised from the dead, and who rescues us from the wrath to come.

 This verse not only gives us something that was true of the Thessalonian church, but it also contains several reasons to be grateful. This is what makes it such an appropriate verse for a Thanksgiving challenge. This verse gives us a literal buffet of biblical truth that we can feast upon as we prepare our hearts for the celebration of Thanksgiving this week. Walk with me along the buffet table for a moment. Let’s just preview the offering. In the first course of our feast we first come to the truth about the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. We wait for Him because we know He is coming back. Can we find reason for being thankful for the certain promise of His return? You bet we can. Move on down the table to the next section of blessed truth. Fill your plate with some of what is revealed from the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead. What does that suggest? What does that mean to us? What does that accomplish on our behalf? We could feast on that blessed truth and find more than enough motivation for thanksgiving. Now move down to the dessert end of the buffet. Here we find this delicious treasure of truth. It is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come. Is one message going to be enough? I could easily spend three weeks, or even three months looking deeply into these spiritual delicacies. 

 A good church will be made up of genuine converts who live expectantly. We are not here just passing time, waiting to die, and to go be with Jesus. We are looking for Him. We are to be living in light of the reality that He could come and get us at any moment. When He comes, we want to be found as those who are ready. We want to be found with oil in our lamps like the virgins who were ready when the bridegroom came. We want to be ready to give an account, as the faithful steward who used his talents to acquire additional talents for his master.

 Listen, we need to learn to live expectantly, and we will live expectantly if we are genuine Christians. Living expectantly will show up in some really important areas of your life. If you are living expectantly, it will show up in your priorities. Your time, your talents, and your treasures will be applied toward those things that matter for eternity. Living expectantly will impact the way you deal with problems. An eternal mindset will help you keep your problems in perspective. All the problems you deal with now are temporary. One hundred years from now not one of the problems you are worrying about today will matter, at all. And living expectantly will motivate purity in your life. Knowing that Jesus is coming back, and that we will stand before Him and give an account, motivates us to make wise decisions. Those who truly understand what lies ahead in eternity, will choose to live godly in this present age.

 To wait for His Son from heaven is to live expectantly. To live expectantly is to live with hope. Living with hope is a glorious gift God gives when He does His work of salvation in us. Remember from verse 3 that one of the marks of the Thessalonians was the “steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” We live expectantly because we have hope. Our greatest hope is the hope of glory. We know we have the hope of eternity in the presence of God.

 What does it mean to wait for His Son from heaven? We must not just pull this statement out of context. We need to understand it in connection to the truth it is connected to in the passage. The Thessalonians had turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven. We said last week that turning to God from idols to serve the living and true God was a succinct and accurate statement about genuine conversion. The Thessalonians had repented and believed. Their faith was going forth and was showing up in the way they were living. They were living with the expectation that Jesus was coming back, and not only that He is coming back, but that He could return at any time.

 The word “wait” here is found only here in the New Testament. It is a compound word that places emphasis on the meaning. There is a difference between waiting, and waiting with expectation. Here is an example. A young man who wants to be married waits for the right girl to come along. He is hoping to find her. He doesn’t know when she will come along. When she does he is happy to find her. Things progress in the relationship, he pops the question, she says “yes” and they plan a wedding. At the ceremony he stands at the front of the church, or the venue since people don’t seem to get married in churches anymore, and he waits for her to come down the aisle. Now he awaits with expectation. He knows that at any moment she is going to be coming down that aisle to join him and all his hopes and dreams are about to come true.

 Before he met her, when he was waiting for her to come along, he was just living life. He was just doing his thing. He was hoping she would come along. As he stands at the altar, things are now different. He has made sure everything is ready. He wants to greet his bride and he is so excited for her arrival. He can’t wait for her to appear and approach. He knows that his life is going to be dramatically different from that moment on.

 I fear that as Christians we are more like the guy hoping the girl will eventually come along some day, rather than waiting with expectation for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Listen, He has already found us, if we are genuinely His. He has already made us a part of His bride. The church is the bride of Christ. He is in heaven waiting for the work of redemption of His bride to be complete. We don’t know how long it will be before He comes to get us, but we should be like the guy who is standing at the altar. 

 You know how at a wedding, just before the bride appears at the back of the church, the music changes. The change of the music signals that the moment is imminent. The bride is about to come through the back doors and walk to her groom. Listen, friends. The music is playing that is signaling the imminent return of our Lord. He is going to appear some day. He is going to appear some day soon. I don’t know how long it will be. I’m not a date setter. But I am encouraging you to live expectantly. He could come back any time.

 The promise of His return is a reason for greatest thanksgiving. I can’t wait for the fulfillment of all that is promised to come to pass when He returns. I’m looking forward to a glorified body. I’m looking forward to the completion of the sanctification process. I long to see Him as He is and to be like Him. I’m looking forward to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. I’m looking forward to the redemption of His creation. I’m looking forward to His righteous reign over all the earth. I’m looking forward to my role as I reign with Him in His millennial kingdom. I’m looking forward to the end of death, disease, and disaster. I’m looking forward to the end of evil. I’m looking forward to the new heavens and the new earth. Feast on the buffet of blessings that will be a part of the return of Christ and have a blessed Thanksgiving.

 Moving along, we can also find reason for thanksgiving in the truth revealed in the statement, “whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus.”  It is Thanksgiving, not Resurrection Day, but we can and should be thankful for the resurrection of Christ at Thanksgiving. What is the significance of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead? It means first that God was satisfied with the suffering and sacrifice of His Son as a substitute for us. While Jesus was hanging on the Cross, suffering the injustice of the crucifixion, God was pouring out His righteous wrath on Jesus. Jesus was paying the penalty we all deserved to pay. God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us. The sinless, eternal, Son of God bore the full wrath of Holy God.

 This was infinite wrath. Think about it. The wages of sin is death. The punishment sinners will endure, if they do not repent and trust Christ, will be eternal condemnation and eternal hell. Jesus took that punishment and suffered the fullness of the wrath of God in our place. How could the infinite wrath of God be paid by One Man? It could only happen if that One Man is the infinite Son of God. He was an infinite Being who alone could bear the infinite wrath of God. This is what He did as He died on the Cross.

 His resurrection from death three days later was God’s declaration that Holy God was satisfied with the sacrifice. It was sufficient. It was enough. Divine justice had been satisfied. So God raised His Son from the dead to demonstrate that the demands of justice had been satisfied. My friends, we can give thanks to God for this truth. If the demands of justice from a holy God have been satisfied, we don’t have to worry about Him coming back and asking for more. We stand forgiven completely because the penalty has been paid. The resurrection shows us that we are free from the penalty of death.

 The resurrection of Jesus from the dead demonstrates that death no longer has power over us. Our physical bodies will die, if the Lord does not return and transform us on this side of the grave. But physical death is meaningless if we are possessors of spiritual life in Christ. We have been made alive together with Him. He is alive and we live in Him. To be absent from the body through death is to be in the presence of the Lord.

 Our Lord’s resurrection from the dead means we don’t have to worry about our sin. We don’t have to worry about death. This motivates the way we live. We live as those who have been raised up with Christ. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. The power that raised Christ from the dead is the same power that works in us, enabling us to live for the glory of our Lord.

 1 Corinthians 15 reveals that there is a tremendous blessing coming. Really, all I have done is review the benefits of the resurrection from 1 Cor. 15. Because Christ has been raised we are free from sin. If He has not been raised, Paul writes, your faith is worthless because you are still in your sins. And if Christ has not been raised then death has been victorious so that those who have fallen asleep have perished. If He was not raised, we are of all men most to be pitied.

 Another benefit is that because Christ has been raised from the dead we get a new body. This body is sown as a perishable body but it is raised an imperishable body. It is sown in dishonor and raised in glory. It is sown in weakness and raised in power. It is sown a natural body and raised a spiritual body. We will not all sleep but we will all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. This perishable will put on the imperishable. This mortal will put on immortality. Death is swallowed up in victory. Thanks be to God who gives us this victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 If you need help with your Thanksgiving celebration, just sit down with a pad and pen and your Bible and go through listing the blessings that are guaranteed to you because of the reality that Jesus is coming back. Go through and list the blessings that are guaranteed to you because Jesus has been raised from the dead. Finally, list the blessings that are promised to you because this Jesus has rescued us from the wrath to come. This is the last part of verse 10.

 Meditate long and deeply on this truth. If you are a genuine Christian, you have been rescued from the wrath to come. There could be two things Paul has in mind with this statement. I don’t think it makes much difference which of the two is the right interpretation because I believe both are true. Paul could be referring to the wrath to come that is associated with the time of great tribulation that is described by the Apostle John in the book of the Revelation. I think the Scriptures teach that the redeemed of the Lord are not destined to wrath. I believe we will be taken out of the world before the great and terrible day of the Lord. The Revelation describes the slain Lamb of God will, as the Conquering Lamb of God, that is Jesus Christ, take the title deed to the earth. He will break the seven seals and as these seals are broken different aspects of the wrath of God will be unleashed on the world. The seventh seal marks the sounding of seven trumpets. With the sounding of each trumpet another aspect of the wrath of God is unleashed. The sounding of the seventh trumpet signals the pouring out of seven bowls of the wrath of God. The pouring out of the seventh bowl brings an end to the kingdoms of this world that have been in rebellion against God. 

 If this is not the wrath of God of which Paul speaks in verse 10, then the wrath to which he refers is the wrath that every sinner will endure for his or her rejection of Jesus Christ and the gracious offer of salvation. This is the wrath of eternal damnation, endless suffering in the lake of fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels. This is the just penalty for every sinner.

 Focus for a moment in the word “rescues.” It is the word “rhuomai” in the Greek. The word means “to snatch from danger, rescue, or deliver.” Imagine yourself in the middle of the ocean without a life vest and no boat and no one to help you. How much hope is there for a person who is miles from the shore? If they could swim far enough to reach a shore, they don’t know which way to swim. Their situation is hopeless. They are doomed. 

 Sinners are in that situation. They are immersed in sin. They are sinking lower and lower into sin. They are trying to accomplish enough good by their own efforts to try to gain acceptance with God, but they are powerless to do anything about their plight. They will perish in the ocean of sin. There is nothing they can do about the certain death to come.

 Then, miraculously, provided by the sovereign hand of a gracious and loving God, there appears a hand. It is a nail scared hand. This hand reaches down and snatches this weary soul from the depths of despair and hopelessness and saves this filthy sinner. Jesus rescues us from the wrath to come. The wrath to come is God’s wrath. If it is the wrath poured out on the earth during the tribulation, or if it is the wrath of eternal doom, that was the inevitable fate of the sinner, unless Jesus rescues from the wrath to come.

 We live expectantly because we know Jesus is coming back from heaven. As He ascended into heaven, as recorded in Acts 1, the angel questioned the disciples as to why they kept gazing into heaven. The angel affirmed the promise of Jesus that He would come back. He will come back. We wait for God’s Son from heaven. When He comes He will take His seat on the throne of David and He will rule the world in righteousness.

 We live expectantly because we know Jesus has been raised from the dead. His resurrection means that God is satisfied with His payment for our sins. His resurrection assures that we too will be victorious over death. His resurrection means that there is a better body prepared for us than this fragile, faulty earth suit we know inhabit.

 We live expectantly because we have been rescued from the wrath to come. Living expectantly means living with a focus on eternity rather than on this present world. An eternal perspective will help us keep our priorities where they should be. An eternal perspective will help us keep our problems in a right perspective. An eternal mindset will help us make wise decisions in our day to day lives.

 We are going to conclude our service today with the elements of the Lord’s Table. The purpose of this ordinance is to take us to the Cross. Jesus told His disciples to do this in remembrance of Him. Jesus explained that the bread represented His body which was broken. The wine represented His blood that was shed for the remission of sin. My friends, we have a reason to celebrate Thanksgiving because of the work of Christ at the Cross.

 Let’s pray.