Text:\u00a0 1Thessalonians 4: 13-18<\/p>\n
Years ago, there was a great physician know for his healing skills.\u00a0 Back then, many people could tell you how this man saved their lives.\u00a0 Needless to say, the sick and suffering kept him very busy, So busy that he and his co-workers were exhausted by the end of the day.<\/p>\n
One day a man came to him and begged for his help.\u00a0 You see, this man loved his daughter very much and she was sick, so very sick.\u00a0 The desperate father pleaded that he come to his home.\u00a0 And to his great relief, this busy man agreed to make a house call.<\/p>\n
For the first time the father was hopeful for his daughter.\u00a0 But as they made their way, someone came to him with some dreadful news.\u00a0 His twelve year old daughter, his only child, had died.<\/p>\n
It must have felt like a punch to his gut.\u00a0 It seemed that all was lost.\u00a0 Too late for a house call.\u00a0 Yet the physician did not turn back.\u00a0 He went on.\u00a0 He even told the father something that seemed too good to be true.<\/p>\n
Picture the scene.\u00a0 They arrive at the house where people are wailing with grief.\u00a0 The father and mother go inside with the man and his coworkers.\u00a0 They enter the room where the lifeless body of the young girl lays.\u00a0 But before they go in the man says to the people outside, Stop wailing, She is not dead, but asleep.<\/span><\/p>\n The Bible tells us the people laughed.\u00a0 You can understand why.\u00a0 After all, the girl was dead.\u00a0 And no one could change that\u2014except this man who came to this house that day.\u00a0 Only he could make these words so true.\u00a0 She is not dead, but asleep<\/span>.\u00a0 For the One who spoke them is not just a man.\u00a0 He is the very Son of God, our Savior.\u00a0 And with God nothing is impossible.<\/p>\n Have you ever been inside such a room?\u00a0 Have you ever looked upon the lifeless body of a loved one who died believing in Christ?\u00a0 If you have, you know what grief is all about.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t, you know a fellow Christian who has.\u00a0 Their little boy or girl.\u00a0 Their beloved husband or wife, father or mother who have died in the Lord.\u00a0 To each one of us who knows such grief, to each of us who will know it someday, Jesus says something that seems too good to be true.\u00a0 He says something that we can hold tightly as we commit that lifeless body to the earth.\u00a0 He [or she] is not dead, but asleep<\/span>.<\/p>\n And this is where this Word of God comes in.\u00a0 For here God comes to us with words that can temper our grief.\u00a0 He comes with words that can fill that painful void in our hearts with something this world cannot give\u2014hope.\u00a0 And not a wish.\u00a0 Not a maybe, but a hope that you and I and every grieving Christian heart can look forward to:<\/p>\n \u00a0The Hope of Life Together as the Saints Triumphant<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 13 <\/sup>Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope<\/span>.\u00a0 Every person grieves the loss of a loved one.\u00a0 There would be something wrong if we didn\u2019t shed tears.\u00a0 There would be something wrong if we didn\u2019t ache inside.\u00a0 But when that loved one has died trusting in his\/her Savior our grief is not the grief of a dead end with nothing more to follow.\u00a0 Think about it. What did Jesus call that young girl\u2019s death?\u00a0 What did he make it?\u00a0 A sleep.<\/p>\n Well here Christ\u2019s apostle call the Christians death the very same.\u00a0 A sleep.\u00a0 Not once but three times.\u00a0 And when someone goes to sleep, what do we expect?\u00a0 We expect that person to wake up, maybe sooner, maybe later.\u00a0 So yes, we grieve but we grieve with that hope.<\/p>\n You see, our Christian faith does not leave us stranded in the pain of that moment.\u00a0 No, the Holy Spirit dresses our wounded hearts with the hope that is ours in Christ.\u00a0 14 <\/sup>We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n Think about it.\u00a0 We know and believe that the very Son of God suffered and died for us and all people.\u00a0 He suffered the wages of our sin.\u00a0 He suffered what we deserve so that we could be spared on the day of Judgment.\u00a0 But death did not have the last word with Jesus, did it?\u00a0 That\u2019s why we are here on Sunday mornings instead of say another day.\u00a0 For on a Sunday morning long ago, that body of Mary\u2019s son, given in death, became alive once more.\u00a0 He came out of that tomb.\u00a0 So death did not have the last word with Jesus.\u00a0 Life did.<\/p>\n Well now by faith you are united with Christ. \u00a0In your baptism, the Holy Spirit united you to him.\u00a0 So now his death to take away sin is yours.\u00a0 But not just his death. Also his victory over death.\u00a0 That victory belongs to every Christian.\u00a0 So that the obituary that says \u2018he died\u2019 is not the last word for that body in the grave.\u00a0 No, life is.\u00a0 The Hope of Life Together as the Saints Triumphant.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>5 <\/sup>According to the Lord\u2019s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep<\/span>.\u00a0 It seems that some of these Christians were worried about their fellow Christians who had died.\u00a0 They worried their loved ones would somehow miss out when the Lord Jesus comes on the last Day.\u00a0 More than once God\u2019s Word pictures it like a joyful wedding celebration that would be sad to miss.<\/p>\n Well these people worried that they would go on without them.\u00a0 And in a way, what we see at the grave site might say the same.\u00a0 For we go on in this life without those we leave there.<\/p>\n But no, the apostle tells us.\u00a0 16<\/sup>For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first<\/span>. Now don\u2019t misunderstand.\u00a0 We know that when a Christian dies, angels carry his soul to be with Jesus in the paradise of heaven.\u00a0 But that is only until that great day to come.\u00a0 The Day of Resurrection.\u00a0 The Day when those bodies fallen in weakness, pain and death will rise.\u00a0 They will awake to live and not as they did before.\u00a0 Not afflicted with sin or disease.\u00a0 Not afflicted by a world that can break our hearts.\u00a0 But to live in glory, glory we can\u2019t possibly imagine.<\/p>\n And here Paul reminds us.\u00a0 This is not some kind wish, some pious sentiment, to keep us going.\u00a0 This is the hope that Jesus gives us as we stand at the gravesite of that departed believer.\u00a0 This is the hope Christ gives us as we leave the cemetery empty and alone.\u00a0 For this is God\u2019s promise and he does not lie.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s complete the picture.\u00a0 17 <\/sup>After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air<\/span>. There are many things we can look forward to in that day.\u00a0 We will be swept up from this perishing world like Noah\u2019s family in the ark.\u00a0 We will be changed in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye.<\/p>\n But there is something very special in these words I would like you to think of today.\u00a0 For right now there is a great divide that stands between us and those who have left this life.\u00a0 It\u2019s a divide that keeps us from those we love and threatens to take them away.\u00a0 But the Day is coming when that deadly divide will be no more.\u00a0 For what are we told here?\u00a0 Together with them\u2026<\/span>we will be with the Lord forever.<\/span><\/p>\n Every now and then you see it on television.\u00a0 Maybe at a school gym, or a sports stadium.\u00a0 A mom and her children are there not at all suspecting what is about to happen.\u00a0 Then they turn around and there he is coming their way with a big smile.\u00a0 Still in uniform, he\u2019s just come from the war in Afghanistan.\u00a0 They run to each other and they hug for the longest time.\u00a0 And the words we hear.\u00a0 Let me look at you.\u00a0 I love you.\u00a0 I\u2019ve missed you, daddy.<\/p>\n But what is too often the case.\u00a0 Dad has to go back not once, or twice.\u00a0 Maybe even six times.\u00a0 That happy reunion is often followed by another troubling goodbye.<\/p>\n Dear friends, there comes a time when we all have to say goodbye in this life.\u00a0 And when it\u2019s the goodbye that death demands, it can seem so empty, so hopeless.<\/p>\n But our faith in Jesus speaks to us in that darkness.\u00a0 For his Word promises a different kind of reunion.\u00a0 A blessed reunion from which there will be no more sad goodbyes.\u00a0 That is the hope that Jesus gives.\u00a0 That is our hope for the Day of His coming.\u00a0 The Hope of Life Together as the Saints Triumphant.\u00a0 Amen.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Text:\u00a0 1Thessalonians 4: 13-18 Years ago, there was a great physician know for his healing skills.\u00a0 Back then, many people could tell you how this man saved their lives.\u00a0 Needless to say, the sick and suffering kept him very busy, So busy that he and his co-workers were exhausted by the end of the day. 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