Christ will come into the World again

Proclamation / 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18

Intro

We are in our last week before Christmas. This week is an important time for the church. We have looked at the proclamation that Christ will come into the world, that He has come into the world. And that He will again come into the world.

The Church is called to be patient, always realigning itself between the Advent and Return.

Christ will come into the World Again

But we are also moving toward something. We are not only given life for right now. We have eternal life. We have life forever with Christ. He has given us a home in Him that extends past and beyond death.

1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 ESV

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.

To know that Christ is coming again, for those who have trusted Him means that while He has given life and has shown us how to live, HE has promised He would come back.

Revelation 21:3–5 ESV

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

That means that we are not just passing through life, hoping that God will do something with any sense of a wreck of a world, but that our lives in Christ have meaning. They are moving toward something.

Every time we celebrate Advent we stretch our arms into the past and future.

What does that mean for us?

To be able to wait, knowing what is coming, means that we don’t have to react in frustration or fear. We act frustration and fear when we don’t know coming. But we do coming. We know Christ has come and He has beaten death and will come again and will bring justice.

We can wait in trust. To wait while we trust is to be patient.

Trust plus waiting equals patience

Our ability to wait creates a patient church

1 Thessalonians 4:17–18 ESV

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. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

When we are impatient, it is because we’re not lined We’re not looking at the right things. We are not oriented. Have you in a line for so long that you begin to wonder if you’re even in the right line anymore? You begin to think that they forgotten about you or that you’ve lined up or done something wrong? An anxiety begins to slip in a little bit?

Patience allows to embrace where we are now with promise of restoration

Christ has come once to show what and how God handles darkness and conflict. Crisis come once to show us that he is the final resolution. Crisis come once already to show us what the goodness of God in the world looks like.

Christ will come again to resolve the irresolvable. Christ will come again to proclaim victory in every way that belongs to him. Christ will come again to bring justice to the injustice. Christ will come again to pay attention to everything that has been ignored.

We trust. We wait. Because whatever we have now is nothing in comparison to Christ who will come again. We know that whatever we have now is not the complete picture of what Christ will do when HE comes again.

When we agree and act on this, it is not passive but active. Our witness right now, as we move into communion, it one of patience. Because we celebrate the God who entered our world and gave everything.