“Destined For the Day”

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

In the theology course that I just finished (Wesley Theological Seminary for Course of Study), we dealt with a lot of terms and phrases, and had great discussions as to what they mean to us and what they don’t mean. The interesting thing about words is that they can have a number of connotations, and can have even more personal implications for our lives. One of the terms that we considered and discussed at some length was “predestination”.
In a religious sense, we see the concept traditionally as meaning that God has preordained, has made a choice for our lives, and we are stuck with it. Presbyterians has taken this notion to heart, even though Calvin actually had little to say about it, and placed very little emphasis on the thought. However, it seems that the intent of New Testament writers in using the term was more in line with Wesley’s term “prevenient” – or the grace that pursues us all until we either surrender our lives to God’s grace, to his invitation, or pass from the earth. Theologically speaking, God would desire – predestine – that all of humanity be saved, but it isn’t forced upon us. We get to choose whether we accept his grace or not. The writers apparently never intended the word to mean “pre-chosen”.
Which brings us to the issue for today – who is living in the light, and who is living in darkness – who will experience destruction, and who will not.

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3

Confession time – I have a very limited experience with labor pains, and so I hesitate to venture too far into the topic, either to discuss the impact of them on the mother, or the rapidity of their onslaught! But in the context of our passage for today, I would guess that they come on pretty fast.
In my experience with the birth of our first child, the pains came totally unexpectedly. It was a Monday evening, we were getting ready to attend our 2nd Lamaze class, but were abruptly detoured to the delivery room to welcome our son in his 8 week early arrival. (As a matter of interest, we did get our Lamaze registration money back, though!!)
Son number 2 behaved a little better, except the pains began at about 3:00 AM – in farming terms, that’s before the rooster wakes up (!), and 2 hours later, he had arrived.
From my limited sampling of the concept of labor pains, I think it is safe to conclude 2 concepts – that 1) they can come at any time, and 2) they generally come at the most inconvenient time!
So if we carry that assumption over to the word for today, we discover that the comparison to the coming of a thief in the night isn’t too far off.
We are walking around, enjoying our solitude, basking in the beauty of our life, and suddenly, without warning, the “day of the Lord” occurs, and everything changes. We can’t go back, there are no “do overs”, and we find ourselves wherever we are in that moment.

“Predestined”? The Lord’s greatest desire is that all would find that they were on his side of the fence, but scripture is very clear that many will be on the other side. Don’t blame God for the failure to choose correctly, don’t blame God for not “fixing” everyone before his “day” comes. The only blame is for our own lack of decision today, and possibly for the Church’s failure to spread his light wide enough and far enough. God has a wonderful plan for life, and that plan extends beyond the here and now, and reaches into eternity. But each and every person has to claim it, and each and every person has to live it.

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:4-8

Just a word regarding verse 4 – the intent of the words are that if we were in darkness, we would be surprised by the events of the day, but the truth is that we are not blinded – we are people of the light. Remember that Jesus told us in John 8:12 that he is the light of the world, and whoever follows him will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. And Matthew’s gospel (5:14) tells us that we are now the light of the world. Jesus fills all believers with his glorious light, and now we are to use it to light the way for others.
As the current Fall season advances, and as it begins to bring us more and more darkness, more and more “night”, light becomes more and more precious for our lives. When I get up in the middle of the night, I never turn a light on because I don't want to bother Diane. But I tend to stumble around, stubbing my toes on the chest at the end of our bed, tripping over a cat who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I generally create a lot more disturbance than if I had turned a light on in the first place. Darkness is not a friend – even if we are in a totally familiar room, we can still be lost and disoriented and out of touch with our surroundings. But a little bit of light can do wonders.
Friday night, as I went to bed in my hotel room in Washington, I left the bathroom light on. It was dim enough not to bother my sleep, but bright enough to guide me safely through the darkness if I needed it. We are to be that very light. Matthew 5:15 admonishes us to never hide our light – that we should let it shine out into the world so that others will see it.

It is the Lord’s greatest desire that all would experience his light, and would claim it as their own, but someone needs to lead them to the source of this great light. In John 12:36, Jesus tells his disciples to put their trust in the light while they have it, so that they might become the sons of light. And one day, they would carry the light of Christ to the far reaches of the earth, for the sole purpose of passing that light on to others. And the light has been carried and shared and passed throughout the centuries, and now it is our turn to carry and share and pass it on to others. That is the gist of the Great Commission’s call to make “disciples of all nations”. It doesn’t mean that we ourselves must travel to every nation on earth – it means that we can never withhold the light from anyone, for any reason. In accepting Christ, in becoming a Jesus follower, we also take on the obligation to share our personal story of the Lord with everyone we meet. If every Christian in the world would lead just one other person into the light, and then they would lead one other, God’s desire, his “predestined” plan for the world, his deepest yearning for humanity, his longing that all would walk in his light and life, would very quickly become a reality.

We need to walk in the light of Christ, day and night, in good times and bad, in times of absolute certainty and in times of wretched uncertainty. The Lord wants us to carry our light throughout the world, without hesitation and with great expectation.
But the problem today is that even though we are people of the light, we seem to be afraid to show our light, and so we keep it covered and out of sight most of the time. And when we hide it, not only will others continue to stumble around in their spiritual darkness, we will be stumbling, too!

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11

In our discussion earlier regarding the concept of “predestination”, we need to know that there is a second part to it. Not only is the concept that some are “predestined to be saved”, the other side of the thought must be that others are “predestined to be lost”. It is a “double predestination”, and this, too, is a falsehood. God desires that all would be saved, and we have been “appointed” to carry his salvation, his promise of life, his gift of light, out into the world. He doesn’t want anyone to suffer “wrath”, but if we fail to carry out the mission that we have told God that we accept, the wrath will win and the life of salvation that Jesus died and rose again in order to win for us, will simply lie dormant.

Are we really willing to let this happen?
Are we willing to abandon our God given opportunity to lead someone else into the light of Christ?
I want to challenge you to do something. For the next year (this is not a one time thing!), I want everyone to get serious about carrying their light. And during the year, I want to challenge you to a weekly project – that every week, you invite one person to come to church with you. Not to meet you here, but to ride with you, perhaps even to have lunch with you afterward, to come with you in the light that you carry, that they might begin to see in a new way. And if everyone gets just one new person to join them regularly in worship, think what that can mean for the kingdom – think what that can mean for Jesus!
Are you willing to make the effort? It can be a person who has never been in a church, it can be someone who has stopped attending worship for some reason, it can be a young person or an older person, it can be a neighbor, a co-worker, a family member, even a stranger who you may meet in the check out line at the grocery store. If you will commit to doing this, then I will commit to try to keep my messages interesting and pertinent for life. Don’t count on them getting any shorter, but we’ll work together to make this happen. And we will take a moment at the very beginning of every worship to introduce our friends and make them feel welcomed and loved.

What do you think? Can this happen? Will you give it a try? Just 1 invitation each and every week for a year? No goals for victory – we’ll leave that part up to the convicting of the Holy Spirit. But we still need to do our part.
Verse 11 – “Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” We will continue to encourage each other, but we’re just going to take that encouragement to a whole new level, that we might bring new folks into the light of Jesus Christ. They, too, are destined for the light of Christ’s day, you know! Who are we to decide that it’s OK to leave them behind in their darkness?