00:00: To the married folks here this morning, do you remember your wedding?
00:07: I mean, time, some of it gets foggy, but do you remember some of it?
00:12: Do you remember, husbands, that moment when your wife appeared at the end of the aisle and you saw her in front of all the friends and family, whoever was gathered, you saw her at the end of the aisle getting ready to walk down towards you?
00:27: Wives, do you remember that moment when you showed up at the end of the aisle and you could look up front and see your husband's face?
00:40: Any of the wives on that day look up front and see your husband scowling?
00:45: No?
00:45: Don't raise your hand if you did.
00:45: I don't think it happened.
00:48: But, right, it's this sweet moment where you just can't help but feel joy and excitement.
01:00: I remember standing up front in a little church getting married to Carrie, and I remember what she looks like because I have a little picture I keep in my office.
01:13: Yeah, you can see it later.
01:13: I say, aww, again.
01:17: Beautiful bride.
01:24: One of the treats of being a pastor is officiating weddings.
01:28: And I love that the tradition typically has the pastor up front with the groom on his left as he's facing the congregation.
01:40: And I love to ignore the bride.
01:43: That's just my thing.
01:44: I mean, don't get me wrong.
01:45: She's going to come down the aisle.
01:46: I'm going to see her on her run down the aisle.
01:49: But I love at the beginning to be watching him off the side.
01:53: And I love to see his response when he first spots her.
02:00: And if you ever want to see a fellow look dumb, that's the moment.
02:04: It's usually some sort of dopey, like, I can't believe she said yes.
02:10: Right?
02:10: Like, it's this beautiful moment.
02:13: And he's just thrilled at the sight of his bride.
02:18: Typically, the bride, similarly, when she locks eyes with her groom, has a similar look of excitement and marvel.
02:31: I don't believe that that's all that there is, though.
02:35: I think there's something more significant that's being represented in that moment.
02:42: Perhaps unintentionally, but similar nonetheless.
02:46: In God's Word, God is often referred to as the groom or bridegroom.
02:52: In relation to his people.
02:55: This is an image.
02:56: It's a metaphor that shows up over and over in the Old Testament.
02:59: And it gets repeated in the New Testament.
03:01: Ephesians chapter 5, one of the primary passages on the topic of marriage, draws this out.
03:07: And there is coming a day when we who believe in Jesus as God's people will be united to Jesus at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
03:20: Now, we're already united to him through faith, but there's this somehow a consummation of it yet ahead.
03:27: And I'm looking forward to that.
03:30: We don't yet know Jesus or see Jesus as we will one day do.
03:37: It's going to get even better.
03:39: At the weddings that you've been through, or even your own wedding, it wasn't as though this is the first time that they laid eyes on each other, right?
03:47: It's not like an arranged wedding where they're like, I have no idea what I'm getting.
03:51: And she shows up and he's like, Okay, she looks like a person.
03:55: Yay.
03:55: I mean, it's not blind.
03:58: It's that crescendo moment of the relationship that's already there.
04:04: And that's what we have to look forward to as well.
04:06: In your Bibles, turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter 1.
04:10: 2 Thessalonians chapter 1.
04:12: I want to give you the context as we dig into this.
04:15: This is written by the Apostle Paul, two Christians in the Greek city of Thessalonica.
04:21: They are Christians who, on the one hand, had been suffering.
04:27: They'd been going through persecutions and afflictions.
04:29: Life had been hard for these believers to this point.
04:32: But on the other hand, they were enduring and persevering well.
04:38: They were steadfast.
04:39: They were full of faith in the midst of all that.
04:41: Verse 4 talks about that.
04:43: In fact, more than holding their ground, they were growing in their faith and in their love for fellow Christians.
04:50: And so Paul is very encouraged about this church.
04:53: Yes, they're facing hard things, but they're thriving in the midst of it.
04:58: In verse 6, Paul begins to talk about Jesus' return.
05:01: Because he doesn't want these Christians to think that, well, you know, believers have a hard time in this life and unbelievers seem to prosper, and that's the end of the story.
05:10: Far from it.
05:10: Paul talks rather explicitly in verses 6 through 9 about how Jesus' return will mark a time of judgment.
05:19: How unbelievers will face the consequences of having rejected God by rejecting Jesus.
05:26: And that their making life hard for God's people will be dealt with.
05:34: And believers will be granted relief from their hardships and persecutions.
05:41: I want to focus our attention primarily on verse 10 this morning, but we have to go back a little bit.
05:46: Verse 9 is part of the same sentence, and it begins, they, referring back to verse 8.
05:53: Who is the they of verse 9?
05:55: Well, it's the verse 8 people.
05:56: Those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
06:03: Well, we could talk about that group in a number of ways.
06:05: We could say that they're unbelievers.
06:07: We could say that they're non-Christians.
06:10: These are people who do not know God because they have not obeyed the gospel.
06:17: Which means that religious people in the world, no matter what their religion, whether it's this, that, or the other, even if it's seemingly a Christian group, if they don't obey the gospel, they don't know God.
06:34: They don't have a relationship with God.
06:36: Well, that begs the question, how do you obey the gospel?
06:39: The gospel is good news.
06:41: It's the good news of who Jesus is and what he's done.
06:43: How do you obey good news?
06:46: You believe it.
06:48: At the center of obeying the gospel is faith.
06:54: And it's a faith that reorients your life.
06:57: It turns you away from your fixation on self and sin and what I need, what I want, and it reorients us to God, his ways, his standards, his son.
07:10: It says, I'm not going to trust that I know better than God.
07:13: I'm not going to trust that my ways are better than God's ways.
07:15: I'm not going to trust that I can get my act together.
07:18: I'm going to trust that Jesus paid it all.
07:21: That's how you obey the gospel.
07:26: They, verse 9, these unbelievers, will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.
07:41: when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed because our testimony to you was believed.
07:56: It says that Jesus will be marveled at among all who have believed.
08:05: So when Jesus comes back and we, Christians, encounter him on that day, we are going to marvel.
08:13: The word that Paul uses here can be translated into English, marvel, to be amazed, to be in wonder, to be astonished.
08:20: When we encounter Jesus on that day, it's going to make our jaws drop.
08:26: We're going to be wowed.
08:29: Now, I don't think it's going to be primarily by the sight of him, though that in itself should be pretty amazing, coming in the clouds in glory with angels and so on.
08:40: I think it's going to be that moment of, it's him.
08:45: It's really him.
08:47: Now, my wife looked outstanding on our wedding day.
08:51: But I was not mostly pleased with how she looked.
08:54: I was mostly pleased that I was going to get to be with her, that we were coming together in the covenant of marriage.
09:04: I think similarly, when we encounter Jesus, we're going to marvel, not simply at the moment, the spectacle, but that it's Jesus, and that we get to see him directly.
09:18: I want to focus in here on verse 10.
09:23: It says, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.
09:44: It is part of Jesus' purpose in returning that he be marveled at.
09:51: It doesn't simply say that he will be glorified, or that he will be marveled at.
09:59: It says that he comes to be glorified, and to be marveled at.
10:04: There's purpose at play here.
10:06: This is part of what is supposed to happen, needs to happen, ought to happen.
10:12: Not every wedding has this pictured.
10:22: Most weddings do, if you do a traditional wedding.
10:25: I remember when I was a kid, though, I had an older cousin who was getting married, but it was a mere formality.
10:33: They had been together for a time.
10:35: They were just going down to the courthouse, justice of the peace scenario.
10:39: There was no prompt, no circumstance.
10:41: It wasn't a large crowd.
10:43: Nobody was dressed up.
10:45: I mean, as kids, we were just in shorts and t-shirts on a hot summer day.
10:48: It was like, oh, okay.
10:49: We're standing here in a hall in a governmental building, and oh, we stepped into an office, and we stepped out, and it's done.
10:54: Okay.
10:55: There was none of the excitement about the union that there will be when we encounter Jesus on that day.
11:05: When Jesus comes back to take to himself his bride, which is us, his people, it's not going to be just a formality.
11:12: It's not going to be like, well, you know, we got to cross the T's, dot the I's, get this official.
11:17: It's going to be a moment of awe and wonder.
11:22: It's meant to evoke a response from us.
11:28: It's going to be a magical, extraordinary, breathtaking experience for every one of us.
11:36: Picture it.
11:37: Try to build up in your mind what it might be like when, not if, but when, our Lord returns.
11:43: I want to read to you from 1 Thessalonians.
11:51: I want to read to you from 1 Thessalonians, which is the letter that Paul had previously sent these same believers, the same church.
12:00: And this is the picture that they would have had in their minds.
12:04: 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.
12:18: And the dead in Christ will rise first.
12:21: 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.
12:28: And so we will always be with the Lord.
12:33: He's coming back.
12:34: He's going to descend from heaven.
12:36: There's going to be some sort of verbal command.
12:39: He's going to be heard with the voice of an archangel.
12:45: Now, I don't know what that sounds like, but I do know that in the Bible, when people encounter angels, they're so afraid that they fall down on their faces, that they often are tempted to worship, and the angels have to say, no, no, no, I'm not God.
12:57: Don't do that.
12:58: So the voice of an archangel has to be an overwhelming, intense kind of thing.
13:03: with the sound of the trumpet of God.
13:08: I wanted to get a trumpet player here today to come in from the back, and then at some point here, around this part, just bump-a-da-da, and just scare you all out of your minds, right?
13:19: Because that's the perfect instrument for it, right?
13:21: You get a trumpet blast, that's a powerful sound.
13:25: And I have to imagine God's trumpet is a little louder than a standard trumpet, right?
13:31: This is going to be this bump-a-da-da, and then it really gets interesting.
13:38: Dead people come out of the graves.
13:41: The dead in Christ rise first.
13:43: All the funerals you've been to for believers who have died, they're going to come out of their graves and come up into the sky.
13:53: Grandpa!
13:55: Grandma!
13:55: Like, all these dear departed fellow believers.
14:01: And then we get in on it.
14:02: We who are alive at that moment, who are still on earth, watching the dead come up, we're going to then also join them in the clouds.
14:11: We are going to be up in the air.
14:14: I don't know how high, I don't know how that's going to work precisely, but all your flying dreams in some manner are going to happen.
14:24: We're going to be up in the clouds with Jesus.
14:27: That is an astounding moment.
14:30: But what's going to capture our attention most, I don't believe, is the flying.
14:34: It's not going to be Grandpa or Uncle Bob.
14:37: It's going to be Jesus.
14:40: Jesus is going to be the blazing center that captivates.
14:46: He is the one at whom we are going to be marveling.
14:51: The entire world is going to see this.
14:54: One end of the earth to the other.
14:55: No one's going to have any questions.
14:56: Well, is that really it?
14:57: No, everyone's going to know.
14:58: Matthew 24:27 tells us.
15:01: Every eye will see Him.
15:02: Revelation 1:7.
15:05: And Christ will be glorified in that moment.
15:09: Not that He will become more glorious.
15:10: He's already God.
15:11: You can't improve on that.
15:13: But rather, He will be seen as worthy.
15:16: He will be recognized as worthy.
15:18: He will be cherished and savored and delighted in in His saints.
15:27: Who are the saints?
15:29: Well, it's not a real special word because we're all included.
15:35: Traditionally in church history, many branches of so-called Christianity have used the word saints to refer to elite-level believers in Jesus.
15:44: That's not the way God's Word uses it.
15:46: Saints literally translates to set-apart ones.
15:50: People who have been designated by God for not sin and for Him.
15:56: That's you.
15:56: That's me.
15:58: We are the ones who have been set apart by God and are going to glorify Him on that day.
16:05: Can you imagine that day?
16:07: You're at work.
16:09: You're sleeping in.
16:10: You're at school.
16:11: Whatever it may be.
16:12: And suddenly, you're being taken up into the air to be with Jesus.
16:17: And you're looking around and you're like, Brad!
16:20: Liz!
16:22: John!
16:22: And you're all looking up to Jesus.
16:28: 2 Thessalonians 1:10 says that Christ is going to be centered.
16:34: We're going to be marveling at Him.
16:36: That's the sure hope that we have in Christ.
16:41: That's the promise of God that will absolutely, positively come to pass.
16:45: I'm guessing the most of you don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about Jesus' return.
16:54: There's something good about that and there's something not good about that.
16:58: It's good to think about Jesus' return because that's our hope.
17:02: That's what we're looking forward to.
17:03: And God's Word speaks to us.
17:05: So we should think about that some.
17:07: On the other hand, I've encountered some folks who are a little obsessed with how is everything going to play out and how's this detail going to look like and trying to get all the details figured out as though there's some kind of, you know, prize for having it all figured out.
17:22: And it's like, dude, chill.
17:25: Focus on Jesus right now instead of how you think it's all going to play out.
17:28: Don't spend all your time trying to guess the end of the story so that you miss the rest of the book.
17:34: You and I are meant to enjoy relationship with Jesus right now.
17:40: Now, notice I didn't say we're meant to have relationship with Jesus right now.
17:44: Though that's also true.
17:46: We're meant to enjoy it.
17:48: To have it and to enjoy it.
17:52: If you are not enjoying your relationship with Jesus, let me suggest that you not be content to stay where you're at spiritually.
18:03: Press in.
18:04: There's something way better.
18:06: And honestly, the truth of the matter is if you're not enjoying your relationship with Jesus, I have little hope that you're going to stay believing, that you're going to keep following Jesus.
18:17: Because we're meant to be fulfilled and satisfied in relationship with Jesus.
18:23: And if that's not happening, we're going to turn to something or someone else in life to try to find our satisfaction.
18:32: It's idolatry, but we're going to do it.
18:33: So pursue the kind of relationship that day by day you're saying, yes, I love following Jesus.
18:42: I love trusting Him.
18:43: I love knowing Him.
18:44: I love going through my day looking to Him to provide, looking to Him for wisdom, and living the way He calls me to live.
18:51: This is totally the way I want my life to be.
18:57: Philippians 3.19 talks about how unbelievers focus on their earthly appetites.
19:02: food, drink, sex, and so forth.
19:05: 19 phrases it, their mind is on earthly things.
19:09: Now, we have to consider all those things, but we don't need to fix on them.
19:14: That can't be our focus.
19:16: Rather, verse 20, that's the very next verse in that same passage in Philippians 3.
19:21: For Christians, our citizenship is in heaven.
19:25: And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.
19:32: My favorite word in that verse is eagerly.
19:35: It would be true to say we await it.
19:37: Like, yeah, we know He's coming back, and that's coming eventually, and we're waiting for it.
19:42: Eagerly, like, I can't wait for that day.
19:45: Now, I enjoyed Christmas this year.
19:48: We had a real nice time as a family, quiet, just at home, no visiting with, you know, out-of-state relatives or anything.
19:53: It was just a quiet family time.
19:55: And we turned our minds and hearts towards Jesus in the process of the whole thing.
20:03: But I don't get as excited about Christmas morning as I did when I was a little kid.
20:09: A little kid, I mean, it was the greatest day of the year.
20:12: I couldn't wait.
20:13: Couldn't hardly go to sleep the night before, wake up bright and early, let's go, everyone needs to get up, let's get around the Christmas tree, let's do presents.
20:19: Like, I was just, woo!
20:20: I think it's good that I'm a little more chill now, but I think there's a hint of what I was like as a kid waiting for Christmas that ought to be there in me as a Christian waiting for Jesus.
20:35: Not in a selfish way, but like a, I can't wait, this is going to be the best thing ever.
20:42: The very best day of your life, if I asked you after church to share with somebody what the very best day of your life has been, some of you might talk about your wedding or your baptism or the birth of a child or some other life-defining moment, but I can just about guarantee that whatever your answer is, if you could experience this right now, you'd be like, oh, it's that.
21:07: That's the one.
21:08: That's the best day of my life.
21:11: Are you eagerly awaiting the Savior?
21:15: Are you excited for the return of your bridegroom to take you up into the clouds to be with him forever?
21:20: Are you thrilled when you think about everything that's broken in this world, all the injustice coming to an end, things being made right, every tear wiped away, every wrong dealt with rightly?
21:37: I can't wait for that.
21:40: I get almost giddy when I take time to think about how absolutely mind-blowing it's going to be when Jesus comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed.
21:55: Look ahead, but look at the next two verses because there's something we need to see there.
21:59: To this end, we always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
22:26: He said, in light of this, this is what we pray for.
22:29: This is what we want to happen when we pray for you.
22:33: We want God to make you worthy of his calling.
22:37: Implication?
22:38: You're not yet worthy of his calling.
22:42: None of us, when we were called to saving faith in Jesus, deserved it.
22:47: None of us had a resume that impressed God.
22:50: But he called us to saving faith in Jesus nonetheless and he is transforming us to be the kind of people that it makes sense to have ultimately in eternal relationship with God.
23:02: And he says, to this end, we pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.
23:17: There's things that I want to do for good.
23:21: I just don't always have the energy or the strength or the perseverance to follow through.
23:27: There's things that I want to do by faith in Jesus that, man, in my own strength and my own wherewithal, not going to get done.
23:36: But if God does it, if God is at work through me, then it's going to happen.
23:43: And that's what this pair of verses is telling us.
23:46: We need God's grace for that to happen.
23:49: We need God's grace at work in us or it's not going to play out in our lives the way it needs to.
23:55: And if God's going to be glorified in me for how I'm living in the meantime, well, then he has to be doing something in me, right?
24:05: Because if I just pull myself up by my bootstraps and try real hard to be a good Christian and I somehow get it all together in my own strength and my own willpower, well, who gets the glory?
24:14: Well, then I do.
24:16: It wouldn't make any sense to praise God for what I did, right?
24:21: It has to be God at work in us for him to deserve the glory, which is exactly how it works.
24:27: I think of Philippians, which I've already referenced this morning.
24:30: Philippians chapter 2, Paul writes to the church there and says, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good pleasure.
24:51: My brother Steve lives for Jesus well.
24:54: That ain't Steve.
24:57: That's Jesus in Steve, which is good for Steve.
25:00: It's good for Cheryl.
25:01: It's good for Courtney.
25:02: It's good for all of us.
25:04: Same with me.
25:06: Same with you.
25:07: That's what we need.
25:10: And so in the meantime, as we wait for this day when Jesus is going to come back to be glorified in his saints, to be marveled at by all who have believed, the way we prepare for that is reliance on Jesus right here, right now, in everyday, normal life, so that our lives are lived in dependence, joyfully, in a Christ-centered way.
25:40: If Jesus comes back and we've spent our lives, yeah, I go to church, I believe in Jesus, but we don't live like it, there's not a whole lot of glory for him to get in us.
25:54: But if we spend the time reveling in who Jesus is for us, studying God's words, singing his praise, witnessing to the people around us, telling them about who Jesus is for those that trust in him, sharing with them our experience of the goodness of God, saying, I can't keep this to myself.
26:11: This is too good.
26:12: I want you to get in on this.
26:14: Making disciples of people, not just, oh, come to church, that's the end of it.
26:18: No, I want to help you know Jesus, love Jesus, trust him, live for him.
26:22: If we live that way, when he comes back on that day, there's going to be oodles of glory for him to receive in us, his people.
26:30: Amen?
26:30: Amen?
26:35: As a shepherd, as a pastor, my job is to tend to your spiritual welfare.
26:45: I want you when the day comes.
26:51: I want you to return.
26:55: Not enough.
26:57: I want your lives between this day and that to increasingly be days of joy, peace, hope, and love as you surrender your will and say yes to what God has for you.
27:14: I want this church to be one that is transformational for the sake of God's kingdom because we overflow in representing Jesus to the people of Green Bay and Howard and Suamico and Ashwaubenon and De Pere and Bellevue and beyond.
27:38: That's not just something that me as an entrepreneurial kind of person wants to happen.
27:43: I'm not an entrepreneurial person.
27:45: This is something I believe that is God's desire for his people everywhere.
27:51: That we faithfully represent him.
27:53: God could have come up with any number of ways to bring the gospel to the world.
27:57: You look at the Old Testament, there's tons of ways that God revealed himself to people.
28:01: There's clouds of pillar and fire, there's burning bushes, there's angels, right?
28:06: There's winds and earthquakes and all kinds of miraculous manifestations.
28:15: And God said, but I want the good news to go out through my people who have experienced Jesus.
28:22: You are God's plan for the world.
28:27: You are the key means of God's grace getting to the people of Green Bay and beyond.
28:35: Let's embrace that.
28:40: Let's embrace that.
28:44: And when God's grace has had its way in our lives and that day comes, we will be grinning ear to ear.
28:54: Come Lord Jesus.
28:56: And all God's people said, Amen.