You do not grieve like the rest, who have no hope

1 Thessalonians 4:9-18 (TNIV) -

9 Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.10 And in fact, you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, dear friends, to do so more and more,11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you,

12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.14 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.15 According to the Lord’s 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.16 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.17 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. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

My thoughts -

Paul spent the first part of Chapter 4 telling the Thessalonians how not to behave. They are not to be slaves to the passions of their bodies and act sexually like the pagans do. We believers are not slaves to the desires of our bodies or to our own sinful nature. We have died with Christ to these things.

I love what Paul says in verses 9 and 10:

Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, dear friends, to do so more and more.

There may be a lot Paul feels the need to tell them, but they know how to love. They are known for it. And yet they can always love more. How could we be known for loving? How can we love more?

So Paul has told them how not to live. And he's told them how to live. He has commended them for their love and exhorted them to love even more while living a quiet life minding their own business. (That's good advice, by the way, to those who are being persecuted. Work hard, love one another, and keep your head down. You can develop a good reputation in your community that way.) Now Paul is telling them about death.

This is a community of believers that were convinced that they would not die before Christ's return. Now they're dying. They thought their faith would shield them from suffering. Now they suffer. How do you cope with that? How can you handle enduring that which you were certain you would never endure? Unfortunately this happens all the time. See what Paul says:

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.

This is our hope. Jesus defeated all enemies, even death. Through Jesus we can overcome everything, including death. We do not mourn like those who have no hope. Jesus is our hope. We can endure anything through Jesus who endured all things. We can overcome anything through Jesus who overcame all things.

I usually try to stick to the day's reading in these posts but this ties in with my favorite passage from Romans. Here is Romans 8:38-39:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is our hope, that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Not even death.