2026 FYI (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14)

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Well, good morning. And it is a very good morning indeed. If you want to grab your Bibles, you can open up to First Thessalonians four. First Thessalonians four will be in verses 13 and 14. If you didn’t bring a Bible, there should be a black one there in front of you in the pews. If you don’t own a Bible. Just go ahead and steal that one. Okay, we’re giving you permission here. That is our gift to you. I would actually love it if tomorrow morning, as we were going through the church, we discovered that there were 1015, 20 of those Bibles missing. Please take it home with you if you don’t already have one. If you are using that black Bible, by the way, it will be on page 958, if you’re using your personal Bible, I don’t know what page it’s on, I’m sorry. It is important to get information right. Knowledge is power and all that, but it’s shocking how often in human history and probably in your own life, we’ve gotten it wrong. Just take some examples, even from medical history. And for how many centuries, millennia, really did humans think that the key to health was the balance between four humors, blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. And so in order to make sure you had that balance right, they would do things like bloodletting when you were sick, which strikes me as a bad idea, although I’m not a doctor, or there was the miasma theory of disease, which is that disease came from bad air, like you got diseases like cholera from bad air and not from poison in The water that you are drinking. But if you don’t understand germs, you don’t understand like, how that spread happens, you run into all sorts of problems. Actually, literally, just read this week of the guy who finally convinced sort of other doctors to wash their hands before surgery, because there was a time when they was that this is not the problem, right? It’s not germs. And so it was actually a doctor. It was, this was childbirth, and these doctors would go, they would do autopsies on people who died of infections in the morning, and then deliver babies in the afternoon, and the babies were not making it. And so he was like, we should try washing our hands. Here’s the incredible part of that story, now that they weren’t washing their hands, that’s incredible. Hands, that’s incredible. The other doctors were so mad at him that like they eventually drove him out into an insane asylum where he was beaten to death within two weeks because he wouldn’t do surgery without washing his hands. Knowledge is power. It’s good to have the right information. Here’s another good one they discovered, you know, radioactive materials like radium, things like that. They used to put that in drinks, maybe not quite as bad as what they used to put in Coca Cola, but, you know, same idea, right? So, you know, order your cosmopolitan in a bar or something like that, and just have a little shot of radium in it. The only benefit is the pickup lines right themselves. You’re positively glowing. But yeah, radiation is not great for you. So in each case, wrong information led to these devastating consequences. And there’s a danger that threatens us still today, not just physically, but much more importantly, spiritually too. It’s more dangerous because it’s an eternal danger. The consequences are longer, and so that’s why Paul writes what he does in our short passage this morning, he’s writing to a young church there, and what is modern day Greece, city of Thessalonica. So his church is just a few years old. He’s been through he’s planted the church. He’s helped them understand the basics of the Christian message. But they’re still learning Christianity, kind of, everybody’s still learning Christianity at that point. And so they’ve got questions, they’ve got some confusion, maybe where you are this morning as you come into this church, like I’ve heard some stuff, but I’m not sure I really understand it all, you are exactly where you need to be then. And so Paul writes them, as we’ll see here in just a moment. He says, I don’t want you to be uninformed, like I want to make sure you’ve got the right information. So this is giant FYI written in this text. Make sure you get this right. This is what we need to know.
So if you’ll look with me at first, Thessalonians, 413, and 14, I hope you’re there by now. And it really is important that you’re looking with me at the text, because you do not need what I think the information is right, like I would be the doctor who’s not washing his hands kind of thing. Like we need to know what God thinks. So we’re going to look at his word together. Here it is, first, Thessalonians, 413, and 14. Reading for the NIV and Paul writes, brothers and sisters. We do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death. That you do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope for 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 short text, we get three key pieces of information, like three truths to ponder, and that will be our outline this morning. The first key piece of information has to do with grief. Grief right there in the text. Of course, you do not grieve like those who do not have a hope. But it’s interesting that Paul, in speaking to this group of Christians who’ve lost loved ones who’ve experienced death. He doesn’t say Christians shouldn’t grieve, but he does say that Christians should grieve differently. They should grieve with hope, for reasons that we’ll see in a little bit. But that’s a really important piece of information, that grief is inevitable in this life we will all experience grief because death is inevitable. If you live long enough, you will lose people you love, and death is the surest proof that something is terribly wrong in this world. It’s not the only proof. It’s the surest one. There’s a lot of other proof. There’s injustice, there’s suffering, there’s pain, there’s evil, wickedness, and even the frustration that the wicked so often seem to be the ones that are prospering and getting away with it. So grief is just this deep sorrow at the world’s brokenness. It’s the sense that the the world is not as it should be. We look around and we go, surely, surely, this isn’t it. This can’t be it. I suspect I don’t need to convince you of that. Maybe you even came in this morning feeling that way. Maybe that’s what brought you here, thinking, I need hope, because something is wrong, wrong, okay, but what’s wrong a little bit like the doctors we’ve been talking about? Is it bad air, or is it germs? Like, what’s going on? We want to get the problem right, or else we’ll probably get the diagnosis and the remedy wrong. So what exactly is wrong with humanity? Is it just a question of ignorance, like we had enough education that would take care of all the world’s problems? I think it’s safe to say that’s probably not the answer. We’ve had the modern education movement for a while now. Kind of started late 19th century, early 20th century. You saw how that went. Modern education brought us the bloodiest century in the history of the world, more violent deaths than all the other centuries combined. That was the 20th century. 21st Century not looking so hot either. Is it? So I don’t think it’s ignorance or what about injustice? If the issue is systems of injustice, then what’s needed is activism. And surely, yes, that is needed, much like education is needed, but, but I don’t see that politics is going to be the final solution to the world’s problems, because we’ve been trying politics since time immemorial. We’ve tried every version of it, which one brought peace on earth. I mean, even Camelot got wrecked by adultery, and that one was made up. We still can’t get it right well, so maybe it’s a little more internal. This would be what a lot would say today, that our problem was actually insecurity, that sense of I’m not living out the life I want to be living, because it’s always threatened by circumstances. So what do you need to do? You need to take control of your life. You need to self actualize. You do you live your best life now, which sounds great, except that you don’t always live your best life. Do you you make dumb choices regularly, if you’re anything like me, and I suspect you are, and even if you were to somehow just always make the choice you think you want to make to bring about the life you want to bring about cancer beats those good vibes every time. You just can’t win that way. And so here’s the I don’t want you to be uninformed moment. Here’s the big FYI in this section. The Bible tells us that the problem is in here. The Bible tells us the problem is in here. It’s an internal germ, which means we can’t escape it by hand washing and masks and isolation. You’re already sick. And spiritually speaking, it’s terminal. The Bible calls that spiritual sickness sin. Maybe you think that’s an old fashioned word. Sounds a little bit regressive even, or maybe you think of it only when it comes to desserts. You know you shouldn’t be eating the sinful Sunday at this restaurant or other. That is how many of us think of sin today, that thing that’s really. Pleasurable, but I know I shouldn’t have too much of it. That’s not what the Bible says about sin, though. The Bible says sin is rebellion against our King. It’s a going against our Maker, the God who created us in His image, he made us. He knows what we should do. We don’t read the instruction manual, and so we start drinking radium because we think we know better than he does. It’s actually interesting. The Bible tells us that the whole sin problem started with a thirst for knowledge. Adam and Eve wanted to be informed, and so they ate from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Now why did they eat that because they wanted to decide for themselves what good and evil are. They didn’t want anybody else, not even God, telling them what’s right and what’s wrong. They were going to choose themselves. They knew they would be able to choose for themselves. Oops, turns out they didn’t. It doesn’t go well, we’re not great about running our own lives as individuals or as a collective. When you watch the news and almost all the bad that you hear about is the result of humanity, some things, sure, earthquake, all right, that’s not on us. I don’t think maybe it’s a weather event. Of course, that might be our fault also, but you watch the news, you think most of it is on us. We commit the crimes we do violence, we exploit others, we start wars, we hoard wealth and live in luxury and self indulgence. We envy, slander, mock, abandon, the Nobel Prize winner for literature, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who was a Russian dissident during the time of the Soviet Union, famously, by the way, said that the line between good and evil does not run along country borders like USSR, bad, USA, good. The line between good and evil passes between every human heart. He said that Alexander Solzhenitsyn was asked about the evil in the world, like what’s going on here? And he said this, men have forgotten God. That’s why all this has happened. Because if you don’t put God first, you will, in the end, put yourself first, which is the root of all evil. Ernest. Becker put it like this, psychologists, the last century, 2500 years of history, haven’t changed our basic narcissism. Again, I don’t need to prove that to you. You can see it, but I wonder, have you reckoned with the spiritual germ within you yet, because there will come a day when you cannot make excuses for yourself any longer. I don’t know what it’ll be. Maybe you will speak harshly to a loved one, words that you can never put back and that are going to hang over them like a cloud for the rest of their lives. Not talking about speaking sharply, I’m talking about, again, words that change a person’s life, or maybe you will commit an act that horrifies you. Maybe it’s even in secret, and still, at the end of it, you’re thinking to yourself, I am not the kind of person who would do something like that, and yet I just did something like that. So what does that say about me? Or maybe it’ll be simpler. Maybe it’ll just be a question of failure to change. And you’re thinking, I’m not going to be impatient with my kids any longer, or I’m going to start speaking Kinder words to the people around me. I’m going to have self control, self discipline in my life, and then 10 years go by, and 15 years go by and 20 years go by, and you go, I’m not going to be impatient with my kids any longer. They’ve graduated, they’ve flown the coop, but still, you haven’t changed. I don’t know what it’ll be for you. I’ve done all three of those, by the way. I just know that there will come a day when you can’t make excuses for yourself any longer. I also know that that’s the benefit of grief, that’s the benefit of the sorrow we feel, the anger at the brokenness of the world. That’s what shocks us awake like we need the pain to let us know that there’s something wrong. It’s the sore throat that clues you into the fact that you got strap in the same way, it’s the grief that we feel that clues us into the spiritual sickness within us. This is not the way it should be. Death itself. Again, the issue that the Thessalonians are facing is the ultimate shock, and again, the one that none of us can avoid. But hopefully, it leads us to ask these deep questions, to get the information that we need, because death is the primary indicator of the world’s brokenness. The Bible tells us exactly where it comes from. Romans, 623, the wages of. Sin is death. The reason we die is because of our sin. That’s the germ that kills us. That’s a problem because we’re all infected. Extend the medical analogy here, like diagnosing the problem is step one, if the doctor is there, you know, telling you, hey, you’ve got this disease that’s going to kill you. You’re really hoping that the next words out of her mouth are but there’s a treatment, there’s a cure, there’s a remedy. So is there? Because if there is, that will be information we need, sure enough, there is that’s kind of our second key piece of information, second truth to ponder under the heading of Jesus, there’s actually somewhat shocking logic in this passage, if you think about it, you don’t have to grieve. At least you don’t have to grieve the way the world grieves. You can grieve with a hope, even despite death, because you believe that Christ died and rose again. So how does the death of Jesus, Christ on a cross, 2000 years ago, and his subsequent resurrection awesome as that was, how does that change our brokenness? Let’s puzzle this out together, asking some questions, why did Jesus die? Why did Jesus rise? And then what does that have to do with any of us? Well, why did Jesus die? We’ve already seen it. The wages of sin is death, so that’s why people die. But Jesus is different, because Jesus is the only person never to sin, so he was not owed death. He’s the only human who didn’t deserve to die, and yet, that’s why he came. He became human, fully human, yes, but he has always been fully God as well. And so the eternal God became mortal man to live a perfect life and then die a purposeful death. Paul tells us what the purpose was, speaking to a different church, but struggling with the same issue of death and resurrection. First, Corinthians 15, he tells us five words maybe more important than any other five words, Christ died for our sins. Christ died for our sins, not for his sins because he didn’t have any, but for ours. He took our place, in other words, bore the punishment that we deserved. You know, what that looks like. You see it in history. Sometimes there’s a famous story of a group of POWs. This was during World War Two in Japan. So they were in a prisoner of war camp. They were doing a hard labor with, shovels, pickaxes, things like that. So every time they finished working, the guards would count all the tools make sure that they were back. You don’t want a group of hardened soldiers who are in prison to have shovels and pickaxes. Not a good strategy, right? So they count all the shovels every time. And one time they counted and one was missing. So they lined up all the soldiers, all these prisoners of war. And said, who took it? Where is it hidden? And nobody came forward. And so the guard said, like, all right, I’ll give you the count of three. It’s real simple, either you come forward and die for your crime, or else, I’m just gonna kill everyone. You know, three, two. And then one man stepped forward and was beaten to death, right there. And they recounted the shovels and they were all there. None were missing. So he had been innocent, yet he stepped forward and died for the sake of his brothers in arms. And you think, wow, like, that’s what Jesus did for me. No, not even close. Jesus did so much more for you, because here’s the thing, you and I, we stole all the shovels. And Jesus, in that analogy, he’s not a brother in arms with us. He’s the guard. He’s the one running the place.
We stole them from him, and then he stepped forward and took that punishment despite the fact that we were guilty. So he paid the price, because sin demands payment. You’re playing baseball in the backyard. You hit one through your neighbor’s window saying you’re really, really sorry. Doesn’t put the glass back together again. Like money is owed, there is a debt that needs to be paid. So it is with us before God, except it is an infinite price, because we have sinned against an infinite being, and so we as finite creatures, cannot pay the infinite price, but Jesus, who is infinite, can and does in our place. There is no more debt, there is no more prison sentence. We get to walk out scot free, made innocent. By His perfect life that is given for us. That’s why Jesus died. Okay, but why did Jesus rise? Well, because just dying doesn’t help us again. Had to be a purposeful death. We’ve already talked about that you get a man who jumps off a cliff into the raging ocean to be drowned. The fact that he says, see how much I love you as he jumps off doesn’t make him heroic. It makes him insane. Is that what Jesus did? No picture another guy diving off the cliff into the ocean, but to rescue a little girl who’s drowning. Well, that changes the story. Of course. He holds her up, gets her to the life preserver, whatever it may be, but drowns himself in the process. That changes. So it needs to be a purposeful death for Christ’s death to be purposeful, though it has to end in victory, like we need to know that Jesus actually defeats sin and death so that he can defeat it in our lives as well. That’s why it matters that Jesus rose from the grave. It’s the proof. It’s the proof, the guarantee that God accepts his sacrifice, that that Jesus did what he came to do. Again, this is the greatest bit of FYI ever. What happened that Easter morning all those years ago? I mean, the women who’d watched Jesus be crucified, his mother, among them, his friends. They saw him die. They saw him laid in a tomb, the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, prominent member of the ruling council. At that time, the tomb is sealed. The stone is rolled in front of it right as Sabbath begins. So there’s nothing they can do that whole next day. They’re not allowed to work. They can’t go to the tomb to prepare his body for burial. What an agonizing day that Saturday must have been. But then a break of light. On Sunday morning, they go to the tomb. They hurry to the tomb, spices, cloth, everything in hand, ready to prepare Jesus’s body for final burial. They get there and the stone’s been rolled away. There’s an angel standing there. Instead, the angel says to them words that the worship team read for us already. I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here. He has risen, just as he said, Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples he has risen from the dead. That’s what we’re celebrating this morning, again, the most important piece of information in the world, most important piece of information the world’s ever known or ever could know, because it is the proof that God, his father, accepted Jesus’ sacrifice, and so it vindicates his message and his ministry, that he came to die for our sins, and it guarantees his victory. The fact of the matter is, if Jesus were still in that tomb, we would not be talking about him today, because why would you lots of men have come claiming to know the way to glory, to Heaven, to whatever you want to call it, and they’re dead like it’s all well and good to preach a fine message of hope and getting right with God. But once the worms start eating you, I’m gonna look for someone else, someone who’s maybe actually figured this out. And here’s the thing, the worms never ate Jesus. His body did not see decay. Not Jesus. He died, yes, but he entered death so that he could steal the Grim Reaper’s keys. He burgled the grave, and so now he holds power over death for all time. That seemed like important information for us in our grief? Doesn’t that feel like important information for us in the light of the way the world goes? Only Wait What? What does it have to do with us though? I mean, Jesus lived the perfect life. Jesus rose from the dead, but I’m still here, sinful and dying. So that’s that third piece of information. What does this have to do with us? That’s where hope comes in. Third piece of information, third truth, to ponder, and here also is where we have to pay careful attention to the text you read. Verse 13, again, brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so you do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope. Verse 14, for we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring. Jesus, those who have fallen asleep in him. Do you see the parallel there? In verse 14, Jesus died and rose again, and those of us who sleep in death will be brought with him. In other words, Jesus’s death and resurrection sets the pattern that we can follow. Still die, yes, still grieve, absolutely like Jesus, but then we can rise to everlasting life. There’s just one qualifier. Did you see it there in verse 14, God will bring with Him into eternal life, into the new creation. God will bring those who’ve fallen asleep in him. That’s the key phrase in him. It’s actually Paul’s favorite phrase. You read his letters to the young churches. He uses it over and over and over again. We’re in Christ. What it means to be a Christian is to be in Christ. Okay, but what does it mean to be in Christ? And how do we get there? Like, how do we become united to him? Let’s just consider flying for a moment. People have always wanted to fly. You watch birds, things like that, and you’re like, that looks cool. I’d like to do that also. And there were some ingenious attempts in human history, mostly crazy attempts, though, also, you know, Icarus, sorts of things like little bit of hot wax and feathers. I should be golden until the max welts, the wax melts and you plummet to your death. Our arms are simply too weak. Okay, so it doesn’t matter how furiously you flap them. Not going to happen. You could try jumping off the Sears Tower tomorrow, flapping as you go to save money on a trip to Cancun you are not going to save money. You are going to plummet to your untimely death, okay, but what about instead of going to Sears Tower, you went to O’Hare, you buy a ticket, which is an admission of sorts, isn’t it? By buying a ticket, you’re saying, Well, I can’t do this. Somebody else is going to have to do this for me. You board the 770 the 777, you’re not the only one there. And, in fact, you look around, you’re thinking, look, we’re all trying to get there. Nobody’s flapping, though, like instead, they’re just sitting there. They’re reading, they’re watching the in flight entertainment. They’re eating, they’re drinking, they’re trying to send off one last email before they go on vacation. How can it be? Because it’s not a question of what they’re doing, but where they are. They’re in the airplane. That’s what makes all the difference. So it is with us and Christ, we cannot get to Paradise. I’m not talking about Cancun, I’m talking about the real one. Okay, we cannot get to Paradise on our own. We cannot fly from death to eternal life, from grief to hope, from sin to salvation, on our own. We need to get on a plane of some sort. We need to somehow hide ourselves in Christ so that we can do what this passage talks about, so that we can go with him. He can bring us with him from death to glory. So how do we get on the plane? How do we become united to Christ? Honestly, it looks a lot like boarding a plane, really, because the Bible says the key is trust, which is what you do when you board a plane. I’m pretty sure you will get me from point A to point B. So I’m entrusting myself to you. Some of you a little nervous about that trust. I understand, but there’s an element of trust if you get on the plane, at least. So the key is trust. We don’t flap our spiritual wings trying to fly ourselves to heaven. We actually stop flapping and sit rest in Christ. Listen to how Paul puts it in Romans, five, one and two. He says, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus, Christ, through whom we have gained access. That’s the boarding pass. Right our acts we get to get on how, through whom we have gained access, by faith, into this grace, right, into this not only mercy that we receive. We’re not receiving the punishment that we deserve, but grace meaning we’re given this reward that we certainly don’t deserve, but that Christ deserved for us, we gain access by faith, by trusting what Jesus did in our place, he is our boarding pass and the plane on which we fly, and I got great news for you today. The gate’s still open. Maybe it’s a final boarding call. I don’t know for you, I do know you don’t have to wait until they call your group number. You can just go. We can just go like go right now. Climb on board even today. Believe the information that Paul gives us here, all three pieces of it, grieve the brokenness that you see in the world, but especially the brokenness that you see in you. Like, acknowledge your sin, your narcissism, your selfishness, whatever you want to call it, then, trust in Jesus, who died for your sins, this beautiful exchange that takes place. We hand him our sin, he hands us His perfection. He takes our punishment. We receive his reward. Trust in Jesus, who died for your sins and then rose again in victory, which brings you then to hope in the promise of new forever life, a world remade without sin, without guilt, without shame, without suffering and without death. You want to see what this looks like, what a life changing encounter with Jesus looks like. Well, I’d encourage you to read the man on the middle cross. Again. We got a couple 100 copies out there for you. Just grab one. It’s very short. You can read it standing up. But read these three stories, see what Jesus can do for you. Also, you could just talk to any of us. Maybe it’s the person who invited you here this morning, like we would love to share our stories with you about how Christ changed everything for us. He can do that for you. So our takeaway today and then it’s that right there, put your hope in Jesus, who died and rose for you. The message of Easter is so good, and it is filled with such hope, but the message of Easter demands a response that’s not information you can just hear and go that was interesting. It demands a response, like you need to board or you will get left behind in sin and death. But there is hope, and the hope is real. Jesus’s resurrection changes everything. We can grieve differently, because now we who believe have that hope, death doesn’t win. It’s not the final word happiness, when you think about it, happiness is so chancy, isn’t it? It depends on happenstance, like perhaps things will go well for me, you notice that word hap keeps showing up in all those that means luck in Old English. Do you really want it to depend on luck? Happiness is so chancy, but hope is resolute because it’s fixed on what’s eternally true. You are going to grieve. You’re going to have to grieve. You have every reason to grieve, but you don’t need to be overwhelmed by your grief, by the brokenness around you, like when darkness overwhelms, even literally, like when you’re stuck in the dark. What do you do? Terrified, depressed, whatever you start, you know, sweeping it away. You close your eyes, pretend it’s not there. You try harder to improve yourself. No, when darkness overwhelms, you turn on the light, and the darkness flees. And Jesus said, I am the light of the world. And he brings light and life to all who trust in Him, to everyone who gets on that plane. He brings hope. That’s not only the most important but the very best information I or anyone can give you today. Let’s pray, Lord this Easter morning. Indeed, we do grieve because we see the brokenness of the world, but we see the brokenness in our own hearts and lives and minds as well. We know that something is wrong. We are so glad to hear that you have set that wrong thing right that you sent Jesus into the world to be the cure for our sin sickness. He died in our place, but you raised Him from the dead as proof of his victory over the sin and death that plague us. God, I pray that in this moment, you would open every eye in this room to see that truth. You would open every heart to believe that truth and trust in Jesus and that then you would fill our lives with hope in you to the glory of your name, amen.