♪ I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said She's here. Good morning. Welcome to Greenville Associate Reform Presbyterian Church. It's very good to have you joining with us for our morning worship service. I wanna welcome those of you who are visiting, especially those who may be visiting us for the first time. It's great to have you and I'd encourage members of our church to make sure if you see an unfamiliar face sitting next to you as you're walking out of the worship hall, say hi and introduce yourself, make everyone feel welcome. Also, thank you or welcome to those who are joining us through our live streaming option or in the fellowship hall. It's good to have you with us this Sunday. Got a couple of announcements I want to highlight. If you'll turn to pages five and six in your bulletin. A reminder that this afternoon at 4 p.m. we will have our Ladies Sunday Bible Study. That's here at the church in the parlor. And everything I've heard about that has been positive, positive reviews. So if you're interested in growing and sharing community with a group of ladies, I would encourage you to come out this Sunday afternoon. Reminder that Greenville schools are on spring break this week, so there will be no Wednesday night activities this week. for spring break. Page six, a reminder that our fellowship, our 2025 fellowship retreat will be held May 2nd to the 4th at Bon Clarkon. And if you are New to the church, if you're in the new members class, this is a great way to connect with people in the church. It gives you a lot of opportunity for downtime, for fellowship time, and you're in the beautiful mountains of Flat Rock, North Carolina. Registration begins today, and you can pick up your registration forms in the fellowship hall or in the upper commons. And then lastly, Vacation Bible School for this year will be held June 15th to 19th. There are these little reminder cards and they are on a table at the back of the church as you're exiting through the double doors. If you weren't here last week, these were in all of the bulletins. If you need one, then please pick one up. And those are all the announcements I have. Let us now turn our attention to worship of God. Praise God, O servants of the Lord. Praise, praise his name with one accord. All bless the Lord, his name adored. From this time forth, forevermore, from this time God calls us into his presence for worship using Psalm 46. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. I will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God for I have my King. Put not your trust in princes and a son of man in whom there is no salvation. Blessed is he whose help is in the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God. Join with me in prayer. Almighty and everlasting God, our heavenly father, we come before you on this beautiful day to worship and to adore you. We thank you so much for sending your eternal son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for clothing him in flesh that he might be a redeemer, a savior for your children. We thank you that he died for us to cleanse us of all of our sins, to take upon his shoulders to the cross all of our guilt and shame, all of our rebellion and sin, and pay the price for it so that we wouldn't have to. We stand before you as a people who are justified in your sight. We thank you also that he rose again and we celebrate that resurrection every Sunday when we come to worship. He has conquered sin and death and the grave. And therefore, because of that historical fact, that historic reality of his resurrection, we have comfort that we too will be raised from the dead. We come before you and thank you also for giving us your Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity, to guide us, to illuminate our minds, and to enlarge our hearts towards you. And we pray, Lord, that as you are gathered here as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you would prepare us to worship you. We come before you now and we pray as Christ taught us with these words. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Turning your hymnals to hymn 239, we'll join together in singing, Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven. Praise, my soul, the King of heaven, to his feet a genuine praise! To our fathers in history. In His hands He gently bears us, rescues us from all our foes. Praise Him! Praise Him! Praise Him! It is gone, but from your tombs rise and perish. Alleluia! Alleluia! ♪ Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him most high, our Lord and King. ♪ Amen, indeed. Let us praise our God. It's good for us as we come into his presence to be reminded that we sit here in comfort in these pews. This is not the only place where we're gathered. As we've just sung, all of the angels of heaven help us to adore him because we are called up with Christ into the heavenly places, even now. As we gather each Lord's day, it is an intersection of eternity and history, where you and I are lifted up to see Christ in all of his fullness. And so it's good for us then to humble ourselves before this King of heaven, If we humble ourselves, we know that the scriptures teach us God himself will exalt us. And we do that each week as we come into his presence and confess our own sin before the Lord. So I invite you now for just a moment, let us pray silently before God to confess our own private sins. And then we'll use the corporate confession found in your bulletin. Let us pray. But now would you pray with me? O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation. There is no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head. Like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. Forsake me, O Lord. O my God, be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation. Our assurance of pardon then, beloved, as we hear the Gospel from God's Word, His voice to ours comes from 2 Corinthians 5. Hear these words. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him, that is Jesus, to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Beloved, let us believe in that gospel today and always. O Thou of God and man, God's Son, Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor, Terror still the woodlands, Robed in the blooming garb of spring. Jesus is never Who makes a poor foe a true savior? still the moonlight, and all the twinkling starry lobes. Jesus shines bright. And all the angels enchant most. Christ, the Lord, is risen! Amen. Excellent. If you'll please stand and join with me as we affirm our faith using the Apostles Creed. Brothers and sisters in Christ, what is it that you believe? The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and stood upon the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the world. So we continue in our worship. I invite you to join with me together in prayer. Lord, our God, we come to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Indeed, you are our beautiful Savior. You are the Lord of all the nations. Indeed, you are the Lord of lords and King of kings, God of God and light of light. Father, as we come to you, we're a needy people. We still dwell in this world that is so ravaged by our own sin. This world that is broken and bruised by the fall. O God, we are still in this world and in a state of sin and misery, longing for that day when our Savior indeed will return. When Jesus will shine brighter and purer with our own eyes, we will see Him. Father, we long for that day. And we pray then, O God, as we have come into your presence to be reminded of your gospel, even to rehearse Your goodness and grace poured out to us and lavished upon us as Your people, as the sheep of Your own pasture, as the children in Your own house. God, we're mindful of all of the things that yet beset us. And so we pray, firstly, O God, that You would indeed cleanse us and renew us. that you would grant unto us clean spirits, right spirits, O Lord, that you would help us to be renewed by the transforming of our minds, that we might be able to discern what is your good and perfect will. And Lord, as we come before you particularly now to intercede in behalf of others, or to pray the pastoral prayer, For those in our church and in our community and in our world, firstly, O God, we pray that you would help us to be reminded that you pray for us. That you intercede for us. That Jesus Christ, even seated upon the throne, both entertains our prayers and requests and dispenses your will by praying for us. And so, God, I pray for comfort for the afflicted. Lord, I pray for those who are downcast, for those who are brokenhearted, for those who are lonely and depressed, who feel as if they're isolated. Though we sit here dwelling together in a great communion of saints through your Spirit, through our baptism, that you are our one Lord, So often, oh God, we can feel distant, far apart. And so I pray that you would come and mend our hearts, that you would come and alleviate our affliction, that you would point us heavenward, that we would see the Lord Jesus Christ, that we would be filled with the hope of heaven, that the words of eternal life would pour over our souls like a balm from your river of life. But God, I pray also for those who are particularly afflicted in this age. We feel not just the besetting of our own sin or the consequences of living in this fallen world, but even in our bodies, oh Lord, we feel the brokenness of this world, that things are not right. And so I pray for those that we keep on our prayer list. I particularly pray for Alan Avra, for Maurice and Martha Beckham, for Billy Brady and Cynthia Cook, for Deb Culbertson, for Ann Devlin, for Ken Gamble and Allison Greer, for Hannah Gell, for Hogan Hairston, for Ann Huckabee, for Robert David Junker, for Teresa Lewis and Paul Presley, for Nell Renew, Jeff Sartain, Tonya Shoffner. Oh Lord, particularly for these, would you bring healing and strength and restoration Would You help them as they recover or as they endure treatments? Various ailments of the body, I pray that You would lift them up and give them perseverance. That Your Spirit would come in special measure and gird them and help them to endure this trial. And Lord, help us as a church to come alongside them and pray for them faithfully, to lift them up and to be the hands and feet of Christ and to meet their physical needs and material needs and to encourage them with a kind word spoken. But Lord, even this morning, we pray beyond these things, particularly that you would help us in this gospel hour, that you would equip us that we would be reminded of the coming day of the Lord Jesus Christ. That we would understand with eyes open and hearts made ready, with feet shod with the gospel. Oh God, help us to see that Jesus Christ will return like a thief in the night. And though we pray on the one hand that Jesus would come quickly, that oh Lord we must be ready for Him to come quickly. And I pray then, O God, that you would turn our eyes now to the Lord Jesus, that we would indeed look full in His wonderful face that shines so brightly, so purely, that all of the angels of heaven would pale in comparison, that the things of this world would grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace, that we indeed might be encouraged to be made ready That we would have our lips full of the things of Christ, our minds filled with the glories of Christ, our hearts opened with the things that move Christ, that we might see those around us who yet do not know him, that we all would proclaim. the excellencies of his name. And father, we pray that you would do all of this through the power of your Holy Spirit. Even now we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Children, if you'll come forward for our children's message and a reminder, we will sing our next hymn immediately after this, and that's hymn 386. And our children will depart with Miss Kay and Miss Joy to extended learning time during the first stanza of that hymn. Everybody doing all right? Do y'all have spring break? Anybody have spring break this week? You do? All right. You do? That's good. Some people have it a little later. You got it in a couple of weeks, maybe. Yeah. Spring break is fun, and especially with the weather turning as beautiful as it is. Are any of you jokesters? I know you two are. You are. Do you like scaring people? You do? Oh, Matthew doesn't. You hide behind something and jump out and they, ah! You know Pastor Phil back there, right? One day I was walking into the church office after lunch, and by Mr. TJ and Ms. Evelyn's office, you know where the clear glass is? There's those two big chairs. And I was minding my own business, not doing anything wrong to anybody, and he jumped out from behind one of those chairs and scared me. And I screamed and I did a karate chop. Tried to chop his nose. What do you think about that? You think it's funny, don't you? It scared me. Do y'all like being scared? You like doing it. Do you like to be scared? You do, okay. But you know what's really fun is when you know somebody is trying to scare you, like you see them getting into a position where they're going to hide and you get the better hand on them, you're prepared, aren't you? You ever done that? See a brother or sister or friend trying to scare you? Yeah, she protects herself. She's like, she's ready. She knows she's not going to be scared. Yeah. So you know Jesus in the passage we are looking at this morning in 1 Timothy chapter 5, Paul says that Jesus is going to come like a thief in the night. Do you know when a thief in the night is coming? No you don't know do you? Just like sometimes when people try to scare you, you are not prepared. But he also, and that's for unbelievers, people that don't know Jesus. He's gonna come like a thief in the night when they're least expecting him to come. But he also says a little further on in that passage that that's not how it's gonna be for us. We're not gonna be surprised like a thief in the night when Jesus comes again. We're gonna be prepared because Jesus, we know he's coming, don't we? And we're supposed to live every day of our life in preparation for His coming. And another reason it's not gonna be scary, when you think of a thief in the night, why is that scary? Because they're meant to take your possessions, they're trying to do harm to you. What's Jesus gonna do when He comes? Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be a beautiful day, Because it's not a day of judgment for us. It's a day when we get to spend time with our God. We're reunited with brothers and sisters who have passed away before us. It's gonna be a wonderful, wonderful day. But we're not gonna be surprised by it because Jesus has already let us know, be ready. I can come at any time and the Spirit, the Holy Spirit helps us to think about that. All right, so let's pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you that in your revealed word, you tell us that Jesus is coming. And in our hearts, we know that truth and your Spirit helps us by preparing us for his coming. And I pray Lord, if we are a little sluggish and a little slow to Adopt that and prepare our hearts for that second coming that you would train us and prepare us more and more. And help us to see it as a beautiful, wonderful day, not a day in which we are scared, but a day in which we rejoice. For Jesus is coming, not to judge us, but to enable us and to welcome us into his beautiful kingdom. And I pray that these children would experience that as well. We pray in Christ's name, amen. All right. we shall overcome. come to judgment far away. Our redemption, God expected, see in Solomon our King. All his saints, by man rejected, Turning your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. We'll be covering the first 11 verses. And again, we're on the theme of Jesus' second coming. Hear the word of our God to his people. Now concerning the times and seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying there is peace and security, Then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief, for you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober, For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. Let's pray. Our Lord and our God, we thank you for your word, word of comfort, word to prepare us for that sudden coming of our Lord and Savior. But a reminder, Lord, that we are to encourage and build each other up with these words. They're not there to frighten us, to terrorize us, but to remind us of the powerful significance of Christ's death and what it means for us, that we are no longer under the wrath of God, but we are now adopted into the family of God. And that day will be a joyous occasion. Help us not to live as those who are in darkness, but as those who are children of the light. We pray in Christ's name, amen. Over the last two weeks, we've been studying the theme related to the end times. And that's a theme of great, a theological theme of great curiosity. We've discussed questions like when will our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ return for his final time? Has it already happened? What happens to those who die before he returns? These were all questions on the minds of the believers in Thessalonica. Theologians refer to this field of study as eschatology, a very big, pompous term. Not one that a lot of us are accustomed to using in our normal There are a number of views about the end times, mainly centered around the relationship of Christ's return to the millennial reign that was revealed in Revelation chapter 20. Maybe you've heard of some of these terms. They're the premillennialists. and they divide into two sub camps. There's the historic pre-millennialist and the dispensational pre-millennialist. Then there's the post-millennialists and the a-millennialist. Which camp do you fall in? The fact is good men and women and good students and scholars of theology take up any of these positions. One of them is not necessarily superior to others. Some people spend a lot of time and energy studying these things. But I would suggest to you this, that we tend to get into trouble when we press for precise answers and details about the end times. And what's a sad part of this is sometimes it leads to division. Well, if you're not, I'm an all-millennialist, and if you're a dispensational post-millennialist or pre-millennialist, or you're a post-millennialist, then I've got grave concerns about your understanding of scripture. We're dealing with things that are hard to understand. We need to learn to live with mystery rather than full comprehension on things. We need to learn to live with the unknown, with a childlike trust in God. The apostolic mindset was much more simplistic. What we need to know is that Jesus is coming and we need to be ready. Now, everybody in a congregation can relate to that. You may not have all of the answers for the relationship of Christ coming to the millennium. You may not know all of the detailed arguments, but do you know that Jesus is coming? And are you ready? That's what Paul and his friends are after in this section. First thing we see here is a sudden return in verses one to four. It's interesting, isn't it? This obsession with trying to determine dates and times for Christ's return. Humans are nosy creatures. We want to know things. And this is a big event, isn't it? The most monumentous event in the world. When is it gonna happen? Does the scripture give us little clues that we can Spin together and relate so that we can find out and determine when Christ is coming. Many have ventured to guess. Joseph Smith predicted 1891. Does that make him a false prophet? I think it probably does. It's interesting, some of our beloved hymn writers, TJ, I don't know if you knew this, but they, Had a fascination with predicting end times. John Wesley, any idea when he thought the end time would come? 1836, he missed it by a good bit. Now there is one hymn writer who we may need to listen to, John Newton, 2060. Maybe in some of our lifetime then, we'll see. What did the Apostles teach? They teach that no one knows when he's going to come. Now concerning the times and the seasons, that's biblical lingo for the end time. Concerning the times and the seasons, brother, you have no need to have anything written to you, for you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying there is peace and security, then suddenly destruction will come upon them. And in these opening verses, he's primarily dealing with those outside of Christ, the unbelievers, those who have rejected the gospel, who see no need of a savior, whose hearts are hardened toward God. It will come like a thief in the night. And this is taken directly from Jesus teaching tradition. We find it in Matthew 24 and in Luke 12. You don't know when a thief in the night is gonna come. That's the whole point. That's his whole job. He comes when you don't expect it. You know the movie Home Alone, the first one, the best one. Peter and Kate McAllister wouldn't have boarded the flight to Paris had they known that the thief in the night was coming. And the whole issue with Kevin being left alone would have never happened. And that multimillion, maybe even billion dollar movie would not have been written. You don't know when the thief in the night is coming. We don't know precisely when Jesus is coming, but we do know he's coming. Deuteronomy 29, 29 is a helpful passage in this regard. Moses writes, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, the precise timing of His Second Coming. That is God's prerogative. He knows and He hasn't given us the privy to know those things. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. Christ will come when everything seems to be going well. When people say that there is peace and there is security. This time period that Paul writes, and you remember this is a Roman colony, a Roman city in Thessalonica. And it was during the Pax Romana. When things in the Roman Empire were good, it was the Roman peace, a season, a golden era for the Roman Empire. Things were going smoothly. It's when your 401k is going to be flushed. The stock market is on the rise. Your family will be prospering. Your work will be going great. Life is good. and then Christ will come. And it's a dreadful day for the unbeliever. The day of the Lord is a technical term for the day of judgment. It's apocalyptic language used by many of the prophets specifically. We find it in Amos and Joel and Jeremiah and Isaiah. Isaiah refers to it synonymous language. He calls it the terror of the Lord. And again, Paul is writing about the unbeliever. He's not talking to the church about what this day is going to look like for them in these opening four verses. It's a day when, think about this, for the unbelieving world, every deed, every word, every thought, of the unbeliever will be weighed against the perfect law of God. Every keystroke on your search engine will be revealed. Every hidden and secret thought in your mind will come to light. Could you imagine if that was the day of the Lord for you. I would be horrified. For you to be privy to my every thought, you should be horrified. A dreadful day. God will bring swift and just punishment. His wrath will be poured out and there will be nothing pleasant about this day of the Lord for the unbeliever. But Paul shifts gears in verse five and we see in our second point of the sermon, a people ready. Listen to what he says. Sudden destruction will, Pay very careful attention to the language. In verse four he says, sudden destruction will come upon who? Them, them. His whole purpose in this section is to provide encouragement and comfort. It's not coming upon you, it's coming upon them. Then in verse four he says, but you are not in darkness, brothers. for that day to surprise you like a thief, verse five, for you are the children of light, children of the day. We're not of the night or of the darkness, so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we, not them, but we belong to the day, let us be sober, a people ready ready for Christ's coming. Paul shifts his focus to the believers. But you, this was them, but now I'm talking to you, you who have put your trust in Christ. And he begins by reminding us of who we are. our identity in Christ. And we need this pressed into our souls so much because we live in a culture that is in identity crisis. Who are you? In your most fundamental identity, let me ask you, who are you? If you have put your trust in Jesus Christ, if you know you're a sinner, you deserve the wrath of God, and to be saved from that, you are looking to Christ, then who are you? He begins by talking about who we are not. We're not in darkness. We're not of the night, we're not of darkness. These terms describe the unbelieving world, those living their life apart from God or agnostic towards God, in rebellion, not submissive to the Lord Jesus Christ. They're in darkness because they lack knowledge from God. They're blinded to spiritual truths and life. They're not submitting themselves and searching the scripture for answers about life and its meaning and its purpose. They're dead in their trespasses and sins. Paul says, categorically, that's not you. You are not a people of darkness anymore. That may have been what you formerly were, but that's not who you are now. Who are we then? We're children of light, children of the day. Turn back to chapter one, verse four. This is a really comforting little verse, little nugget of spiritual truth tucked away in this opening chapter. Listen to what Paul declares to this congregation of believers in Thessalonica. For we know, Paul says, I know this, for we know, brothers, loved by God, you are loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit. with full conviction. How does Paul know that? Because they responded to the Gospel. They repented. They turned away from idols as he describes in the last couple of verses of chapter 1. You were born again. You believe the gospel. Your life is transformed. You are a new creation in Christ. You're not linked with Adam anymore. That's death. You're linked with Christ. Life, light, truth. The light of God's grace has shone on us much like In a symbolic way, Paul on the road to Damascus had the light shine upon him. We see God. Maybe not fully, maybe not perfectly. That'll come at a later date. But we see him now. We see his son. We know who Jesus is. We know what he came to do. We know why we need him. We possess the spirit. Who we are, Our identity, who we are always precedes what we do. Always in scripture. You aren't who you are by what you do. You are who you are and that's why you do what you do. It's a very subtle but important distinction. We are always, who we are always precedes what we do. There's a call now in this text to live consistently with our identity. So he tells us that we're the children of the light. And we're not of the night or of darkness. So what do we do? We're children of the light. So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. Let us be prepared for the coming of Christ. I know everybody's got their own football team that they love and their college team that they love, but I'm going to just have to pick one, and I'm not going to pick my favorite, so it's unbiased. Cade Klubnick. Who is Cade Klubnick? He's the quarterback for the Clemson Tigers. That's his identity, isn't it? And how do you know that that's his identity? Because on a Saturday, if it's a home game, he's either got his purple or orange jersey on. If it's a road game, he's got the white with the orange or purple numbers on it. And he's got the helmet with the tiger paw. That's his identity. And on a Saturday morning, as Clemson fans, which are some of you, I don't know if we'd call you in the dark or in the light. We could debate. But on a Saturday morning, do you want him to be consistent with his identity? His identity is throw the football to the team with the same colors on that you're wearing. Now we may give him grace, he may throw a couple of interceptions a game, but if he's going eight for 10 throwing interceptions, we got a problem. He's confusing his identity. He's not living according to what he's supposed to be doing. He should be throwing to the guys in orange consistently. Now we do have grace. So we do understand that there may be some interceptions every game. We are baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is the outward symbol of our identity as children of God. We need to be living according to that identity. Now we may throw some interceptions so to speak, We may live inconsistency, inconsistently with that identity occasionally, but we shouldn't be going eight for 10 for the side of the darkness or of the devil or of our flesh. We should be battling against it. We should be preparing for the coming of our Lord. Yes, sin still happens and we can get Sluggish in our spirituality. But our lives should never be characterized by darkness. That's what Paul's saying, isn't it? You're children of the light. Live as children of the light. Put on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of hope. of salvation. Be who you are. Be consistent. Let us not sleep. Sleep is a blissful ignorance of the approaching day of the Lord. We're unaware to what's approaching. We know His coming could be at any time, and therefore we are ready. Let us be sober, not drunk. Drunkenness is an activity of the night in their culture. You remember Acts 2 15 in Peter's sermon and you had the speaking in tongues and he's like, what's going on? People are like, they're drunk. And Peter says, what do you mean they're drunk? That's a night activity. It's the middle of the day. Even in our culture, that's abnormal. That would be shocking. That's what people do at night. We need to live as people of the day. And then lastly, I wanna comfort you with these words, a glorious destiny in verses nine to 11. It's a day of wrath, a day of judgment, a day, as he describes here, of destruction for the unbeliever, but what is this day of Christ's return like for us, for those who put their trust in Jesus? Remember, the goal here is encouragement. Verse 11, therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. Look at verse nine. For God has not destined us for wrath. Man, that's good. That's really good. God has not destined us for wrath. but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus. And what did Jesus do to help us escape from wrath? Well, it says in verse 10, he died for us. So that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him. This is why Christians should long for the day of Christ's coming. All of the details, the sorted details of our sinful behavior has been taken care of 2025 years ago at Calvary. Christ took all of our sins and bore the wrath of God, the destruction of God's holiness so that we wouldn't have to, so that we would be saved and shielded from that. Our destiny is not wrath. But you say, I don't know, sometimes I'm so aware of my sin and my shortcoming. I don't serve God as well as I should. I'm slow and sluggish spiritually. I'm far from the servant of Christ that I wish I could be. How am I shielded from the wrath I so obviously deserve? what's through Jesus Christ. He moved back our judgment day so that the day of his coming is a day of rejoicing, a blissful, joyful occasion. It's a day of salvation. God's wrath for all my sin was poured out on my Savior. And he said, it is finished. That's good news, brothers and sisters. That makes me excited, eager, and expectant of his coming. But are we living like we're ready? Are we living as children of the day, or are we living in darkness? Let us pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your word. We so need, so desperately need it because your word is living and it plants seeds in our souls that your Holy Spirit waters and helps to flourish in faith and in works of service to you. Help us to live as children of the day, not as children of the light. We know that Jesus is coming. We may not have the specific details of when, but help us to be ready, ready for him to be here at any time. We pray this in Christ's name, and we ask that you would help us. In his name we pray, amen. We'll conclude with hymn 390, Christ is Coming. Please stand. Christ is born in heav'nly astronomy. Christ is born in heav'nly astronomy. Christ is coming, come, our lonesome pestilence. Earth, remember, tell the story of thy bitter cross and pain. She shall get thee for thy glory, Christ is coming! Christ is coming! This is the joy of to-be-lived! With the blessed hope before us, Let's part now with the blessing of the triune God. The grace, the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all now and forever. Amen. His now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. th th