StSq2 2.60 Amen. Amen. So, Well, good morning. Welcome to Greenville ARP. We're so glad that you are here, those of you here in the sanctuary as well as live streaming in the fellowship hall. I would like to draw your attention to the announcements on page five and six. So if you will turn there on page six, there is a new members class. on Sunday, March 16th. So if you or someone you know might be interested in joining this church, please contact Reverend Matoka to join that class. Also, I saved the date. Um, the 2025 fellowship retreat will be held May the 2nd through the 4th at Bond Clark, and that is a highlight of our church calendar every year. And registrations will open next weekend, I believe. So mark your calendars and go ahead and get registered for that. It's widely attended and much enjoyed. Also, another event that is very popular is Vacation Bible School, and so you should have an insert about that, but please make note of the dates there. It opens April 16th for member registration, and it's important if you want to participate in that, because then non-member registration opens up after that. So again, welcome, and let's turn our hearts to God. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Hiding under a bushel, no, I'm gonna let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine. Don't let Satan get out. I'm gonna let it shine. Don't let Satan get out. I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Amen. Thank you, children. Please stand with us as we hear the Lord now call us to public worship and gather us together. You can find this call printed in your bulletin. We'll use this responsive call together from Psalm 107. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. Let us pray now together to our God. God, we come to you this morning And we thank you so much that you have shown unto us in the Lord Jesus Christ, that one who is the light of the world. that even though we were people who walked in darkness, O God, you have called out to us. You have gathered us, and you promise, even as we rehearse this morning, as we gather from all different walks of life, from all over our city and our county, O God, you are a gathering of people to yourself from all nations, from every language and tribe and people group. And so we come to You, O God, we call out to You just as You have called first to us. We invoke Your name, O Lord, that You would come now and dwell in this place. That as we worship You in spirit and in truth, O God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, You would be here. That You would help us as we train our hearts and our affections more upon the Lord Jesus Christ. as we seek to see Him high and lifted up and exalted even above the heaven of the heavens. O Lord, we thank You that You have drawn close to us. Though You are a great and transcendent God, You have come down. You've been made like us in every way, yet without sin. That even as we feel the woes and the weaknesses and the trials and tribulations in this world, oh God, we take comfort. We take heart knowing that you sympathize with our weaknesses. that You know our frame, that You remember us, O Lord, even as we come to remember Your Sabbath. And so, God, we ask humbly this morning that You would indeed help us to remember that You've made this day holy, that we might find our rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we ask, as we rehearse this gospel hour this morning, that you would make us, through the power of your spirit, more and more like the Lord Jesus, even as we gather our voices now to say that perfect prayer that he taught us to say. 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, Let us continue in our worship as you take the red hymnal in your pew and we'll sing number 408, For All the Saints. who lead by faith before the world of death. Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. Alleluia! Alleluia! Thou in the darkness deliver one to light. Alleluia! Alleluia! Oh, may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold, fight as the same. Alleluia. Oh, bless the union, fellowship divine. We weep, we struggle, faith will reshine. Let all the world Still standing in the midst of triumph's song, and hearts all brave, the red and gold trumps strong. Alleluia! Alleluia! Soon, soon, soon, faithful, warriors come and rest. Sweet is the calm of night. God love and praise, God love and praise. Oceans far and strong. As we continue our act of worship to a most holy God, it's good and right and appropriate for us to reflect a little bit on our own shortfallings, our own sin. And we do this not to harshly criticize ourself or to focus on the negative, but to force us out of ourselves and seeking righteousness in another, and that is namely Jesus Christ himself. So take some time now, to privately confess your sins and then we'll join together with the corporate confession printed on the middle of page three. Join with me. Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve your present and eternal punishment. We have these words of assurance from Psalm 147. The psalmist writes, the Lord builds up Jerusalem. He gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Great is the Lord and abundant in power. His understanding is beyond measure. And he heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds through the precious work of our Redeemer, through his death, his burial, and his resurrection, which cleanses and purifies us in his sight. Praise be to our God. We'll continue to worship our God through our offerings and tithes. ♪ Nature is singing, art listening ♪ ♪ All creation sings praise for Jesus our King ♪ ♪ Flowers are blooming, earth is reborn ♪ ♪ All things are new this glorious morn ♪ ♪ Once there was nothing ♪ ♪ Barren and brown was the earth ♪ Then the green grass grew and flowers appeared ♪ Now everywhere is new earth ♪ Nature is singing, art is stunning ♪ All creation sings praise for Jesus our King ♪ Flowers are blooming ♪ Earth is reborn ♪ ♪ All things are new ♪ ♪ This glorious morn ♪ ♪ Nature is singing ♪ ♪ Glory listening ♪ ♪ All creation sings praise ♪ ♪ Lord Jesus our King ♪ ♪ Flowers are blooming ♪ ♪ Earth is reborn ♪ All things are new, this glorious morn. All things are new, this glorious morn. Thank you again to our children. If you'll please rise, we're going to join together in affirming, together with Christians throughout history, the fundamentals of our faith. Brothers and sisters, what is it that you believe? I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, and Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He ascended into hell. 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 hence he shall come to judge. Let's pray again together. Lord God Almighty, you are our Heavenly Father. King Jesus, you are our Savior. Holy Spirit, you are our helper. We hallow and praise your name. May your kingdom continually come to earth through us, your church here at Greenville ARP. Lord, we have a 2025 ministry theme of growing together by devoting ourselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the fellowship like we read in Acts 2. So help us, O God, to pursue you daily in scripture reading and prayer, to absorb your character and better reflect your grace and truth in all that we say and do inside this Greenville AARP family to each other and outside into our local community and beyond into the broader world. Equip our shepherding elders to lead well and be attentive to the needs and concerns of your people in this congregation. Oh, Holy Spirit, please motivate each member to be active and engaged as a welcoming family of reformed believers growing in Christ and sharing your joy for your glory. For those of our Greenville A. R. P. Family that are sick or hurting. Oh, God, would you comfort and heal them? We specifically lift up to you. Alan Avera, Maurice and Martha Beckham, Billy Brady, Cynthia Cook, Deb Culbertson, Ken Gamble, Allison Greer, Hannah Gell, Hogan Harrison, Anne Huckabee, Robert David Junker, Teresa Lewis, Paul Presley, Nell Renew, Jeff Sartain, Tanya Shoffner, and Anne Devlin. We lift World Witness and all of our ARP denominational agency leaders up to you, as well as our General Senate We pray for our community, state, and national leaders. May your will be done through them. We also pray for an end to the war in Ukraine and for each person affected by it. We pray, oh God, for a faithful and enriching Lenten season as we approach Easter. Thank you for the truth of the gospel as we look ahead in awe of the crucifixion and resurrection. Eternal God, we praise you, we love you, we trust you. So keep us near to you as we continue in our worship and help us, Holy Spirit, to carry the word of truth deep into our hearts and minds. Bless us with rest on this Lord's day, for in you, Jesus, we find peace in knowing that our eternal place with you is secure. For it's in your name that we pray, amen. Invite our children to come down forward and meet me for our children's message right down here. As they're joining me up front, just a reminder for all of us that right after our children's message, our children are welcome to go to extended learning time, and then we'll begin as a congregation singing our next hymn unannounced. Well, I am so glad to see you boys and girls this morning. Come on down, come on down. I have a Bible verse just for you all. Pastor Todd's gonna preach from a passage in just a few minutes, but I think this verse is so good just for you all to hear this morning. It's 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 13. So 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 13. So y'all listen up and listen carefully. The Apostle Paul tells us as God inspires him through the Spirit, we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. You know, hope is a wonderful word. What does it mean to hope for something? Does anybody know? What does it mean to hope for something? It's tricky. Hope means you long for something that is expected to come. It's not wishful thinking. Well, I just wish that I won the lottery and had all the money in the world. Or I just wish right now that there were a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts that we could all share. No, hope is longing for something that we expect to happen. So I've got something up here, and I bet you all know what it is. Might look different, and you might have one that's shaped like a cool animal or cartoon character. You see the back of it? I'll give you a hint. What do you think this is? It's kind of a plug. A light, very good. This is a nightlight. We plug it into the wall, and then at night, when we go to sleep, it comes on so that we can see. Now, I've got a question for you all. Why do we have nightlights? That way we can see. Yeah, that way we can see. Why can't we see at night? What do you think? Because it's really dark. Yeah. Now, let me ask you another question. Are y'all afraid of sleeping? No, we're not afraid to sleep. What are we afraid of? The dark. Let me tell you a secret, boys and girls. You ready? I'm gonna look up at them for just a minute, but y'all listen, okay? All of these beautiful people out here are afraid of the dark too. It's true. We're all afraid of the dark. I guarantee you. Now we are smart and sophisticated and we make electricity and lights and all of these things. But if there were no lights and no electricity and no one around us, every single one of us would be afraid of the dark. But you know what's a wonderful thing? God gives us not just a nightlight. What did our beautiful little children sing about just a minute ago? Jesus, the light of the world and his light in us. And Paul tells us something very important. We have nightlights. to help us remember that after we wake up, after we go to sleep, the sun's gonna rise and it will be morning again and we will wake up. And you know, it's funny, Paul is actually talking about people who have died here. He says, we don't want you to be uninformed about those who are asleep, but he's really talking about people who've died. And the reason why he says we can have hope is because what happens after we go to sleep? What happens in the morning? What do you think? What happens? We wake up. We wake up. And here's something I want all of us in the room to hear. Paul's not doing what we typically do. We say, well, they've passed. We soften the blow of death. No, he's not cushioning the reality of death. He's transforming our understanding of that reality. He says later in the passage that we don't mince words, they've died. But their death is really just like sleep. Because if we are in Christ, we can be assured, just like when we put a little nightlight into our plug to remind us that the light is coming again, we will wake up. If we're in Christ, death is but sleep. And we can go to sleep and trust in the Lord and we can wake up. So I want you to pray with me as we remember that. God, we thank you that you are good. and that even though we die, yet shall we live if we believe in Jesus, this one who is the resurrection and the life. We love you and we thank you for Jesus. In his name we pray, amen. O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, The day of grace is here. God shall find my way. We're back in First Thessalonians after a two week break to go over our ministry theme for 2025. And this morning we'll be looking at the end of chapter four. I'm gonna read from verses 13 to 18, and that's page 987 in the Pew Bible if you wanna follow along. Hear the word of our God communicated through the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the Apostle Paul and his friends to the Thessalonians, beginning in chapter four, verse 13. But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. And this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For 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, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 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. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. Let's pray. Our Lord and our God, we thank you for providing this most helpful word, a word written to a group of people who were confused, misinformed, and needed guidance and theological teaching to guide their thinking about the death of loved ones. We pray, oh Lord, that you would instruct us with that same encouraging word. We pray, oh Lord, that you would ground us in the gospel fundamentals of the death and the burial and the resurrection of Christ and the significance that that has for us in our death, burial, and future resurrection. We pray this all in Christ's name, amen. A few weeks ago, we held funeral services for two beloved members of our congregation, Paul Gill and David Vickery Sr. Funerals bring into sharp focus our confession of faith. We affirmed our faith in our service. We stated that we believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead, buried. What does that mean to us, that confession? Is it just something that we mindlessly do because it's part of our liturgy and it's something that's expected of us week after week? Or is it vital to how we perceive life? So funerals bring into sharp focus our confession of faith. How we grieve has a lot to say about what we believe. A friend in this congregation who grieved the loss of his sweet and precious wife pointed me to a book called Every Moment Holy. There's a number of volumes in this book, but one particular volume is a collection of liturgies for those who are grieving. And one of the liturgies in the book is titled Morning of the Funeral, a liturgy for a family to to go through before attending a funeral service. How helpful is that? And I wanna read some of this liturgy. Begins like this. How long, O Christ, till our love no longer ends in weeping? How long till you have destroyed this shroud of death that covers all peoples and breaks all fellowship? and brings such griefs to your children. How long, O Lord, how long? O Christ, who reclaims what we have lost, even here at the epicenter of our sorrow, kindle afresh our eternal hope. Remind us that this song of lament that we sing today will not endure. The Holy Spirit's purpose in inspiring Paul and his friends to write these verses at the end of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 is to do this very thing mentioned in this liturgy for the morning of a funeral, to encourage us in our grief and to kindle afresh our eternal hope to refocus us, to reorient us, not on the chaos of the emotions that we feel at the present time, but on the sure and certain foundation of the work of the gospel of Christ. So we're gonna look at this text under three headings. The first is this, an unsettling thought. But we do not want you to be uninformed brothers about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do, who have no hope. What you'll learn if you do a deep dive into first and second Thessalonians, is that this is a people who are ready, hyper-focused, on Christ's return, Christ's second coming. Christian communities often have pet doctrines, doctrines that consume more study and attention and get us somewhat off balance a little bit. What do you think the Reformed Church's pet doctrines are? Well, I would say, at least for people who are fresh to the Reformed faith, it's the powerful teaching of the sovereignty of God. God is sovereign over all, that we believe in a big, mighty God who controls everything in His created universe, even using sin for His own glory. Or maybe another one that consumes us is the doctrine of election, something that we tend to harp on. If you're from a charismatic background, it's probably the gifts of the spirit that become a pet doctrine for you. Baptists, or at least in circles that I was familiar with when I was a Baptist, the focus is on conversion and evangelism. Almost every sermon that I grew up with ended with a gospel call. Beautiful part of the Baptist heritage. But the prize doctrine of the Thessalonians was the second coming of Christ. And we're gonna journey through the last verses of each chapter in 1 Thessalonians. So get your Bible out, refresh your app if you're using an app. There's something interesting about this book. At the end of every chapter, there is a statement about the coming of Christ. Chapter one, verse 10. Paul admonishes them to wait for his son from heaven, the coming of Christ, the second coming. Wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. Be expectant of Christ's second coming. Now, look at the end of chapter two, verse 19. For what is our hope or joy or crown or boasting before the Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy. Then at the end of chapter three, verse 13, Paul writes, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all the saints. In the section that we're looking at, we're not going to read that because we're going to be focusing on it in our sermon. Verses 13 to 18 is all dealing with the Second Coming. And then not at the end of the letter but at the final benediction in chapter 5 verse 23, what do you think the theme is? You know. 523, now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. They were ready and expectant and anticipating Christ to come at any minute of their lifetime. And that's a highly commendable focus. To be honest, I wish I had that focus on the coming of Christ. How different would my life be if I lived each moment of each day thinking, what if Christ comes tomorrow? Wouldn't that change your decisions? Wouldn't that change your focus and your commitment level to the Lord? They lived each hour of each day in anticipation of Christ's quick return. And Jesus prepared them for that in Luke chapter 12, verse 40. Jesus says, you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not know, nor do you expect. Are you ready for Christ to return? Is your life a preparation for eternity with God? Theirs most certainly was. But they were the recipients of a very damaging and harmful message. False teachers were rampant in that time period and as they continue to be in the life of the church. Paul addresses this very clearly in 2 Thessalonians 2. When he says this, chapter two, verse one, now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you brothers not to be quickly shaken of mind or alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has already come. So they're hyper-focused on Christ's coming. And there's these false teachings that, hey, Christ already came and you missed it. How horrifying would that be? This is why I would strongly condemn the teaching of books like the Left Behind series. How comforting and encouraging is that thought? There's a potential that Christ could come and he's gonna secretly take out his elect and leave the rest of you behind. I think Paul would have attacked that teaching like he does some of the other false teaching directed at this suffering, persecuted community in Thessalonica. Has Christ come and we missed it? Like a bad dream. You ever had one of these dreams where you Maybe you got an important interview the next day. Maybe you, for me, when I was playing sports, it was, I have practice, early morning practice, and you have this dream where you wake up in the middle of the night and you're in cold sweats. Maybe it's a big trip. You're going to Australia the next day. You wake up in cold sweats because you dreamed that your alarm didn't go off and you overslept. I hope I'm not the only one that has those kind of dreams. What does that say about my psychology? But it's terrifying, but pales in comparison to thinking that you've missed the coming of Jesus Christ. Particular thing that Paul is dealing with here in this section is the idea, the false teaching, that believers who die before his return miss out on the resurrection. Think of how toxic that teaching would be to grieving Christians. How hopeless of a situation that would be. Now there is some plausibility to these claims, at least in their mind as a young, growing Christian community. And the plausibility comes in the fact that they were a suffering church. And when you are placed under intense suffering, the devil takes hold of that circumstance in your life and starts to plant seeds of doubt. Does God love me if I'm going through these hard situations in life? Has Christ abandoned his lordship over the world? Is this now a season of wrath, of judgment? Because I don't see God at work. All I can see is my sufferings. The devil is a deceiver. and we are vulnerable. And that's why it is so important that you are studying the word of God to protect yourself from false teachings that can disturb your peace and comfort and joy. So that was the misunderstanding that they were facing. What does Paul do? It's our second point. He brings them back to gospel basics. He does this time and time again in pastoral situations where he's counseling people who are dealing with real life situations. He brings them back to Jesus. Paul reorients the troubled, confused, and hopeless believers in Thessalonica And it's a lot like, think of 150 years ago. If you were a sailor, you're in the middle of the ocean and a storm comes up and the waves start to rock the boat and you lose a sense of direction. Like Jonah and his friends when he was on the boat and the storm rises and they throw him overboard. Well, they weren't actually friends. They were just people he was on a boat with. You can lose your sense, your bearings, your sense of direction when there's chaos in the ocean. That's why ancient sailors, ancient mariners used a device called a sextant. And it measured the distance between the horizon and a fixed point. So two fixed points, the horizon and either the sun or a star. And it gave them stability in the constant movement of the waves. We need two fixed points in the waves of grief. And Paul gives us those two fixed points, the death and the resurrection, the death and the resurrection. When we focus on those and their theological importance for our Christian faith, they provide stability, grounding, and hope as we move through the tumultuous sea of grief. What do we believe? What do you believe? Look at what Paul says after discussing their misunderstanding. He says, for since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. What do we believe? Paul begins to speak of or refer to our Savior as Jesus here. Oftentimes he refers to him as Christ or the Lord, but here he's referring to him as Jesus because he's connecting the Thessalonians with the true humanity of their Savior so that they can find comfort knowing that he has gone through the very things that they are called to go through a focus on his humanity. And it begins with his death. Jesus died. And this is a reminder of the fall. The vast majority of us will experience death. In the comparison of all Christians throughout time and space and history, those who are actually alive when Christ returns, compared to those who have died in Christ before his return, They don't even match up. The vast majority of us will experience death. Jesus entered into our plight. He tasted death for us. But when Jesus entered death, he altered, through his crucifixion, he altered the meaning, the purpose, the significance of death. for those who believe in him, for his children. It's no longer tied to judgment for believers. Death is not the beginning of torments for us. Look at chapter five, verse nine. Paul works out some of his theology of Christ's death here. Chapter 5, verse 9, for God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. What is our destiny? What is our future? It's glorious. It's not judgment. It's not condemnation. It's not wrath. And he does it through Jesus Christ. And then in verse 10, how? He does it through Jesus Christ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live in him. Jesus came to change the significance of death. Death is now a door or a pathway or a portal to reconciliation and sweet communion with God. It's the opening that allows us to enter into this new realm of existence where we are free from the fallen world and enjoy the bliss of heaven with God. Jesus died, and that means something for our death. It's something glorious, something positive. But Jesus also rose again, he says. The resurrection is the powerful and public display of Christ's victory over sin and death. We don't believe in the resurrection because it sounds like some impressive thing that we hope will happen. We believe in the resurrection because it has happened. It's historically verifiable. It was public. People saw it. 500 people witnessed Jesus after his resurrection. It's not some flimsy doctrine. it rests on ultimate reality. He is the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. The first gleaning of that full harvest that is yet to come. And therefore we have confidence that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. Our faith rests on historical facts and events, not wishful thinking or religious sentiment. Gospel grieving, Paul tells us here, is not the final goodbye. It's until we meet again. The last thing I want to point out in this text is a glorious reunion Why does Paul use this word sleep? We are asleep. He uses it three times in 13, 14, and 15. We've fallen asleep. Phil already touched on this, so you should be able to answer it. It's a euphemism for death, but it's a calculated choice of words. Paul could have used other words to speak of death. It's meant to encourage the grieving because It communicates a temporary situation. You know what I love to do on a Sunday afternoon? You gotta take a nap. And I'll say, gonna take a nap. And my children and my wife know, well, we're gonna see him again shortly. Maybe not too shortly, depending on how good of a nap it is. That's a beautiful choice of words and encouraging choice of words. And I know it encourages many of you who are grieving over the loss of a spouse or a child or a parent or friend or loved one. I'm gonna see that person again. But it also communicates a rest from labor and struggling. When I take a nap, when I fall asleep, when I go to bed, I stop my work, my labor, my struggling, my wrestling. That's another comforting thought. Our loved ones when they're deceased, it actually is a very, makes you want death in a sense. Do you feel the weight of life on your shoulders? Do you want a break? God's gonna give you a break. That may change your perspective if you start that journey process where death is on the horizon for you. Embracing it, longing for it because of the multitude of blessings that come with it. Then he defines or describes a divine order of events. These are not speculation, but as he says, this is a word from the Lord, an inspired declaration. This is how it's going to be when Christ returns. He's going to descend from heaven, a display of power and rule. And there's this command And the archangel will speak and the trumpet will blow all of these signs of announcing a dignitary. The world is on notice. The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords is coming now. The King has come. And after Christ is announced and he returns from heaven in the clouds, There will be a priority of the dead rising first. It'll be a glorious, most powerful event. Cemeteries will be disturbed with bodies rising up out of them, perfected, beautified, glorified. And they have one intention. They want to find their Lord in the sky and meet with him. And we're gonna see this if we're alive at the time, if it happens tomorrow. And then after they go up and we see them with the Lord, guess what we're going to do? We're going to meet with them. We're going to gather together. So don't think for a minute, if you're tired and sick of your people in this congregation, that you're gonna get away from them. You are stuck with them for eternity. The dead in Christ will rise first, then those who are living will be caught up together with them. And the glorious focus of this text is on communion, communion with the triune God and communion with the saints in heaven. Verse 17, then all who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we collectively will always be with the Lord. Encourage one another with these things. A beautiful moment Monumentous moment in history that will extend into all eternity is the coming of the Lord. And we will be together in sweet, unerupted, beautiful, holy, blissful fellowship with our Lord and with one another. And what that means is there will be a reunion with you and your lost loved ones. So when you grieve, you don't do so as those without hope. You do so as if you're sending your loved one to their nap. It's not bye, it's until we meet again. And that's true because Jesus died and rose. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the comfort of it, the encouragement of it. And I pray for those grieving in our congregation, the loss of loved ones, that your Holy Spirit would inscribe these words upon their hearts, would etch them into their tears as they think of their missed loved ones. and that they would be profoundly encouraged for that is the purpose in which they were written. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. We're gonna stand and sing hymn 476, it is well with my soul. Amen. It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. And Christ has rewarded my helplessness Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. you Depart now with the blessing of the Triune God. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do this. and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, Okay. Okay.