Let's look at verse 13 again
of 1 Thessalonians 4. I would not have you to be ignorant,
brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not,
even as others which have no hope. Now when it comes to Christ
and his gospel, only ignorance can bring this kind of sorrow. And I say that because if we
are not ignorant of Christ and who he is and what he's done
and why he did it, what he's doing now, where he is now, we can't sorrow like this, not
as others who have no hope. It's impossible. Only ignorance
can cause that to happen. If you know him, you know what
he said, There can really only be joy. That's why the exhortation
is to rejoice in the Lord always. Not just once a day, not just
most of the time. Always. Rejoice in the Lord always. There can't be ignorance if we're
gonna do that. See that here? Sorrow as a believer
is a result of not knowing. And I wanna make something clear.
It doesn't mean that you don't know it as a matter of fact,
that you're ignorant of it in the sense of doctrinal understanding. If somebody asked you the question,
you could answer it right. But that's one thing, and knowing
something in the moment, knowing something when it counts, Knowing something when you need
to know it is another thing altogether. It's another thing altogether
now. We know as a matter of fact that Christ is the master of
the storm, but when the storm comes, do we forget that? It's
easy to forget for a time. That's why Simon said, it's expedient
for you that I always put you in remembrance of these things.
That's why we come together. That's why we hear of Christ,
to put perspective on everything, because Christ is the perspective
of everything. We have to see the world. We
have to see our whole lives. We have to see every circumstance
in light of who's on the throne in light of the fact that he's
loved us with an everlasting love, in light of the fact that
he works everything for our good, in light of the fact that he's
worthy of our worship all the time. Remember when the disciples on
the road to Emmaus were so sad? In Luke chapter 24, he asked
them, why are you so sad? Why are you walking along talking
to one another and you're so sad? And they told him about
their Lord being crucified. But why were they sad? Remember
what the Lord told them? Oh fools and slow of heart to
believe. It was ignorance. that made them sad, and that's
our text. Ignorance equals sorrow. This
is not something to be cold about because all of us are ignorant.
It's not something to be accusatory of one another about. None of
us know anything as we ought to know. We're all slow to believe.
It's just something to be aware of and to encourage one another
in. to remind ourselves of our Lord's rebuke of them and his
exhortation and his comforting of their hearts. And notice the text does not
say that we don't sorrow. It doesn't say that. Our Lord
Jesus Christ wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Hope does not erase sorrow. but it does make all the difference
in how we sorrow. All the difference. I'll tell you this, it may not
make any difference in how long we sorrow, or how hard we sorrow, but it makes a difference in
how we sorrow. To sorrow with hope, and to sorrow
without hope are two different things. Many of us have had to
go to the funerals of loved ones that we cared deeply about and
we didn't have much hope for them. If we're honest with ourselves,
we didn't have any hope for them. It was manifest that they hated
God in all of their life, to the very end of their lives.
And we're not the judges of such things, but we can be the observers
of such things. That's scriptural. But to sorrow with hope does not mean to grieve but only
a little bit. That's not what it means. That's
going to depend on the measure of love, isn't it? You can't
put a timeframe on grief. That's not how it's different.
That's not how it's different. And I'll tell you this, it's
one or the other, isn't it? You sorrow with hope or you sorrow
without. And think of the terrible weight
of these words, no hope. And let me ask us this question.
How many times can a sinner sorrow with no hope before they look to the Savior, before they give themselves to
Him. Can a sinner really see someone
they love die and go to hell and then go on defying God in
their own lives and in their own hearts? And yet it's a very
common thing. Very common to do that. Only grace can convince a sinner. Only grace. Why do the brethren, and that's
the word in our text that distinguishes those who sorrow differently,
the brethren, why do the brethren sorrow differently? Because we have, by the grace
of Almighty God, cast ourselves Upon the sweet mercy of the God
of all grace, we look to him in sorrow. We encourage ourselves
in the Lord. David, when he was sunk as low
as David had ever sunk, it says he encouraged himself in the
Lord. When he couldn't encourage himself
in any other aspect, in any other way, for any other reason, he
encouraged himself in the Lord. We sorrow differently because
we know that he does everything well. He does all things right. Doesn't that make a difference? He's the one that did it. Notice
we've cast ourselves upon the mercy and grace of the almighty
God, the one who says, I kill and I make alive. That's primary. We don't blame it on mother nature. It wasn't in the stars. It wasn't
an accident. It was God. And that's why we sorrow differently. As I've said to you before, we
can't say things like, oh, he went too soon. No, he didn't. No, she didn't. She went at the
appointed time. And God's the one that took them.
And we know that he does all things well. Does that matter?
Does that make a difference? He does everything right and
at the right time and in the right way for the right reason. We are informed, not ignorant,
but informed regarding life and death, what they are, what they
mean, what they truly are. We know that life is a person. It's not just a matter to us
of they're here or they're not here. It's a matter to us of
whether they're in Christ or not in Christ. You see the language
of our text later on? In that passage, asleep in Jesus. That's the difference to us.
Not here or not here, that matters too because we miss Him. We love
Him. We're gonna talk about that a
little bit. But life and death to us is not
a matter of that. Just being here or being gone.
It's about being in Jesus. That's the text. Life, we know that life is a
person. That's why we don't soar the
same as other people. The be all end all is not the
beating of your heart. It's the object of the faith
of your heart. It's the hope of your heart.
It's the love of your heart. We know that life's a person,
and so rather than clinging to physical life with all of the
desperate fear that this world clings to life with, we look
to Christ who has the words of eternal life and who gives eternal
life, who is Himself our life. That's the difference. We trust
Him. The brethren trust Him. by His invincible grace upon
us, we trust Him. We've committed ourselves and
all of our loved ones to Him. And we're persuaded that He's
able to keep that. To keep us and them. If we have
a good hope that our loved ones have committed themselves to
Him, then we get to sorrow this way, not that way. With hope of perfect, eternal
joy for them. Is that what you want to know? Is that what you want to know,
that your loved one is asleep in Jesus? Verse 14. If you have a good hope of that, and it's not impossible to have
a good hope of that, then it's not just about them
being alive. You don't even want them back. If they're asleep in Jesus, you
don't want them back. You just want to be where they
are. What gives you that hope? What
gives you that hope that they know Him and that they're asleep
in Him? That they made a decision? That they made a decision? Is that what gives you hope about
Him? Or that their life here was Christ? Their life was Christ. Or it wasn't? Be honest with
yourself about that. If His grace was upon them here,
you see, then how much more do they bask
in his eternal grace there now? Was Christ their hope here? Then he's their hope now and
yours, that they're asleep in him. It's not that your loved
one was a good person. That's not what you cling to.
That's just called lying to yourself. They weren't a good person. You're
just trying to remember them that way because you want the
best for them. But don't lie to yourself. In
life and in death, Christ himself is our hope. Christ. Always think this way, salvation
is a person. And when our loved ones are in
our arms, salvation is a person. And if and when they are only
in our hearts, salvation is a person. Look at the next verse verse
14 for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so them
also which sleep in Jesus Those who sleep in Jesus are those
who lived in Jesus God will God bring with him I
What is the difference? What does it consist of, the
vast divide between sorrow and hope? And sorrow without? Faith or the lack of it? That's the difference, if we
believe. Not if we just believe the best.
That's what people tend to do when somebody goes into eternity. People just tend to say, well,
everything's gonna be okay. They've gone to a better place.
Really, are you sure? What are you basing that on?
The power of positive thinking? Not speaking ill of the dead?
Is that some kind of taboo? Is that what you're basing it
on? if we believe. If we believe what? That Jesus. That faith that makes the difference
between life and death, eternal life and death, The difference between hope and
no hope in death. That faith has a singular, definite,
solitary object. The Son of God, if we believe
that Jesus, crucified and risen. This faith looks alone to Christ
and to him crucified and risen from the dead. Our hope in death
is his death. So the question is the same as
it was in John chapter nine for that man who was blind from his
birth. It's the same question it always
has been. And it's the question this morning,
do you believe on the son of God? It's not a question of, do you
believe that they were good enough? We're still talking about with
regard to the brethren, to the brethren who have gone to sleep
in the Lord. It's not a question of, do you
believe they were good enough? Did they do enough? I can answer
that for you. No, they didn't. Were they good enough? No, they
weren't. I want you to know that this
is a given in the text. There's never any question about
did those who are asleep show a good testimony? Was there a
good hope in them? Did they show signs, evidences
of the grace of God? There's never a question of that,
that's a given. They're the brethren, we're talking about the brethren.
You're never told to look at them. with regard to this hope. There are some reasons for that.
If you're even thinking about the good that someone did in
order to assess how strong a hope you have that they're asleep
in Jesus, then the answer is no. If that's even your mindset,
how good were they? What did they do? What was their
work? What did they accomplish? Then the answer's no. Based on that metric, they're
in hell. What about their religious decisions?
Meaningless. It's not even in the text. Text
that's regarding the hope that we have for those that we love
who sleep in Christ. It's not even in there Was there hope and salvation
the person of Christ himself Even when you're examining them
you're looking to him and Was it Christ? Did they hope in Christ? Did they trust in Christ? Were
they looking to Christ? And that ain't hard to tell,
my friends. That ain't hard to tell. You mark it down, that
ain't hard to tell. What about D? What would you
say? Would you say he was trusting Christ? Do you have to dig into
his private life to figure that out? What about Mark? What would you say? Was he looking to Christ or was
he trusting his own words? What about Don Fortner? And you
say, oh, well, Chris, that doesn't count. He's a preacher. You're
missing it. The fact that he's a preacher
has nothing, nothing to do with it. In fact, if I was needing
to snatch a believer out of this world, I would as soon pick from
the general public as I would from the pool of the so-called
preachers of this world. Was he looking to Christ? That's
the question. Did he honor the Lord in his
life? Was he a worshiper of the Son of God? Not hard to tell. Not hard. If someone's not, not
hard to tell. My hope for Don is not that he
was a preacher or a good person. or even one of the elect, who
can tell that? My hope for Don is that his hope
was Christ. And I didn't have to wonder about
that. I didn't have to wonder about
it. And so the focus of our text
is not about that. It's not about how they lived
or that's a given. We know them to be the brethren.
Can we be fooled? Yeah, of course we could. Judas
fooled the other 11 and many. It's not about that. We're talking about people who
evidently were the objects of God's grace because they looked
to the Lord Jesus Christ. They just did. You can't hide
that. The third reason that the focus
is not on the one whom we mourn is that you can never know for
sure about them. You don't look to them for the hope because
you can't really be sure. Christ, you can be sure about. The more you examine the life
and character of any sinner, the more you will find reasons
not to hope. The more you look to the Savior
and for evidences of His grace upon someone, the more reason
you'll find to hope. In other words, you're not looking
for their works, you're looking for his. You're looking for his. You're not looking to what they
did for him, you're looking to what he did for them. That's
what you're looking for, if you want to have some hope. So where's the focus then in
the text? Not on them, but on the one who
is their hope, the crucified, risen son of God sitting on the
throne. If he is who he said he is, then
we have hope for ourselves and those we love who sleep in him. It's that simple. It's not their
love for Christ we're looking for, but Christ's love for them. It's not their faith in Christ
we look to, but the object of their faith. Oh, and we rejoice. Asleep, think about these words,
asleep in Jesus. And think about this verse in
terms of the sleep of death. You know, this is one of my favorite
verses. Think about this. When it comes to your last breaths
in this world, I will both lay me down in peace and sleep. I will lay down without fear
or anxiety. I will forget all of my earthly
endeavors without regret, all of my earthly concerns without
hesitation. And I'm going to go to sleep
now. For thou, Lord only, makest me
to dwell in safety. That's how the brethren die. And we have hope. We have hope. We think about
them and rejoice. We think about them asleep in
him. And it gives us great joy. The
same one that you look to when you lay your head upon your
pillow every night. same one that you commit your
soul to every night, is the same one who you can trust
when your final breaths bring pain and you even long to breathe
no more. And what does that look like
when you breathe your last upon this earth? What is the substance
of our hope now for ourselves? And if we have any hope for those
we love who have gone from this earth, what does that look like?
The last two words of our verse, with him. He's gonna bring them with him. He promised while we were here,
like we are this morning, to never leave us nor forsake us. He's taught us that heaven is to depart here and to be with
him. We see here that when he comes
back, he's bringing us with him. And we know that when he comes
back, Gathers up those who are still
here when he does But so shall we ever Be with you Wherefore comfort one another
with these words Let's pray