2 Thessalonians 1:5-10 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Last Judgment Sunday, November 10, 2019 “Welcome Home: Where You Are Perfectly Safe”
This past Wednesday morning, I stopped in at the Home Depot in order to purchase a part I needed for a repair. I knew right where the part is located in the store, so I didn’t expect the stop to take long at all. When I turned into the parking lot, however, I noticed an unusual commotion. A fire truck was parked with lights flashing. I had actually followed a police vehicle into the lot, and found that there were several more already there. Officers had an area of the parking lot completely roped off, and were talking to several employees and customers. I went in to get the part I needed, and tried to make my way back to the car in short order, but I overheard enough to learn what had caused such a commotion: a man had been stabbed in the Home Depot parking lot. I came to find out later that this had happened perhaps only 15 minutes before I arrived. That’s what the news report that I read said. When you find out that something like that had happened, you feel a little surprised and uneasy. It makes you think about how there are dangerous things that go on in our world, and how close we sometimes are to those dangerous things happening. Maybe you have had some sort of similar experience that reminded you of what a dangerous world we live in. That stands in sharp contrast to the theme of our service today. We have over a couple weeks introduced the idea of church being a home for people. And specifically today, we hear that church welcomes us home to where we are perfectly safe. But there seems to be a problem with that theme. Church doesn’t always seem perfectly safe. Members of Grace or of any other Christian church are not automatically protected from accidents, injuries, or crimes that other people commit, that could hurt or harm us. Becoming a Christian doesn’t immediately take us away from the dangers of the world all around us. It doesn’t guarantee us a way of avoiding those dangers. And in some ways, it is almost the complete opposite. It seems that we might even face more dangers at times as members of Christ’s Church. That seems to be how the people from the church in Thessalonica might have felt. The book of 2 Thessalonians, from which our sermon text is taken, is the second letter that Paul had written to them, and both include a lot of information about the persecution that they were facing. They were suffering specifically because they were Christians, because they believed what Paul had preached to them. They had been enduring these difficulties. The church was actually thriving under the circumstances, but church in Thessalonica certainly didn’t seem to be a place that was perfectly safe. Church at Grace in Southern Arizona doesn’t seem to be perfectly safe either, does it? I don’t mean that we face the same sort of opposition that the Thessalonians once did, but we do at times actually face negative reactions to our Christianity. We are lumped in with other Christians by an unbelieving world and considered foolish or backward or old-fashioned or ignorant. We face hatred and we face ridicule. And of course, as I mentioned previously, just walking in the doors of this place on a Sunday morning doesn’t keep us away from the dangers that lurk outside and could just as easily follow us in as well. It is clear. There are dangers all around us, and on the surface, it seems as though being in the church can actually increase those dangers instead of alleviating them. And that is a reminder of an important truth. We live in a world that is full of danger because we live in a world that is full of sin. Only in the perfect original home of the perfect original human beings was there no danger at all. Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden without worrying about what could happen to them or what danger they might face. But they changed all that when they fell into sin. And we, like all other generations of their descendants have heaped our sins on top of theirs. We have made a mess of God’s good world in a way that means that now there are dangers and difficulties to contend with. Now there is opposition from sinful worldly people and ideas, opposition toward the godly and Christian realities. You are not perfectly safe at all in this world, at least not from an earthly perspective.
So the Apostle Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, changes our perspective and the perspective of the Thessalonians. He shifts our focus from the present to the future. He places our eyes not on our current challenges, but on what will take place in the future, specifically on the last day. And what do we find? More suffering. As unsafe as things may appear now, things will be even less safe on the Day of Judgment. Listen again to some of the threats that are found in our verses: “it is right for God to repay trouble to those who trouble you…When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his powerful angels, he will exercise vengeance in flaming fire on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Such people will receive a just penalty: eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord.” God is talking about justice. He is talking about sinners getting what they deserve. He is talking about those who trouble others receiving trouble themselves, and he is talking about flaming fire, eternal destruction, and being away from the presence of the Lord. We are talking about the most extreme danger possible. We are seeing the most extreme suffering there could ever be. And God is warning that this is eternal suffering. And while maybe there is a level of relief in our minds that justice will be done, that God will act according to his perfect righteousness in regard to the punishment he carries out, doesn’t it make you a little uneasy? Isn’t it kind of like spotting a crime scene where someone had been stabbed and thinking “that could have been me”? Yes, praise be to God for punishing sin. But wait. I am a sinner. Not only do I live in a dangerous world, now I also have a dangerous day of judgment waiting for me. I won’t escape that day. Whether I die first or I am still alive when Jesus returns, I will face judgment. But here is the message of safety and security: “This is evidence of God’s righteous verdict that resulted in your being counted worthy of God’s kingdom.” As God teaches us about Judgment Day, we find this to be quite clear: there are two possible judgments. One we’ve previously mentioned. That one is suffering the punishment for the suffering that your sins caused for others. But here is the other: that you might be counted worthy of God’s kingdom. This is about living with God. This is about paradise, a place with no suffering and no danger and no fear. You are not worthy of it on your own, but God has made you worthy. God made you worthy by leaving that perfect heaven to suffer here with you. Jesus came to live in a world of suffering and to face the whippings and beatings and opposition and ridicule. And he went to the cross where he even suffered the very pain and torment of hell as punishment for the sins of the world. And he did it because he loved you and me and he wanted to save us from that suffering. And with the message of that sacrifice for you, he has called you to be his own. He has called you to place your confidence on him. He has called you to trust in him, to believe in him. “Welcome Home!” he says to all who believe in him. “Welcome home to a place where you are perfectly safe. Welcome home to the forgiveness of sins. Welcome home to peace with God and love for one another and hope for the future. Welcome home to the joy of salvation.” That is what we have here and what we celebrate every single week. That is what we hold on to when we look toward the future. Jesus will come back, with glory, accompanied by angels. He will sound the final judgment. And he will welcome his people, those who have believed in him, home to his heaven. And if that is what awaits us at the end of this life, then we are perfectly safe no matter what earthly dangers come our way. Welcome home. You are perfectly safe…now and forever.
The Text: 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10 (EHV) 5 This
is evidence of God’s righteous verdict that resulted in your being counted worthy of God’s kingdom, for which you also suffer. 6 Certainly, it is right for God to repay trouble to those who trouble you, 7 and to give relief to you, who are troubled along with us. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his powerful angels, 8 he will exercise vengeance in flaming fire on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 Such people will receive a just penalty: eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from his glorious strength, 10 on that day when he comes to be glorified among his saints, and to be marveled at among all those who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.