Encouragement: Redux!
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 There are very few gospel-truths which have the power to bring encouragement like the hope and implications of the second coming of Jesus. This is why Paul admonished the believers in Thessalonica to encourage one another with the “promise of the parousia“-the promise that the true King, Jesus, will come back to this world to receive his Bride and to usher in the new heaven and new earth. For Jesus is the spouse we always longed for and only Jesus can make all things new!
For the longest time, however, this particular Scripture didn’t bring me much encouragement at all. I couldn’t get all that excited about floating up into the clouds as a prelude to living in a “heaven” that was filled with boring religious music, a lot of glowing white stuff, and everybody kind of looking like angels. Shows you what a horrible theology of heaven I had as a young Christian!
Now I realize that Paul was not talking about our going up into the air, like the space shuttle, and continuing till we reached “heaven.” NO! He used the historical imagery of citizens going out to greet an arriving king and then welcoming him back into the city! The raised and resurrected Bride of Jesus will greet her Bridegroom and return back to this very earth for the restoration of all things! Now THAT’s something to get encouraged about!
This means, among other things, that Jesus is going to wipe away every tear from out eyes-he’s going to redeem all of our wounds, suffering, heartaches and losses; Jesus is going to eradicate death itself, having already conquered it by His death. Jesus is going to utterly restore THIS broken cosmos-the world we presently live in will be set free from all brokenness, decay and every effect of sin and death. Jesus is going to love us forever, the complete pan-national bride of Christ, with the bridal affection of the perfect lover. Jesus is going to free us to create new-creation culture and perfect society and fill the new heaven and new earth with the glory of our Triune God… I could go on and on, but I’ve got to drive to Memphis to preach tomorrow!
Dear friends, with what we already know about the return of the true King and his lavish love for us and his commitment to make all things new, let’s encourage one another, and let’s live and love missionally as long as it is still called Today! Our labors in the Lord on this earth ARE NOT IN VAIN! The future of heaven is so much better than we ever hoped or imagined, and it’s all going to play out right here! WooHoo!