Encourage One Another With These Words; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

I lost an hour of sleep last night, but that doesn't begin to compare to the hours of sleep I lost as a teenager contemplating the text I'll be preaching today! Growing up, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 was read as a warning. One day, a trumpet would sound, and in the twinkling of an eye, Christians all over the world would disappear. Those left behind would be plunged into a time of tribulation and difficulty like never before. That thought terrified me! Of course, it terrified me before I became a Christian. I didn't want to be left behind with the rest of the losers! I distinctly remember driving back to town after an early morning hunting trip with my dad and seeing no cars on the road. "It's happened, and I've missed it!" I thought. "It's going to be every man for himself, and I didn't even get a single squirrel this morning! I am SOOO dead!" But it terrified me after I became a Christian, also. The thought of leaving friends and family behind filled me with anxiety about how they would fend for themselves and what they might have to endure. And, of course, as a teenage boy, I was plagued with the fear of what I would miss out on if Jesus came back today! There was so much of life ahead of me—cars, college, and . . . well . . . other stuff. Sociologists told me there was something I was thinking about at least once every six minutes. "Dear Jesus, I want to go to heaven, but please, not until after I've done THAT!" If only I had read the next verse. After all that bizarre stuff in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, verse 18 concludes with, "Therefore encourage one another with these words." Not "terrify one another," not "scare teenage boys out of misbehaving," but "encourage one another!" I would have slept much better if I had only read that last verse! In this message, needing one more hour of sleep, I do my best to bring encouragement as we unpack the hope Paul loads into these few verses.