Acts 15:36-18:22 (1, 2 Thessalonians)
Good to see you, church. Go ahead and grab your Bible and turn to a couple of places this week. We have a lot of ground to cover. We are going to start in the book of Acts, chapter 15, and then you will want to hold a place in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, because that is where we will drill down for most of our time together. If you have the chart we put up on the website, feel free to follow along as we continue our series on Generations.
One of the foundational beliefs and hopes of Christianity revolves around two bedrock facts: first, that Jesus Christ has come; and second, that Jesus Christ will come again. We place our whole faith on those two realities. We believe that the Father sent the Son to earth to suffer and die for us, laying down His life as a perfect substitute and sacrifice, redeeming us from sin, Satan, death, and the bondage that held us captive. Christ freed and redeemed us in His first coming.
Yet we also believe the promise that one day He will return. A day remains when the eastern sky will part, the trumpet will sound, and Christ will descend. Judgment on all wickedness will take place, and Christ will begin the restoration of all things for His followers—a day with no more tears, no more pain, no more suffering, and no more sorrow. That is the hope of glory anchoring our souls as we wait for our Bridegroom to return.
The Struggle in the Waiting
Where we find ourselves as the church right now is somewhere in the middle—between the cross and the crown. If you are anything like me, the struggle and the challenge come in the waiting. When you consider the amount of suffering we walk through in this lifetime, the brokenness, and the fractures in our own homes and culture, our souls scream and long for the day Christ will return. But in the midst of despair, our minds can play tricks on us. We start wondering: Is He really coming back? Is there a day when this suffering will actually end? Because in the thick of it, it certainly does not feel like it.
To give you a window into my own soul, the past two and a half years have been a season of deeply processing the Lord’s return and the day He will make all things new. About two and a half years ago, my family and I left the Well and moved back to Texas. We made that decision right around Christmas time after learning my mother-in-law had been diagnosed with mesothelioma, a terminal asbestos-related cancer. Doctors gave her about a year to live. We wrestled with whether to walk through that fifteen hundred miles away or up close. We chose to move back, but before we could even unpack, she passed away. From diagnosis to death was just two months. My wife lost her mom, and our kids lost their grandmother.
We still felt the Lord had unfinished work for us in Texas, so we stayed. Little did we know that God had another ten family funerals ahead of us over the next two years. A few months after arriving, I got a call that my cousin was found dead from an overdose, and I helped with that funeral. A couple of months later, my aunt was hit by a car while checking her mailbox and killed; I helped with that funeral. A few months after that, I was on an East Coast ministry trip when I got word that my grandfather had passed away; I flew back to officiate. A couple of months later, while on family vacation, my wife’s grandmother died, and we officiated that funeral.
Then, a year ago today, I was in an elders’ meeting at my office. My wife and I have an agreement: if she calls during a meeting, I screen it, but if she immediately calls a second time, I know something is wrong. Sure enough, two back-to-back calls came in. I stepped toward the door, and before I could even turn the knob, my wife was screaming hysterically. My heart sank. She was trying to tell me her daddy had died, but through the sobbing, all I heard was “Abby has died”—my youngest daughter—and then the line cut out. I could not get back through. I lived half a mile from the church, drove home in about point-one seconds, and ran through the door. In that surreal moment, when she clarified it was her dad, I felt an instant flash of guilty relief—Oh, thank God it wasn’t Abby—followed immediately by entering the crushing grief that my wife had now lost both her mother and father in an eighteen-month span. I officiated that funeral, too.
A few months later, on New Year’s Day, I was building puzzles with my family when I received another phone call: my dad was sick. Within a month, my dad was gone. Trial after trial after trial. There were moments when I asked, “Lord, did You rename me Job? What is happening here?” Over and over, my heart cried out, “Lord, when is this going to stop?” Not just the string of family losses, but when will the sting of death itself be eradicated once and for all?
I do not know what tragedies you have walked through, but when you walk through trials, what you long for most is hope—the assurance that a day is coming that will not look like the day you are living in now. Chuck Swindoll once noted that a person can go forty days without food and about three days without water, but cannot survive a single second without hope. We all need it. Our hearts long for the day Christ returns to restore all things.
If you have ever wrestled with those thoughts, you can identify with a church we are looking at tonight: the believers in Thessalonica. In his second missionary journey, Paul encountered a young church deeply confused about the Lord’s return—when it would happen, how it would happen, and how that future hope should shape their lives today.
The Road to Thessalonica
To understand their situation, let us look at the background. Last week, we saw Paul and Barnabas finish their first missionary journey, preach the Gospel in Galatia, and return to Antioch. Then came the Jerusalem Council, where church leaders affirmed that the Gospel is entirely of grace, requiring no legalistic works for salvation. Invigorated by this clarity, Paul and Barnabas prepared to head out again.
Before they could leave, a sharp disagreement arose between them over John Mark, who had deserted them on their first journey. Paul refused to take him along, while Barnabas insisted on giving him another chance. Unable to agree, they engaged in a good old-fashioned split: Barnabas took John Mark to Cyprus, and Paul chose Silas and Timothy.
Acts 15:36-41 (NASB)
After some days Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, [and see] how they are.’ Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark, along with them also. But Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there occurred such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another, and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and left, being committed by the brethren to the grace of the Lord. And he was traveling through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
(For the harmonizers among us, yes, they eventually reconciled, and John Mark went on to write the Gospel of Mark.)
Paul and Silas tried to travel north and east to preach, but the Holy Spirit prevented them. Then Paul received the Macedonian call—a vision urging him west into Europe. They landed in Philippi, where they preached, were severely beaten, and were thrown into prison. In the middle of the night, God sent an earthquake that broke open their chains. Paul stayed to preach the Gospel to the terrified jailer, leading him and his household to faith.
Acts 16:25-34 (NASB)
But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!’ And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, and after he brought them out, he said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house. And he took them that [very] hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his [household]. And he brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household.
After their release, they traveled to Thessalonica in Acts 17. Paul preached in the synagogue, and several believed, but an angry mob formed to attack them. When the mob could not find Paul, they dragged out his host, Jason, and began beating him. To protect the church, Jason posted bail and pledged that Paul would leave and never return. Paul later noted that Satan had hindered him through this forced departure.
Paul fled to Berea, but the mob from Thessalonica pursued him there as well. The believers sneaked Paul out of town to Athens, leaving Silas and Timothy behind. In Athens, Paul stood before the philosophers at the Areopagus (Mars Hill) and reasoned with them about the true God.
Acts 17:16-34 (NASB)
Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing [Gentiles], and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present. And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, ‘What would this idle babbler wish to say?’ Others, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,’– because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ’May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? ‘For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean.’ (Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.) So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, ’Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. ’For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. ’The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all [people] life and breath and all things; and He made from one [man] every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined [their] appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ ’Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. ‘Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all [people] everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.’ Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some [began] to sneer, but others said, ‘We shall hear you again concerning this.’ So Paul went out of their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
Silas and Timothy rejoined Paul with troubling news: the Thessalonians were enduring intense persecution. Paul sent them straight back to encourage the church while he moved on to Corinth, settling there for eighteen months. Eventually, Silas and Timothy returned with a much better report: the church was standing firm, but they were wrestling with four major issues:
- Attacks on Paul’s Integrity: False teachers claimed Paul did not truly love them because he had not returned to visit.
- Theological Despair: They feared their intense suffering meant they were currently experiencing God’s wrath in the Day of the Lord.
- Grief over Deceased Believers: They worried that loved ones who died before Christ’s return would miss out on His kingdom.
- Moral Drift and Idleness: Losing eternal perspective, some began drifting morally into worldly lusts, while others quit their jobs and became idle.
From Corinth, Paul penned 1 Thessalonians to address these exact struggles.
Walking in Holiness and Hope: 1 Thessalonians
The letter divides into two main sections: chapters 1 through 3 look back at Paul’s past ministry with them, and chapters 4 and 5 look forward to Christ’s return.
In chapters 1–3, Paul displays a pastor’s heart. He thanks God for their faithfulness, refutes the false teachers, and reminds them of his sacrificial love. He explains that Jason’s pledge and Satan’s hindrance—not a lack of affection—kept him away. He urges them to remember how blamelessly he lived among them.
In chapters 4 and 5, Paul looks forward to the Day of the Lord. Addressing their confusion about timing, he writes that the Day of the Lord will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 (NASB)
Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, ‘Peace and safety!’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of [the] day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.
Paul tells them to stop obsessing over dates. Instead, they are called to stay awake, be sober, and remember that God has not destined believers for wrath. The return of Christ is not a terrifying prospect for the Christian; it is our sweet deliverance when broken things will finally be made whole.
1 Thessalonians 5:6-7 (NASB)
so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night.
Next, Paul addresses their grief over loved ones who had died before Christ’s return. In their confusion, the Thessalonians were grieving as though their dead missed the promise.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (NASB)
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of [the] archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Paul comforts them with the truth of the resurrection. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, and when Christ returns, the dead in Christ will rise first. We grieve, but we do not grieve like the rest of the world that has no hope.
2 Corinthians 5:8 (NASB)
we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
I have officiated both kinds of funerals: those filled with hope and those filled with tragic despair. When a follower of Jesus dies, there are tears, but there is also profound celebration because we know their destination. But when someone dies apart from Christ, people desperately grasp for anything to say—“Well, he sure loved golf”—because there is no eternal anchor. Paul reminds the church that for those in Christ, death is not the end of the story.
Finally, Paul addresses their present-day conduct. When we lose sight of eternity, moral compromise quickly follows. Paul urges them to walk in sanctification.
1 Thessalonians 4:1-5 (NASB)
Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us [instruction] as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. For you know what commandments we gave you by [the authority of] the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification; [that is], that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
When people believe they are under God’s wrath or assume the future is hopeless, they often throw up their hands and indulge their flesh. Paul commands them: do not drift into immorality. Live in light of Christ’s return by putting on righteousness and guarding personal purity. He echoes this same urgency in Ephesians.
Ephesians 5:15-17 (NASB)
Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
When a church loses its mission, spiritual gravity always pulls downward. You see this dynamic illustrated vividly in the miniseries Band of Brothers. Throughout the episodes, the soldiers stay laser-focused because they are in the heat of battle. But toward the end of the war, they enter a quiet Dutch town where there is no combat. Without an immediate mission, their discipline evaporates. Men start breaking into bars, getting drunk, and acting lawlessly.
Then comes the turning point: a patrol walks over a hill and discovers a concentration camp for the first time. Seeing emaciated survivors clinging to the barbed-wire fence instantly shatters their apathy. They remember what they are fighting for, and they are never the same again.
That is a picture of what happens when we forget we are in a wartime mentality. Peacetime has not arrived yet; that comes when Christ returns. Right now, there is kingdom work to be done. When we lose sight of Christ’s return, we drift into self-indulgence. Paul calls the church to wake up and live on mission.
Stand Firm: 2 Thessalonians
A few months later, Paul received another report. The Thessalonians had developed new questions about the Day of the Lord, and some had stopped working altogether, expecting Jesus to return at any moment.
In 2 Thessalonians 1, Paul comforts them in their ongoing persecution, explaining that their suffering is evidence of God refining them, not punishing them.
2 Thessalonians 1:5-10 (NASB)
[This is] a plain indication of God’s righteous judgment so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering. For after all it is [only] just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and [to give] relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed– for our testimony to you was believed.
He clarifies that the great Day of the Lord has not yet arrived. They are not living through the final judgment. In chapter 2, he outlines what must take place before that day comes so they will not be easily deceived.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 (NASB)
Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for [it will not come] unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.
Paul explains that before the Day of the Lord, a great rebellion will occur, led by the “man of lawlessness”—the Antichrist—who will deceive nations through counterfeit signs and wonders, ultimately exalting himself as God in the temple.
2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 (NASB)
[that is], the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.
Paul assures them that because they are chosen and saved in Christ, they are secure from that wrath.
2 Thessalonians 2:13-17 (NASB)
But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word [of mouth] or by letter from us. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.
Now, whenever people read these passages, some treat end-times prophecy like sensational fiction. They start speculating about world leaders, modern cities, and hidden codes. It is human nature to be curious, but scripture never calls us to obsess over apocalyptic trivia. Jesus Himself told His disciples not to fixate on dates and seasons.
Acts 1:7-8 (NASB)
He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.’
Jesus redirected their curiosity to mission: stop obsessing over what only the Father knows, and go be My witnesses. In Thessalonica, people had become so paralyzed by end-times hype that they went “Y2K”—some built spiritual bunkers in fear, while others quit their jobs, climbed onto rooftops, and leeched off others. Paul confronts their laziness directly.
2 Thessalonians 3:11-13 (NASB)
For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread. But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good.
Our hope in Christ’s return should never cause us to check out of culture; it should compel us to engage it. When Jesus returns, may He find us working in the harvest fields, not hiding underground.
Living with the End in Mind
As we consider 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Paul’s message speaks directly to two different groups among us today.
First, to those walking through suffering, grief, and brokenness: do not lose heart. If you are teetering on despair, remember that this world is not your final home. A day is coming when the eastern sky will open, the trumpet will sound, and Christ will descend to make all things new. In that day, cancer, tragedy, fractures, and death will be swallowed up forever. Hold on to hope, and live in light of His return.
Second, to those who have grown spiritually sluggish and too comfortable with the temporal things of this world: wake up. Do not drift into moral apathy or place your security in your career, your 401(k), your family, or your favorite sports team. None of those things can save you. Put on the righteousness of Christ, pick up your kingdom tools, and get busy making much of His name.
Our hope rests in the Jesus who came once to redeem us and who has promised to return and restore all things. May we be found faithful in the waiting.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank You that this broken world is not our final resting place. You have promised that a fixed day is coming when Your Son will return to judge wickedness and gather His bride once and for all. Lord, that is the anchor of our souls. Keep us from growing weary. By Your Holy Spirit, empower us to live pure, courageous, and faithful lives on mission until that glorious day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.