Children of the Day

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 20, 2021.  The Bible verses used are 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11.

            If someone asked you what you want most out of life on earth, what would you say?

            Now, pretend they did not ask you that during a church service.  I say that because, when we get asked questions like that during a church service, we tend to give churchy answers.  That’s not a criticism of anyone--I do it, too.  We give the answers we think we should give, rather than the answer that, deep down, is the honest one.

            So pretend this question got asked over coffee or something.  What do you want most out of life?

            We could say a lot of things.  Some people might say love.  Some people might say good health, for themselves and their loved ones.  Some people might say protection.  Some people might say satisfying work.  And of course there are all kinds of other answers we might give, too.

            But when you think about it, most of those answers have two things in common:  peace, and safety.  Most of us want to be at peace in our lives.  We don’t want to live lives that are full of conflict and turmoil.  We want to be at peace with ourselves, too.  And we want to feel safe.  That’s one of the things that made COVID so scary--sometimes it felt like it was not safe for people even to venture out of their homes.

            But look at what the Apostle Paul says about peace and safety.  Paul says, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night”, and “While people are saying ‘peace and safety’, destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”

            Now, that’s not to say that peace and safety are inherently bad things.  But as Christians, our goal should not be to live lives of peace and safety.  Our goal should be to be faithful to God.  Our goal should be to show love to Jesus Christ.  And Jesus Christ did not live a life of peace and safety.  Jesus’ life was filled with controversy, and was anything but peaceful.  And of course, his earthly life ended with his death on a cross.

            Now, we don’t necessarily have to live lives filled with controversy and turmoil to be Christians.  God does not call all Christians to live that sort of life.  But we need to be willing to do that if, in fact, that is what God calls us to do.  We need to be willing to live lives that do not contain peace and safety if that’s what it takes to remain faithful to God and love Jesus.

            But what Paul says, in his letter to the Thessalonians is that we don’t need to worry about that.  Paul says we don’t have to worry about the day of the Lord coming like a thief in the night, because we are not people of the night.  As Christians, we are children of the light and children of the day.  So we don’t have to worry about the day of the Lord sneaking up on us suddenly, with the intent of doing something bad to us.  We will see the day of the Lord coming.  And the day of the Lord will not do anything bad to us.  As Christians, we can look forward to the day of the Lord.  As Christians, the day of the Lord is something to eagerly anticipate, because it will be something good.  In fact, it will be something awesome.

            But that does not mean that, as Christians, we should think we’re on Easy Street.  We need to make sure that, as Paul says, we stay awake, and we stay sober.  Paul tells us to “[put] on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.”

            In other words, we should not take our salvation for granted.  Yes, we are children of the light and children of the day.  But it’s not that hard for us to fall back asleep.  And there are forces of darkness that are trying to put us back to sleep.  If, as Christians, we want to remain children of the day, we cannot become passive about that.  We need to keep our faith alert, alive, and active.

            We are to put on faith and love as a breastplate.  A breastplate is something that protects us.  That’s what faith and love do--they protect us from the forces of darkness.  They keep our faith active, so that we do not fall asleep.

            Think about it--you cannot passively love someone, can you?  It’s not possible.  If we love someone--if we truly love them--that love has to become active.  We need to do something about it.  We need to do something that shows our love, that makes our love known.  That’s true no matter what kind of love we’re talking about.

            That’s what the Apostle James meant when he wrote that “faith without deeds is dead.”  Neither faith nor love mean anything if we don’t put them into action.  If we tell someone we love them, but never do anything to show we love them, our love is meaningless.  It’s asleep.  It’s worthless.

            But you know, it’s easy for us to let that happen.  We don’t intend to, usually.  But we get lazy.  Or we get wrapped up in our own stuff.  Or we put things off.  We know we should do things for others, things that put our faith and love into action.  And we intend to.  But--not right now.  We have other things to do.  We don’t have time.  We still feel that faith and love--honest, we do--but we just cannot get out and show it right now.  We’ll do it later.

            When we put them out in the open like that, they sound like really flimsy excuses.  And usually, they are really flimsy excuses.  But you know, human beings are great rationalizers.  We can justify almost anything to ourselves if we want to badly enough.  At least I can.  I’ve done it many times.  Sometimes I still do it.  It’s a really easy trap to fall into.  We tell ourselves we’re going to be awake really soon.  But for now, we stay asleep.

            And so, that’s why Paul tells us to put on something else.  We are to put on “the hope of salvation as a helmet.”

            What does a helmet do?  It protects the head, right?  And the head is where our thoughts come from, right?  So, one of the things that the hope of salvation does is protect us from our own thoughts.  The hope of salvation protects us from our laziness, our self-centeredness, our tendency to put things off.  The hope of salvation keeps us from rationalizing our desire to stay asleep.  The hope of salvation keeps us active--active in showing faith and love.

            The way the hope of salvation does that is by reminding who our faith is in, and who it is that we truly love.  Yes, we can have faith in humans, and we can love humans.  But as Christians, our true faith is in God.  And our true love is of Christ.

            We know our salvation can only come through faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior.  And that faith cannot be a sleepy faith.  It cannot be a passive faith.  If we truly have faith in Jesus Christ, then that faith will require us to do what Jesus told us to do.  Not perfectly--as we said last week, human beings can never do anything perfectly.  But as well as we can.

            And there is nothing about the things Jesus said that allows us to be sleepy and passive.  Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Jesus told us to love even our enemies.  Jesus told us to pray for those who persecute us.  Jesus told us to that, to achieve greatness, we must become servants of others.  There are none of those things that we can do with a sleepy, passive faith.  Those are things we can only do if our faith is awake and active.  Those are only things we can do if we are children of the light and children of the day.

            And Jesus also told us to love the Lord our God.  He told us to love God with all of our hearts, with all of our souls, and with all of our minds.  That’s what it means to do all those other things Jesus told us to do.  We cannot love God and not love our neighbors.  We cannot love God and not love our enemies.  We cannot love God and fail to do any of the things Jesus told us to do.  Again, not perfectly, but the best that we can.  

            And there’s one more thing--we cannot do these things by ourselves.  Yes, we need God’s help, but we also need to help each other in this.  That’s why our passage closes with this:  “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”

            It is very hard to have an awake, active faith by ourselves.  Even if we have good intentions, the chances are we’ll start to falter.  We’ll start to get tired.  We’ll start to get distracted.  And so, the chances are, we’ll start to become passive.  We’ll start to fall asleep.

            Paul knew we need to encourage each other.  Jesus knew it, too--that’s why he established the church.  Jesus did not design things so that, after he left the earth, his followers would all just go off on their own.  Jesus knew our faith will be much more active, much more awake, if we do things together.  That’s the best way we can encourage each other and build each other up--by working together.

            Peace and safety may sound like wonderful things.  But as Christians, what we need to desire is faith and love.  Faith in Jesus, and love of God and of others.  With God’s help, and with the encouragement of others, we can have that faith and that love.  Then, we will not fall asleep.  We will not live in darkness.  We will be children of the light, children of the day.  And when the day of the Lord comes, we will not need to worry or be scared.  It will be something we will be ready for.  And we can experience it in all its awesome glory.