We close out our series on biblical worldview today. We are looking at the end times and how our present life and how we live now is shaped by how we see the future. Do we have a biblical worldview of the future? We are looking today at the future for the believer. What is in front of us as followers of Christ? What does God have planned for us?
In 1 Thessalonians 4, there has been some division over the complete meaning of some of this, but the overall thrust of this is crystal clear and undebatable. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 says, “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.” That closing verse to “comfort one another with these words” is extremely pertinent. When we know that the day is coming, and that Jesus Christ is returning to take us to be with Himself and to be with Him forever in His presence, that shapes our lives. That shapes our hope. That shapes our view of the future. The Lord is coming for us! We will one day be with Him, and we will be with Him forever. He wants to be with us. That is how much He loves us. How comforting is that? I don’t know how you could find any more comforting words than that.
We are given a glimpse of what that looks like. 1 Thessalonians 4 simply tells us that we will be with our Savior in eternity. Revelation 21:3-7 gives us a bit of a glimpse of what that life looks like. I think it is so wonderful that it is very difficult for even the apostle, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to describe this in a way that we would understand. We read these words in Revelation 21:3, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.’” We find first that the Lord will be with us. He will be our tabernacle. We will be with Him. We find here that the Lord is creating a new heaven and a new earth. On that new earth we will dwell with Him there forever, and He will be the one that we point all of our attention and worship toward . . .
