Living to Please God
v2: […authority of Jesus Christ]. Christians teachers ought to teach in the authority of Jesus Christ. That means our teaching should have power, assurance and truth.
v3: [..It is God’s will that..]. What is God’s will? It is all saints should be sanctified.
To live a life that is pleasing to God is to live a sanctified life. What does it means to live a sanctified life? Paul said:
- avoid sexual immorality (v3)
- learn to control our own body in a way that is holy and honorable (v4)
- not passionate lust like the heathen (v5)
- do not wrong or take advantage of other Christians (v6)
- love each other (v9)
In short Christians ought to strive to live a sinless, holy life (v7). We ought to remove all impurity from our life (v7). We need to learn how to listen and obey to the leading of the Holy Spirit (v8).
If we live in a sinful, self indulgence life, God will surely punish us (v6).
The Coming of The Lord (v13-18)
v13: For Christians, when we die, we falled asleep, because we will be resurrected when the Lord returns.
v13: For non-believers, all the family members could do were to grieve, because they had no hope. For Christians, we have peace for the Christians who died because we have hope that the saint is now with the Lord (Phil 1:21).
Angels two the apostles on Christ’s ascension that Christ will return in the same way they had seen Him ascend to heaven. When the Lord returns, the following events will happen:
- The Lord will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God (v16)
- The dead in Christ will rise first (v16)
- The Christians who are still alive will be raptured in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (v17)
- Antichrist will start the seven years of covenant with Israel
- Three and a half year in the covenant, antichrist will break the covenant and claim himself as God