Comfort and Edify One Another: Living as Children of the Light

In this Sunday morning service, Pastor Chris Parker opens First Thessalonians chapter 5, reading verses 1 and 2 and working toward verse 11, where Paul writes that the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night. Pastor Parker sets the passage in its context: having comforted the Thessalonian believers about loved ones who have died and about the rapture of the church in chapter 4, Paul now turns from the prophetic to the intensely practical.

Though the return of Christ and the day of the Lord will overtake a sleeping world by surprise, believers are not in darkness that that day should overtake them as a thief—they are children of the light and children of the day. From this truth Pastor Parker lifts up verse 11 as the key to the message: “Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.” The certainty of Christ’s coming is not meant to leave the church anxious but to move believers to encourage, comfort, and build one another up.

Pastor Parker presses the application home with the picture of a lamp whose globe must be cleaned so its light can shine: the world needs to see the believer’s light, and each Christian should ask how brightly his own is shining and whether he is impacting others with it. He calls the saved to examine their hearts and let their light shine, and he pleads with any who have never been born again not to put off trusting Christ as personal Savior—asking why anyone would say no to the God who loves them. It was a warm, invitation-centered message urging the church to live as children of light who comfort and edify one another as they await the Lord’s return.