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If you do a word search online for key words like fear or being afraid, you will get millions of results. Many of the results will be about fears of things that are unlikely to happen to someone.

For instance, many people are afraid to fly on an airplane, but I read that the chances of being in a plane accident are 1 in 13 million. Yet your chances of being struck by lightning are 1 in 2 million. You might not want to go outside at all!

Here’s another one: Your chances of being bitten by a dog are 1 in 137,000, but your chances of being hurt while mowing your lawn are 1 in 3,000.[1] I suppose that means you should stop mowing your lawn and get a cat instead of a dog. People who know me will not believe I just said that. Well, I didn’t mean it!

Now fear is not necessarily a bad thing. You teach your children to fear running out in the street or being around a hot stove.

But “living in fear” is different. Being consumed by the fear of the future or fearful over what might happen in life is spiritually harmful. It is distrusting the Lord’s provision and plan for your life.

Living by faith does not eliminate every fearful thought. We might, in fact, struggle with fear at times, which is why the Bible encourages Christians not to be anxious or fearful. But our faith in Christ will not allow us to be consumed or governed by fear. Living by faith simply means trusting the God who holds our future in His hands.

As we sail back into 1 Thessalonians, the apostle Paul has just comforted the church with the truth of a future rapture, when Christ returns to gather to Himself the church. Now in chapter 5, Paul provides some more details, beginning in verse 1:

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. (verses 1-2)

Obviously, the believers in Thessalonica were wondering about the coming judgment of God. Paul essentially says that no one knows when the day of the Lord will arrive. It will come like a thief, and a thief never phones ahead to tell you when he is arriving.

What is this “day of the Lord” Paul refers to here? In the Old Testament, the expression always refers to divine judgment (Ezekiel 13:5; Joel 2:31; Amos 5:18, 20; Obadiah 1:1-14; Zephaniah 1:7; Malachi 4:5).

In the New Testament, “the day of the Lord” refers to God’s future judgments. Specifically, it describes the judgment of God during the tribulation period (2 Thessalonians 2:2-3), which follows the rapture, and the judgment of God at the end of the millennial kingdom, a thousand years later (2 Peter 3:10-13).[2]

Paul is using “the day of the Lord” in this passage in connection with the tribulation following the rapture. The rapture can happen at any moment, which is why Paul writes that the day of the Lord—the judgment of God upon the earth during the tribulation—can also occur at any moment, arriving like a thief.

Paul writes further in verse 3, “Sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.” In other words, once God’s judgment begins to fall on the human race during the tribulation, there is no stopping it or avoiding it.

So, in these opening verses of chapter 5, Paul wants believers to be enlightened. They do not need to fear this tribulation period, because the rapture of the church will precede it.   

But Paul wants believers not only to be enlightened but also engaged. In verse 5 he calls us “children of light,” as opposed to those “of the darkness.” And he writes in verse 6, “Let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.”

Here Paul does not use the word “sleep” to refer to death, as he did back in chapter 4; he uses it to describe believers who might become sluggish or apathetic as they drift through life just waiting to go to heaven. No, Paul writes, we are to be “awake” and “sober.”

In verse 7 Paul contrasts the believers with unbelievers, who are wandering in the dark like people who are drunk. He is challenging Christians not to adopt the sinful lifestyles of unbelievers but to stay sober and alert.

The apostle writes that we need to dress for engagement—to “put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation” (verse 8). You might notice how often Paul returns to these three virtues of faith, hope, and love—our faith in God, our love for God and others, and our hope, our anticipation, of the Lord’s soon coming.

Now in verses 9 to 11, the apostle tells us not only to be enlightened by the biblical timeline and engaged in serving the Lord, but also to be encouraged about the future. We do not need to be afraid of tomorrow. We do not need to start reading our horoscope to see who is in control of our future.

We read in verse 9, “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul is referring to the wrath of God that will be poured out during the tribulation—during the day of the Lord. While we are not promised freedom from suffering during our lifetime, no believer will experience judgment from God.

Jesus experienced divine wrath on our behalf on the cross. As His true follower, you will never need to fear the eternal wrath of God. In fact, Christ’s church will even be rescued by the rapture before the time of God’s wrath comes upon the earth.

As Paul draws his letter to a close, he gives a list of exhortations for believers to apply to their lives. He begins in verse 12 by saying, “Respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord . . . esteem them very highly in love because of their work.” Beloved, I can tell you after pastoring for forty years, these people are rare in the church today, but they are incredibly encouraging to those who lead them.

Now here is a quick list of the commands Paul gives in verses 13-22:

• “Be at peace among yourselves” (verse 13).
• “Admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” (verse 14).
• Don’t repay “evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another” (verse 15).

• “Rejoice always” (verse 16).
• “Pray without ceasing” (verse 17). That means you just carry on a conversation with the Lord throughout your day; and while you are at it, Paul writes in verse 18, “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

• Paul goes on to write, “Do not quench the Spirit” (verse 19). Here is a reminder that the fire of the Holy Spirit’s impact through the church can be put out by the cold water of legalism, criticism, disunity.
• Paul then writes, “Do not despise prophecies” (verse 20). That is, do not reject the revelation of God, which is preached from Scripture.

Paul wraps up this life-changing list in verses 21-22, by writing, “Test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” Every doctrine and every lifestyle choice is to be tested by the Word of God.

Finally, after sending his greetings and asking that his letter be read to everyone, Paul ends with a brief prayer that these believers will experience the continued grace of God.