Episode 4: Stay Hopeful

Erin Davis: There is a phenomenon that happens in the Davis house. 

Shannan Painter: Maybe you can relate to something Erin Davis shares. 

Erin: It’s the end of the day, and I have not stopped moving since my alarm went off fourteen hours earlier. Most of the time, my eyelashes feel tired! We get our kids in bed, which is its own kind of marathon, and my husband Jason and I settle into our spots on the couch.

We curl into each other like two cats . . . and some time later—it could be minutes, it could be hours, I can’t tell—Jason says, “Baby, are you asleep?” 

And I always say, “No!” like I’m offended he would even ask, even though I definitely was asleep and probably drooling on that poor man’s shoulder. But I didn’t know it!

Shannan: This is The Deep Well with Erin Davis. When we last left off, she was drooling on her husband Jason’s shoulder. Here she is with Episode 4 of the season “Stay Awake!” Let’s listen.

Erin: We don’t know when we are asleep. We don’t have the conscious thought, “I am asleep right now.” We must rely on someone else to alert us to our asleep-ness. In this episode we’re going to park in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5, and I’m going to keep challenging you to read this entire epistle multiple times.

And when you do, you will find Paul reminding and re-reminding followers of Jesus that our Savior is coming back! First Thessalonians 4:13–18 describes this glorious day. 

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

There’s a one-word prayer that first Christians used to pray. I started this series with it: it’s Maranatha! And it means “come, Lord Jesus!”Part of what we miss when we skip or skim the passages about Jesus’ return is the heart-stirring that happens as we read over and over, “Jesus is coming back!” “Jesus is coming back!” “Jesus is coming back!”

Our hearts can’t help but start to ache and long for it! And that ache is: “Maranatha! Maranatha! Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!” If we keep reading through this little letter, we come to 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11: 

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. (vv. 1–2)

If you’ve been listening to this whole series, you’ve heard something like that before. Paul is using Jesus’ language here from Matthew 24. Let’s pick the Thessalonians passage up at verse 3: 

While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 

Again, this points back to Jesus’ language in Matthew 24 and 25. Jesus said that it will be like Noah’s day, people will just be going about their days. Verse 4: 

But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. (vv. 4, 6) 

What did Jesus say to his disciples? “Stay awake!” 

What did Paul write to the gospel-transformed, faith-filled, fruitful, Jesus followers of his day? “Stay awake!” And he reminded us in those verses we just read. Sleeping is for the dark-dwellers, and that’s not who we are. We are children of the light!

I’m still in 1 Thessalonians 5, I’m going to pick it up at verses 7–8: 

For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night.But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 

Paul didn’t say, “Be fearful!” He didn’t say, “Get all the Christians in a room and hunker down and wait.” Look again at verse 8: “But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.” 

You thought that was just in Ephesians 6. This is battle language! Paul is saying, in light of Christ’s return, armor up! Now, he’s not talking about fighting culture wars here. He’s talking about a readiness, a willingness to keep fighting for the gospel, to keep fighting for truth, to stay awake to what Jesus has promised for us.

Paul was saying, essentially, in light of the imminent return of Christ, stay awake and keep fighting. Then he shared some really, really good news—1 Thessalonians 5, verses 9 and 10: 

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 

Now, I know we’ve been talking about staying awake to what God’s doing, and so that line—“whether we are awake or asleep”—might feel a little bit confusing. That has to do with death; “going to sleep” was a euphemism for death.

The early church was so convinced that Jesus was coming back . . . In fact, I think Paul himself as he wrote about Jesus’ return in 1 Thessalonians 4 (what we just read), he wrote about it as if he was going to experience it.

The early church was so convinced that Jesus was coming back at any moment, that these believers in Thessalonica were worried that those who died before the return of Christ would miss out on the resurrection! So Paul was addressing that there in verse 10.

They expected Him to come back and establish the kingdom at any second! Do we? It was confusing to them that some of the brothers and sisters had died before Jesus came back. And Paul was telling them in his letter, “You don’t have to worry!”

Listen again to verses 9 and 10: “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.” 

Are we mindful that our salvation is secure? And when Jesus comes back, it’s not to pour wrath on those of us who are His own, but to deliver us to His kingdom! Are we also mindful—I mean painfully aware!—that for those who are apart from Christ, this is a day to dread! 

There is a day coming when the ministry of the Church is over, when the Bride will be swept up to heaven for the marriage supper of the Lamb, and the lost will be cast out. As Jesus described in that parable in Matthew 25, the door will be locked. Jesus will say, “Truly I say to you, ‘I do not know you’” (v. 12).

Here’s how we know if 1 Thessalonians has really moved the eighteen inches from our heads to our hearts, listen to verse 11: 

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. 

This is another “more and more” phrase. He doesn’t say “more and more” here, but he’s saying, “You know what to do. Do it more and more! Love each other. Do it more and more. Build one another up . . . more and more!” 

Now, context is key. I’m confident you’ve heard this verse taught before. It’s a good and inspired verse, but have you heard it taught in the context of the Day of the Lord? Have you heard it taught in the context of the return of Christ?

We are supposed to encourage each other and build one another up that this is true and that Jesus is coming back. Stay awake! Say it together, remind each other. 

What are we supposed to encourage each other with? What will give us fortitude as we stand for Christ in a culture that is increasingly hostile? Jesus is coming back.

What will keep us in ministry when our discouragement comes calling . . . and it will? Jesus is coming back.

What will keep us from becoming weary in the well-doing of loving others? Jesus is coming back. 

What will give us a love for the lost? If this podcast series has exposed that you’ve lost your love for the lost, where can you turn to get a love for the lost? What’s going to grow your love for the saints? We don’t love the saints because the saints are perfect. So what will grow our love for the saints and our love for the lost? The reality that Jesus is coming back. This is not a fairy tale!

One of my favorite things to say to myself and others is: “He is real! He is risen! And He is returning!” The plan didn’t change! We didn’t misread the message here. We don’t know when Jesus is coming back, but we don’t have to know when.

Think about this: we know nothing about the trajectory of human history. We don’t know when any of the big events that are to come are happening—at least not a day and a year. And you don’t know that for your life, either.

You don’t know when a big job change is coming. You don’t know when a moment of suffering is coming. You don’t know the date of your own death. So, having paralysis simply because we don’t know when Jesus is returning doesn’t make a lot of sense, when we think about it.

Very little about the future of our lives is sure, except this one thing: the Bridegroom will return, and he will take the Church, His Bride to the home He’s been preparing for us! And whether we wait another day, another decade or whether we have to wait millenia before Jesus returns, the call of Scripture—the call of our Savior—doesn’t change. It’s this: stay awake!

How will we use the days God has given us as we wait for the day He has promised? Will He find us like the people or Noah’s day, so busy with the demands of life that we don’t recognize the signs of the time when they come?

Will He find us like the foolish virgin? We give lip service to His return, but we haven’t prepared for it. We’re not willing to burn brightly for Him for as long as it takes. We let that light, that passion, that commitment for Him fade, and we get . . . so . . . sleepy.

Or will He find us eagerly expecting His return with soft hearts, with hands that are willing to keep serving, wide awake with a longing for the day when we will see Him face to face! 

The Someone I’d like to wake us up is the Holy Spirit, and He has no blaring alarm clock. But I believe He wants to gently rouse us from our slumber, and He wants to keep us wide awake to what Jesus is doing in the world, and to the mission He has given us as we eagerly wait for Jesus’ return. Will you let Him?

Or have you hung the Do Not Disturb sign that we sometimes hang on the handle of our hotel room? Have you in some way hung that on your life, that you don’t want to be awakened to Jesus’ return? I’ve wanted to stay asleep at times myself. 

I want to take us to 2 Peter 3. These are words written by the apostle Peter. We’ve heard from Jesus, we’ve heard from Paul, and now we’ll hear from Peter—our Master, Jesus, and the two He built His Church on the backs of. They’re all telling us the same thing: stay awake!

Hear Peter’s words from 2 Peter 3:4–10:

They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 

For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. 

One of my favorite things about the Bible is how it all works together. We’ve been in the gospels, we’ve been in Paul’s epistles, here we’re in a letter from Peter, and the consistency with which they’re saying the same thing is remarkable. They’re reminding us that a day is coming. It will come like a thief. It will sneak in when we least expect it, and it will be a day like no other! For God will finally and forever set all things right!

Right now, this very moment, Jesus is at the Father’s side. He longs—as all grooms do—to come for His Bride! He also longs for the lost to return to Him. Peter’s warning is, “Do not mistake Jesus’ patience for passivity, and do not mistake His patience for powerlessness.”

The Day of the Lord is at hand. Listen to verse 10 from 2 Peter 3: 

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

I like to say, “This will all make a good bonfire someday.” 

The world that the Lord has made, it’s going to burn up, and there is going to be a new heaven and a new earth. Paul and Peter and Jesus have all told us that we’re supposed to encourage each other in this.

As I mentioned, I teach a group of women in my home every Thursday; there are about twenty of us. And we’ve got an unusual amount of trials and tears right now. Not long ago we attended a funeral together; one of our sisters lost her second adult son in less than two years.

We became just this tangled mass of crying women as we stood in front of that young men’s casket together. Another woman in our group has just had wave after wave of crisis. Each week we pray and we believe. And each week that family gets more bad news.

As I said before, my own mom is on hospice care. We’re about to come up on the one-year anniversary of hospice care. It is a long, slow, painful road, and it is consuming at times. And you know what I can’t, with integrity, do with that group of women? 

I can’t, with integrity, look them in the eyes and say, “It’s going to be okay.” Because from a human perspective, it’s not. My friend’s son is gone. He’s not coming back. My other friend has lost things that will not be returned to her. My mom’s terminal illness doesn’t end with a happy ending.

We can’t look each other in the eye and honestly say, “It’s going to be okay.” Here’s what we can look each other in the eye and say, and we do: “Jesus is coming back! And when He does, He’s going to establish His kingdom!”

I love how C. S. Lewis wrote that everything sad is going to come untrue. That’s what Scripture is encouraging us to say to each other. How often? As often as we need to. How long? Until He comes back! That’s how we help each other stay awake.

I want to finish 2 Peter chapter 3. Verse 11 asks a good question: 

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be?

He’s saying, “In light of Jesus’ return, in light of the fact that the earth is going to burn, that Jesus is coming to establish a new kingdom and to finally reunite us with Him; what sort of people ought you to be?”

Not people of fear. That doesn’t line up with what we read in the Bible. Not people of anger. We are to be people of hope, people who live holy and godly lives because we believe He’s really coming back. I’m still in 2 Peter 3. Listen to verses 12 and 13: 

Waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Don’t you long for it?! As we have been parked in these verses, doesn’t your heart begin to ache, “Maranatha!” We were made to live in this new heaven and new earth where righteousness dwells.

What are we waiting for? We’re not just waiting for Jesus to answer a single prayer, although He listens and He loves it when we pray. We’re not just asking Jesus to change our circumstance, although sometimes He does.

Ultimately, we are waiting for the day when Jesus returns and moves us into our new home, the place where righteousness dwells. Do you long for it? Do you wait for it? Has God stirred your heart? If so, you’ve got an assignment. We’re supposed to encourage each other with it! I’m going to pray for us. 

Lord, thank You for this promise! It’s so much bigger than our temporary hope! Lord, help us to encourage each other with what is true. Help us to live in light of the fact that this will all burn up, but You are coming back. What sort of people ought we be? Show us what that means. And Lord, Maranatha! Come quickly! It’s in Your Name I pray, amen.

Shannan: Amen. Erin Davis has been encouraging us to stay hopeful . . . and awake . . . as we watch for Jesus to return. It can be so easy for us to be lulled into complacency by distraction or discouragement.

There was an Old Testament prophet who worked hard to stay alert in light of God’s promises. I’m talking about the prophet Daniel. During his long career, he served in the administrations of four kings, pagan kings, who were not followers of the God of Israel.

But He understood something key: no matter what flawed human being is running the government, God’s still in charge. He’s in control; heaven rules! There’s a book by that title—Heaven Rules. It’s by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. In it, she works her way through the book of Daniel to show us that we can take heart, knowing that God is ruling over all.

We’d love to send you a copy of Heaven Rules by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. It’s our way of thanking you for your donation of any amount to Revive Our Hearts. Request it when you give at ReviveOurHearts.com/TheDeepWell. Thank you so much for your donation.

Daniel was looking forward to God’s fulfillment of His promise that the Hebrew people would one day return to their homeland. And today, you and I are looking forward to the promise of the return of Jesus. I’m Shannan Painter. As we transition to Erin Unscripted, let’s hear from some of our listeners. We’ll start with Mary.

Erin Unscripted

Mary: Just a comment to your teaching: there is unusual suffering in the world today . . . so much of it. Even in our own families, I think we’re seeing an escalation of it and the longsuffering, like you mentioned, with your mother.

I have a son that I have been longsuffering with for forty-three years. He’s now bedridden and very frail. It makes us, I think, pull away from our community, because we have to be at home to do these things. I just think it’s Satan really, really attacking the family structure from its very core, which is the mother of the family.

It has just taken its toll on us, and I think it’s going to get greater and greater as He comes closer to coming back. I think that’s very clear from Scripture. We’re seeing that in the devastating things that are happening all over the world, not just in our own homes.

I think we really need to dig in and be prepared and to stay connected with one another. I’m so glad to have this avenue to connect. I’m so sorry that I haven’t poked into it and connected with it in a more consistent manner over the years.

Erin: Well, we’re thrilled to have you today. Yes, there’s a reason. What you were describing reminds me that the way Scripture describes history’s movement toward this day as birth pangs and contractions.

Those of us who have given birth know that the contractions must increase in intensity for your body to do its work. And so, at first, it’s like, “Oh? Is that a contraction?” And then it gets to a point where there’s nothing other than that contraction! That’s not an accidental word picture that God gives us, because there are no accidental word pictures in Scripture. So we must expect the intensity!

Now, like birth pains, they can ebb and flow from some degree to another. But I think you are affirming what many of us are feeling and experiencing with our Christian friends, which is the intensification of the suffering as we move towards this great and glorious day.

Mary: Yes, exactly. I think we need to take joy in that, because we know that when it does increase in intensity, it’s eminent that He’s closer and closer, and Satan’s going to fight us harder and harder. We just need to be prepared for that.

Portia: I agree with Mary, and even as you were teaching, I was really thinking the very same thing that Mary is thinking: how so many people are suffering in a variety of ways. I think this teaching has helped to remind me of the beautiful purpose (I guess you could say) behind our suffering and how it really turns our faces toward the hope that we have in Jesus Christ!

You know, Erin, there have been things that I have been experiencing over the past four years or so that I’ve just been like, “Can it get any worse?!” And every time I ask that question it’s, “Yes, it can get worse.”

I don’t know when these seasons of suffering will end, from a human perspective. I may deal with this for the next ten or twenty years. But I do know that I have a hope that life as I know it now, that this won’t exist eternally and that what my heart truly longs for, the wholeness and the healing and the freedom that I truly long for, is found in Jesus Christ, and that I will experience that when He returns.

And so, this was just such a timely reminder. I think it’s going to be such a blessing to so many people who are struggling and suffering and cannot see the beauty or the point behind what they are experiencing in life right now.

Erin: I mean, according to what we’ve read, even in the text we’ve read in this series, when will it be transformed? In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. We don’t know when that moment is, but we do know there is a moment, and it won't be this painful unraveling. It will be like [she snaps her fingers] it’s finished! It’s taken care of.

I don’t know if we can talk about this without getting too far into eschatology. But the way I read Scripture is that things are going to progressively get worse and worse until Jesus returns. Now, of course, we pray for revival, and God is gracious and will continue to pour out His Spirit.

But my sense is that the saints are suffering in a unique way and that the front of darkness has moved toward us, not away from us. And the level of suffering that I am seeing in my own life and among other saints has ratcheted up.

Now, I’m getting older, it’s possible that it’s just my season of life, but I don’t think it is. The enemy is relentless, and he’s angry, and he seeks to kill and destroy. We know all of that from Scripture. And also, part of Jesus getting us ready for His return is untethering us from all that will burn up.

All metaphors break down at one point, and this is probably a weak one. But eventually I had to take the binky away from my babies because eventually that was no longer a good source of comfort for them. They needed a better source of comfort.

And when the Lord strips us . . . You know, just a night out with a friend isn’t enough to ease the ache anymore, or just some new curtains. I always think, Oh, I’ll just feel better if I get some new curtains! But the ache is too deep for that. Or just time itself doesn’t take away something that is painful and hard.

That takes away sources of comfort that were never true sources of comfort to begin with. And when the suffering is deep and it’s prolonged . . . Something I’ve said a lot lately is there’s a difference between suffering and longsuffering. Portia, what you were describing and what you are living is longsuffering. 

We need a true source of comfort, and our true source of comfort is that He is coming back, and it could be soon. We’re supposed to live like it is, and that He’s going to set it right. So, thanks for sharing your heart. I do think the saints are suffering in a unique way in our day.

Mary, I’m going to guess that you would affirm this—you can speak for yourself in a minute. But having my own journey with my mom’s terminal illness has done things in my spirit that never could have been done another way.

I can now pray, and mostly mean, “Your will, not my will be done.” I had prayed those words often in my Christian walk, but really didn’t mean them. And I do wake up and think, What if today’s the day! What if He really does come back today? To pray for that and to long for that because the ache becomes so deep!

And so, it is sometimes in the darkest bits of suffering that we see things as they really are, which is our desperate need for Jesus. We long for Him to do what He has promised to do. Has that been your experience?

Mary: Exactly. It certainly has. Being forced to be isolated because of the amount of care that we have to provide for him has, I think, forced us to be more inward with our relationship with Christ.

I would be remiss if I misled people to think that it has been a perfect journey, because it certainly hasn’t! There have been many days, weeks, months and even years—I’m sad to say—that I have walked away from my faith and allowed Satan a foothold. But thank God, He didn’t give up on me!

Erin: Hmm, He is so faithful, so faithful! Satan deserves no glory, but he wants to keep us from the Lord, and if he cannot keep us from the Lord, it seems that he would like to keep us asleep—asleep to what the Lord is doing and asleep to what God has called us to do.

I think all of us would have to acknowledge, “Yeah, I’ve had some times where I was a Christian, but I was asleep.” And the Lord is gracious to wake us up.

Mary: Yes, it’s hard not to have a spirit of being a martyr for taking care of this person all these years and take away the glory from God and put it on yourself: “Oh, you’ve done a great job!” Yeah, Satan certainly plays mind games with us and he’ll use whatever we have.

Erin: Yeah, he will.

Shannan: Erin, I just wanted to add, if I can, you referenced labor and labor pains. Having given birth four times, I can attest to the fact that one of the most difficult things about being in labor is you don’t know exactly when it’s going to end. It could be any number of hours, and that was always really mentally challenging for me.

But, obviously, you endure that because of the hope of the end. You get a child, this beautiful gift, because of those labor pains. I think what provokes emotion in me today is recognizing that I’ve been so fixated on the labor pains of the struggle. We all know in life that we can lose sight of the hope. And that’s what you were speaking about, staying hopeful, remembering that everything that we suffer in this life, everything we struggle with, is worth it because of what we get in the end/

Erin: Yes, Shannan, that is so true. You describing labor helped me think of just another layer of what the Word was trying to teach us. You know that moment when you see your baby’s face? And I had hard labors, girl! I’ve said every time I would do it again the next day to get to see that little face!

And we’re going to see the face of Jesus—not in a painting, not in some human imagination. We’re going to see His face! Faith will be sight; we will see Him! We will know Him even as we are now by Him fully known! 

It will be so much like that labor room, like, “Oh, there you are!. There is the face I’ve longed for all my life!” And there is not going to be a single pain, or birth pain, that we’ve experienced that is going to feel like it was too high of a price to pay. 

It’s all going to melt away, with everything else that’s going to melt away. So, thanks for sharing that tenderness of your heart.

Shannan: Well Erin, there’s more in 1 Thessalonians, and there’s more on your heart to share. What can we look forward to in Episode 5?

Erin: Well, I’m essentially letting you peek at what the margins of 1 Thessalonians look like in my Bible. This last chapter of 1 Thessalonians gives us a really practical list, and so we’re going to walk through that list together and help each other stay awake!

Shannan: The Deep Well with Erin Davis is part of the Revive Our Hearts podcast family, calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ!

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