Written by Joel Davis 

As I write this, I am sitting in a house in the middle of Iquitos in northwest Peru, nearly 3000 miles from my home in Houston, Texas. But whether I were writing to you from Houston, Texas, or Iquitos, Peru, I would be writing you from the Kingdom of God, because I’m a child of the light. What the heck is the Day of the Lord? That sounds like Armageddon, I definitely read about that in a Left Behind book one time, but is that what the Bible means when it says Day of the Lord? And what does our passage today say to us about living in Kingdom realities when something so intense, so cosmic, so massive as the Great and Powerful Day of the Lord might be just around the corner? This DAY is what I want to talk to you about today, and you’re going to be shocked at how simple it is to anticipate the Day of the Lord, to walk as a Kingdom citizen and child of the light, and to internalize that reality for yourself day in and day out.  

I hope to show you three things about this passage. (1) What does the Day of the Lord mean for the Kingdom of this World (2) What does it mean for the Kingdom of God, and (3) How do we live in anticipation of the Day of the Lord? So, let’s get right into our passage. Paul writes this in 1 Thess 5:1-3 

1 About the times and the seasons: Brothers and sisters, you do not need anything to be written to you. 2 For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. 3 When they say, “Peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 

What Does the Day of the Lord Mean for the Kingdom of This World? 

Growing up, when I read this passage the honest-to-goodness image that I had in my mind was of Jesus as a cat burglar cutting the glass in the dome of the atmosphere like he was snatching a famous painting out of a museum and swiping all the Christians away with no one the wiser. But we know this is not what Paul had in mind because we know this is not how anyone else in the First Century would have understood thieves and stealing. And a good rule of Bible interpretation is this: “You have to know what it MEANT before you can know what it MEANS.” How the original audience would have interpreted Paul is very important for us to know how to interpret Paul and apply truth to our own lives.  

For the Thessalonians, thieves were less like cat burglars and more like marauders. When a band of thieves came to take your stuff, they hit loud and hard and fast, like a raid. Everyone knew what was happening, but no one could do anything about it. They were powerless to stop it. The Day of the Lord is going to be like this.  

And in fact, MANY days of the Lord have ALREADY been like this. When we look to the Old Testament, we find the day of the Lord is a theme running throughout the Bible where YHWH brings judgment on man’s wickedness when He deems it has gone too far and needs to be stopped. The Day of the Lord is referenced in Exodus 14 when YHWH swallows up Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, in Isaiah 13:5-6 against Babylon, and in Amos 5:8-10 on Israel itself when it rejected YHWH and went after other gods. 

The Day of the Lord is God’s judgment on unrighteousness. It has happened many times before. In Paul’s life, it will happen again in Jerusalem and in Rome, and it will happen once and for all at Jesus’ return. 

Paul doesn’t want the Thessalonians to worry that they might have missed the cat burglar. They will know it when they see it because it will be a world-shattering event and no one will be able to stop it. 

He also doesn’t want them to worry when their Roman neighbors are running around yelling “Peace and security!” This refers to what’s called the pax Romana, or “Peace of Rome.” It was Rome’s claim that by military conquest it had established peace in the whole known world at the time. Paul says that’s ridiculous. There was no true peace in Rome. Certainly, no peace for the Christians. That was all just propaganda. “The emperor has no clothes.” — DON’T BELIEVE THE LIES! Real, eternal peace will only be established in fullness when Christ returns to claim His church, establish a New Heavens and a New Earth, and He shall reign forevermore! And on that day, everyone walking in darkness will be hit with sudden pain they did not nor could they have imagined, like a woman entering labor. 

What Does the Day of the Lord Mean for the Kingdom of God? 

But Paul says not to worry, because we’re not walking in darkness like them. Well, not exactly… 

4 But you, brothers and sisters, are not in the dark, for this day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children of light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or the darkness. 6 So then, let us not sleep, like the rest, but let us stay awake and be self-controlled. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.  

In our work in Latin America, I never have more than a single hour worth of time difference. So, I’ve only experienced real jet lag a few times in my life. But if you travel a lot, you know the feeling. It’s 3 o’clock in the morning, the middle of the night, but your body is telling you it’s time for dinner, or an iced coffee, or to go run a few miles. It is like your mind is operating in a completely different reality than the one you see when you open the blinds to check and see if the sun is up yet. 

Paul says those of us who belong to Christ, who are sons and daughters of our heavenly Father, temples of the Holy Spirit, are walking around in the clear light of day in the Kingdom of God even though the rest of the world is shrouded in darkness. 

And the rest of the world really is shrouded in darkness. And those who walk in that darkness are living in the kingdom of this world. I don’t know about you, but I have been shocked at the evils that have come across my news feed lately, and what harm people are capable of doing to one another, even to people they previously or supposedly loved. The kingdom of this world has many outposts in our culture. Some of the kingdoms of this world have proper names, like Peru or Ireland or the United States. Other kingdoms of this world are easier to miss. They are consumerism, individualism, money, sex, and power.  

James called God our Father the FATHER OF LIGHTS, and here Paul says we are children OF LIGHT! I do not have to participate in the lesser reality, because I have been adopted into a new and greater reality and a new identity. I don’t have to give myself over to consumerism, or vain ambition, because I have been set free to walk at the speed of my Shepherd and allow Him to determine my steps. How do I avoid being anxious about the apparent power of the kingdoms of this world? How do I internalize the peace that is mine when I have been adopted as a child of the light by the Father of Lights? Just keep reading! 

How Do We Live in Anticipation of the Day of the Lord? 

8 But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled and put on the armor of faith and love, and a helmet of the hope of salvation. 9 For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up as you are already doing.  

If you feel like you’ve heard these words of Paul somewhere else, you’d be right. It’s strikingly similar to his exhortation in Ephesians 6 to put on the full armor of God, and there is a reason for that. When Paul wants to talk about the warfare we do in the spiritual realm, he consistently reached for incredibly mundane, daily practices of cultivating faith, hope, and love. Our battle is not complicated; it is as simple as soaking in the love of my Father and receiving from Him the faith and hope I need to meet the challenges of my day. 

Who knows if you and I will live to see the Great and Powerful Day of the Lord, of Christ’s return. Who knows if we will even live through another major world event. But we DO know for sure that to walk in the light and live in anticipation of Jesus’ return, you must spend time daily in stillness and silence, opening your heart to His love for you. We cultivate faith that He is providing for us and hope for the day when we do this.