Delivered By
Pastor Rich Schaller

Delivered On
December 28, 2025 at 11:00 AM

Description

Every follower of Jesus knows these two truths: Jesus has come, and Jesus will come again. Advent celebrates His first coming, but it also points us toward His promised return. And the reason we speak confidently about His second coming is that His first coming (His birth) was unlike any other. Had Jesus been born, lived, taught, suffered, and died as just another man, we would have no hope of His return. There would be no prophets pointing to Him, no New Testament proclaiming Him, and no church built upon Him.

But Jesus was different, and Jesus IS coming back!

The early church lived with this expectation. They didn’t treat the return of Christ as a distant doctrine but as a daily motivation. And when Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, his purpose was not to alarm them but to steady them—to help them live awake, alert, and anchored in hope as they waited for the Lord’s appearing.

With that same spirit, let’s walk through Paul’s message and hear what it means for us today.