Essential Truths - Jesus Christ, His Return - February 24, 2019 Sermon for Church at the Mission
Today we come to the final message on God the Son. If you’ve been tracking with us you know that we are in the midst of a series, “Essential Truths: The Triune God”.
We looked in some depth for a month or so into God the Father, and today we wrap up our look in to God the Son.
We started, if you’ll recall, by looking at the Pre-existent Christ, or the logos, then Pastor Jan spoke on the incarnation of Jesus.
Last week Hannah Kim spoke on Jesus Christ in Redemption, and today we will bring our messages In this series on God the Son to a finale by looking into a particular promise of Jesus - that promise is that He will return one day.
Between His time on earth when He was here, taught us about God, did many miracles and then was crucified, buried and rose from the dead; between that time in history and the time coming soon when He does finally return, He has been busy.
He’s been busy on behalf of the church doing at least 2 things.
Romans 8:34 says “Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us”.
“After Jesus ascended to heaven and was seated at the right hand of God the Father He returned to the glory He had before His incarnation (Jn 17:5) to carry on His role of King of kings and Lord of lords—His eternal role as the second Person of the triune God.
“While this old earth continues to be “won” for Christ, Jesus is the Advocate for Christians, meaning He is our great Defender.
This is the intercessory role He currently fulfills for those who are His (1 Jn 2:1). Jesus is always pleading our case before the Father, like a defense lawyer on our behalf.
“Jesus is interceding for us while Satan (whose name means “accuser”) is accusing us, pointing out our sins and frailties before God, just as he did with Job (Job 1:6-12).
“But the accusations fall upon deaf ears in heaven, because Jesus’ work on the cross paid our sin debt in full; so, God always sees in His children the perfect righteousness of Jesus.
“When Jesus died on the cross, His righteousness (perfect holiness) was given to us, attributed to us - imputed is the $10 theological word - to us, while our sin was imputed to Him at His death.
This is the great exchange Paul talks about in 2 Cor 5:2: “21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[a] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”.
That took away our sinful state before God, so God can accept us as blameless before Him”. https://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-interceding.html
That’s a lot to say, and honestly we could do a year-long sermon series on this topic alone, but we likely won’t.
That’s one thing Jesus has been doing for us, interceding for us. That means Jesus, seated at the right hand of God, has you on His mind.
He is working for you in a great many ways here on earth - to complete the good work He has begun in your life, but also to defend you, to plead your case before the Father.
And Jesus wants us to understand that even beyond interceding for us, He is working for us. He is making a place for you in heaven, God’s home, which is our inheritance as followers of Jesus.
So another thing Jesus has been doing is making a place for you in heaven. In John 14 Jesus says:
1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
Jesus is currently making a place for you in heaven.
So, this is pretty amazing actually. We could have easily spent a whole message on what Jesus is doing between His resurrection and the time that He returns. Perhaps another time.
But all this is being told to us for a few reasons: A. It’s True and B. It’s reeeeeally encouraging.
As believers in Jesus, as followers of Christ, we are, as the Bible says, the adopted children of God.
Because of that, we have a home with God. In Christ.
What does it mean that we’re adopted? Really briefly, a few verses on this:
John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,
Galatians 4:4-5 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Ephesians 1:5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.
The truth is that we experience the fact that we have a home with God now even as we follow Jesus. We can know we belong to Him and with Him.
We know we are among the beloved of God, the beloved, blood-bought children of the most high God.
All this we learn first through revelation - it is what the Bible teaches, and then it goes from our heads to our hearts and then out through our fingers and lives as we pray and worship the living God.
I still find all this mind-blowing and wonderful, and I hope you are encouraged too. If it feels a little overwhelming, actually it should. It is the goodness of God, the gift of the most High, to you and me, His kids.
So now that we’ve really briefly talked about what Jesus has been up to in the past 2000 years, let’s look at what’s next for Jesus. There are many passages that relate to the return of Jesus.
Let’s look closely at 3 of them,and let’s consider the main thing God wants us to hear today about the return of Jesus.
We’ll look at things Jesus says in the gospels of Mark and Luke, and then what we find in 1 Thessalonians.
Mark chapter 13, the whole thing, is all about signs of the end times.
And Jesus, speaking of Himself, as He often did, as the Son of Man, has just said
Mark 13: 26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
So then He says:
Mark 13: 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. 32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.
At the very least, Jesus tells us that His teachings will never cease to be, or cease to be true. They will for all time be our guide to living the way of Jesus.
There is no aspect of Jesus teaching which ceases to be relevant or true. I discovered this early on when I was reading the Bible as a skeptic.
I may have in my arrogance thought: ‘what has this 2000 year old book got to teach me?’
Then I started to read it and I had trouble believing how meaningful and current it is. How it speaks to my life, my problems, and also how it speaks to the problems humanity faces.
Also, there’s a note here for anytime someone tells you they know when Jesus is coming back.
Jesus’ teachings will never cease to be, or cease to be true. They will always be our guide to living the way Jesus wants us to live in order to have the abundant life He wants us to live.
In my lifetime alone there’s been dozens of so-called prophets who had the gall to give a date as to when Jesus was returning. Guess what - they were always wrong.
This hints at something we’ll look at in a few minutes. Humans are inclined to go off on tangents and to miss the point of much of what the Bible says.
We should be cautious that we don’t waste any energy going down rabbit trails, particularly when the Bible says stuff like: NO ONE KNOWS.
Jesus continues:
34 It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
35 “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
Now Jesus has some more things to say about His return and the time of His return in Luke 21:25-36:
25 “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.26 People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.
27 At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
28 When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”...
34 “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. 35 For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”
So there’s a lot here. There will be signs before He comes, before the Son of God, God the Son, returns.
Signs, perhaps unusual things outside what we expect to see in the son, moon and stars.
There will be a general sense of freakout, because the seatide of natural events, perhaps even the sea itself, will behave much differently, maybe even impossibly, from what we have come to expect.
People will be apprehensive, seriously worried about what is coming on the world.
But what about those who follow Jesus? If we are paying attention, if we’re watching as we’re told to do, we will NOT need to be among those who are freaking out.
We know that this is the sign of the return of the Son of God, coming for His very own possession, His Bride, the church. And since we know, we can do what we’re called to do now.
We can live to bless others and invite them to follow Jesus. Knowing we belong to Him, knowing His love, knowing His goodness, knowing that we are His children, we can be, we will be a source of comfort to those in distress around us.
And you know what? They will wonder, and some of them will eventually ask: why aren’t you upset. Why are you so calm?
And then, like we do now when people ask us (this happens a lot at the mission) when people ask us why we care, why we help others, why we invest in all peoples, we can tell them it's because we belong to Jesus.
He our rock. We hold fast to Him. And holding fast to Him, we hold fast to His teachings.
So when the storm comes, when the waves hit, we are simply like the wise man who built his house on the rock, and the sure foundation.
And we’re not at all like the man who built his house on the sand. (Matthew 7:24-29 – show image)
What would you say is the main point here, in both Mark and Luke? Keep watch!
Why does He tell us to keep watch? Isn’t it natural for humans, for Christ-followers, to always be watching, to always be attentive, always have our house in order?
No. And that’s the problem. Humans are prone to wander. If you’ve been a Christian for 30 minutes or 60 years, you are prone to wander.
To get caught up in the busyness of life. We focus our attention on our problems, our struggles, our pain...whatever it may be. And we can fail to simply watch.
I love Psalm 121. I often read it at funerals because it suits that setting, but it’s even more relevant in the day-to-day.
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? 2 My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Hebrews 2 echos this:
12 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the [a]author and [b]finisher of our faith
So the point here about the return of Jesus is that we need to live watchful, careful lives.
1 Peter 1:13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’
May we resolve to be watchful followers of Jesus!
Finally, in this our last message in this series on God the Son, let’s look at 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18:
13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.
Paul is sensitive here to the fact that some followers of Jesus had passed away.
And he wanted to remind other believers of the hope they have, so that they do not need to grieve as most who do not know the end of the story will grieve.
Again, we do know, but we need to be reminded often, about the goodness of God, and the future that is waiting for us, even as Jesus builds our home in the Father's house. So Paul outlines some things that will happen:
14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
All of our hope is based on the fact that Jesus rose victorious from the grave, having died the death our sins deserve. To fall asleep in Jesus is the language used for believers who die.
Sleep is a temporary state. And while for us it looks very much like death, for the one who passes through that veil, they are simply passing from the garden of this world to the garden of God.
15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.
In God’s timing, all those who have passed from this life will go before us into the next. More on this:
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
We can see here that there will be a difference in the second coming of Christ from the first. How did Christ come the first time to this earth?
He came will little fanfare to a young mother and a step-dad, In a manger in Bethlehem.
There were, to be sure, angels present announcing that first arrival, because it was a monumental event.
But that was still local, small scale, known to a few.
Eventually written down and then of course it became recorded in the Bible as the nativity of Christ.
Here, at the second coming, things are different.
While it was fairly easy to not notice the first coming, it will be much harder to miss the second coming of Jesus.
If you think about, even as Jesus launched his public ministry on earth at around the age of 30, people had the choice to listen or not, to see the miracles and either understand them to be signs of God’s presence among them, or they also could ignore those signs.
People saw Jesus turn water turn to wine, lepers healed by Jesus of grotesque skin diseases.
They saw those known to be lame from birth walk after decades after an encounter with Jesus. They saw the dead raised.
For some those signs were enough to make them follow Jesus, and so they did and they worshipped Him.
For others those signs were enough to be a threat, to threaten their power and privilege, to create internal dissonance and anger and make them want to kill Jesus, so they plotted to murder Him, and they did.
If anyone ever tells you: “All I need is to see God show up and do a miracle or 2, then I’ll believe”,
you can tell them that when God did just that, many of those who saw God show up and do lots of miracles decided that the best response was to kill God in the flesh. It is not so simple as ‘seeing is believing’.
In fact, it is more accurate to say that believing is seeing.
When our hearts yield to God’s love, when we place our trust in Jesus, God gives us eyes to see Him with remarkable clarity, though still through a veil.
So Jesus’ return looks like this: He comes down from heaven and it is announced clearly.
Those who have already passed will rise first. Then those who are alive at His coming will join them all in the air. And for eternity we will be with Jesus.
None of this is intended to scare anyone.
In fact, there’s a final word to this passage.
It’s said I believe to keep us from speculating, from becoming obsessed with details and timelines that we cannot possibly know, no matter how clever we think we are.
It’s said to keep our focus where it belongs when we consider the return of Jesus, which we long for. It’s simply this:
18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
May we do that. May we build one another up with the hope of His coming. May we encourage one another to keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Romans 8 wraps this all up nicely for us: Romans 8: 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ...37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
May we put our energies toward loving one another, and loving those around us who do not yet have this hope.
There are so many in this community who do not know Jesus; who live in fear and dread of this life and the next. May we live in such a way that our words are words of life and encouragement.
May our testimony be about the goodness of God that we experience daily as we walk with Jesus. And may our hearts forever be His. Amen.
Can we pray: As I consider these things, I’m amazed, God.
I’m amazed at how kind you are to us. I’m amazed at how generous you all to have called us and given us the capacity to believe, and then to give us life.
God we’ve believed many things in our lives which have disappointed us. We have been let down and we’ve let down others.
But you’re not like that. You’re not a man that you should lie.
For all these things we’ve just been talking about, O God, by Your grace let them travel from our minds to our hearts. Melt our hearts of stone and make them alive.
Make them hearts of flesh, that we might live all days knowing these things are gifts from your hand.
They are true, and they speak so wonderously of Your love. You are love, God. May we love you back by the given of our whole selves to Thee, unrestrained. Unashamed. May we just run to you, to Your loving arms. Amen.
Note: The Prezi for this sermon is here: http://prezi.com/us6-3apojqwo/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
