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Prepping for a New Year or Preparing for Eternity
Scripture Reference: Mark 13:32-37
Preached at Mount Zion Baptist Church on December 30, 2018
Delivered by Rev. John Daniel Johnson
Illustration:
Back in May of 2017, my father passed away after a long battle with cancer. This past Christmas, my brother and I found a home video of our father’s last Christmas with us. We made this video into a DVD and presented it to our mother for Christmas. As a family we sat around on that special day and wept like two year old children. All those thoughts came rolling back into our memory of all those special times we had with our dad.
After the video we sat around telling old stories about my father. It was one of those stories that shaped the outline of this message. A few weeks after my dad’s passing, my two smallest girls went to go visit their grandmother, my mother. A few minutes later, the girls came back home and quickly ran into their room. We had bought both of them little pink Dora the Explorer suitcases and they were pulling these pieces of luggage into the living room. They opened up their little pink cases and begin throwing in Barbie dolls, some books, some clothes, and their toothbrush. After packing their bags, the girls zipped them up, waved to me “goodbye”, and started pulling the luggage towards the door. Before they headed out of the door, I stopped them and asked where they were going. Without missing a beat, Charity replied, “Grandmama told us that Granddaddy is in Heaven, and she wants to go be with him. Me and Tiffany have decided that we’re going with her.” Oh the innocence of a child!
This morning I want to begin by asking you a simple question: Are you truly preparing for Heaven as much as you have planned for next year? Are you truly prepared to go to that heavenly home that awaits the true children of God? Jesus declared in Matthew 6:19-21: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
James 4:14 adds:
“ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”
Scripture:
“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning— lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!”
My friends, if this was the last message that I could preach to you before I died, I would want to tell you this. Jesus is coming again one day. Once He returns, He is going to take His church home, and we better be ready.
Illustration:
There is an old story of a king of bygone days and his 'clown' or 'jester', who sometimes said very foolish things and sometimes made very wise utterances. One day the jester had said something so foolish that the king, handing him a staff, said to him, 'Take this, and keep it till you find a bigger fool than yourself.'
Some years later, the king was very ill and lay on his deathbed. His courtiers were called; his family and his servants also stood round his bedside. The king, addressing them, said, 'I am about to leave you. I am going on a very long journey, and I shall not return again to this place: so I have called you all to say "Goodbye".' Then his jester stepped forward and, addressing the king, said, 'Your Majesty, may I ask a question? When you have journeyed abroad visiting your people, staying with your nobles, or paying diplomatic visits to other courts, your heralds and servants have always gone before you, making preparations for you. May I ask what preparations your Majesty has made for this long journey that he is about to take?'
'Alas!' replied the king, 'I have made no preparations.'
'Then,' said the jester, 'take this staff with you, for now I have found a bigger fool than myself.'
My friend, the God of all creation came into this wicked world, born of a virgin, died a cruel death and rose again. That is our Gospel. There in Acts 1, the disciples watched as the very God of heaven, Jesus Christ, ascended right back into the heavens. There a promise was made that in that same way that He left, He would return. Oh, that is a promise that I’m waiting for. However, here’s what I want you to understand. Jesus is not up in Heaven just sitting by waiting for the go-ahead to come back to get His followers. He’s not sitting comfortably, just twittling His thumbs. No friends. Scripture tells us in John 14:2-3:
In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
Right now, Jesus is preparing you…YOU…a place. Not your neighbor down the road. Not your loved ones…but YOU. Oh, once you’ve placed your faith in His saving grace, He immediately picks up the eternal hammer with those nail pierced hands and begins construction on your place in Heaven.
Everything I have, which is not a lot mind you, everything I have gotten, I have had to work for. No one gave me a car. I had to work to earn one. No one gave free college. I had to work my way to earn an education. No one ever gave me a free home…but One did. Jesus right now is preparing me a place. It did not cost me a thing. There is nothing that I can do or no amount of work I can accomplish to achieve it. Like salvation it is free.
Once I believed in the only begotton Son of God, I was granted entrance into Heaven. Not only did I get citizenship, but I got a free home. And once that home is completed, He’s going to return to take me to that home. Whether by death or by rapture, He’s coming to get me. Here’s the good news…if you’re a true believer, He’s coming to get you also.
So, how do we prepare ourselves for our new home?
First, make sure that you are right with God.
There’s an old verse that lets us know if we are right with God. In this most quoted verse of all time is a picture of God’s love for us, but in that picture of love is a promise of judgment. Jesus declares in John 3:16-18:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Then He adds in John 3:36: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
Do you see what Scripture is telling us? There is wrath coming to those who have never believed on the Son of God. But the good news is that God will spare us from the wrath that is to come is we only believe and pattern our life that shows evidence we believe. Once we believe, all that sinfulness that is upon us is wiped away. You might have been the roughest sinner in the world, but all those sins are completely washed away. Our Savior went to the Cross and took the punishment for us. The Bible tells us in Romans 6:23, that the wages of sin is death. But Jesus took our punishment. He took our pain. He took our death. Once we believe on Him, and accept the fact that our God loved us so much to lay His own life down for us, we will be able to stand before Him forgiven.
"A lady when I first came here said, 'I don't like that loud preaching.' I said, 'Sister, what I preach you wouldn't like if I whispered it." —Dr. Jack Hyles
As Jesus hung on that Cross, the Scripture tells us in Matthew 27:46: “About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
I had always wondered by Jesus made this statement while on the Cross. I just couldn’t understand that loneliness that Jesus must have felt, and then for our Savior to say something like this. The pain that must have been in His heart. This past week, I was studying on this passage, and the LORD showed me to reasons why Jesus said this.
First it is a fulfillment of Psalm 22. The whole narrative of the crucifixion is spoken of in Psalm 22 and Jesus being the Messiah fulfilled that prophetic text. Jesus said that statement because of what 2 Corinthians 5:21 states: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
1 Peter 2:24 adds:
“and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross,
so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by
His wounds you were healed.”
How else do we prepare ourselves for our future home in glory?
Secondly, forgive as much as you’ve been forgiven.
Matthew 6:14-15 makes it plain, "For if you forgive men for their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men for their sins, neither will your Father forgive your sins."
Thirdly, become a disciple of Jesus.
Mark 16: 15-16 tells us what His business is: "Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. But he who does not believe will be condemned."
Fourthly, be led and filled with the Holy Spirit
Acts 1:8 tells us how we will be empowered: "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
Fifthly, Study, grow and be not ashamed.
Study the Word of God. "Study to show yourself approved by God, a workman who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15).
Sixth, be a doer of the Word and have evidence of your faith.
"Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man viewing his natural face in a mirror. He views himself, and goes his way, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in his deeds" (James 1:22-25).
