Sermon Central
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What Are You Looking For?
Contributed by Thomas Dibble on May 30, 2003 (message contributor)
Summary: Are you living your life with the rapture in mind? He just might come today.
Paul says in his epistle to Titus - it is the grace of God that brings salvation to you and it is available to everybody. He goes on to say that the same grace that brought salvation teaches you to live a godly, righteous and holy life in this present world.
The world pokes fun at those who live a godly, righteous and holy life. Even in the religious community it is deemed not important and legalistic to live the way we do. Why do we live a godly, righteous and holy life?
ÿ We live like that because we are looking for the coming of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
ÿ We live like we do because he is coming for a church that is ready and waiting for his return.
ÿ We live like we do because he is coming for a church that is without any spot or blemish, a people that have had their robes washed in the blood of the lamb.
ÿ We live like we do because we want to be ready for his return.
We live like we do because:
There is coming a day
When no heartaches shall come,
No more clouds in the sky,
No more tears to dim the eye,
All is peace forever more,
On that happy golden shore,
What a day glorious day that will be.
We live like we do because:
There’ll be no sorrow there,
No more burdens to bear,
No more sickness, no pain,
No more parting over there,
And forever I will be,
With the one who died for me,
What a day glorious day that will be.
What a day that will be,
When my Jesus I shall see,
And I look upon his face,
The one who saved me by his grace,
When he takes me by the hand,
And leads me through the promise land
What a day glorious day that will be.
I am looking for his coming. I am looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing. Oh, what a day that is going be.
My question to you is “what are YOU looking for?”
Jesus is coming soon. But by and large this world is not looking for the coming of the Lord. More and more in this day people are turning to new age thinking and new age philosophies. Just the other day a friend of mine told me of a bumper sticker that he saw, right here in CT. It said “Born again pagen”. To this world there is no God, but they consider themselves gods. They walk according to their own lust and what pleases them and what brings them pleasure. The only God is what makes me feel good.
But it doesn’t matter that the world is not looking for his coming. He is still coming some day very soon. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Eight times in the New Testament it refers to the coming of the Lord as a thief in the night. In other words we do not know the day or the hour that he is going to return, but we know that he will return. So we must live soberly, righteously and godly in this present life. We must live with the rapture in mind. We must live like we are looking for his coming any day.
What are you looking for?
3:1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
