Caught Off Guard

I'm going to read a passage this morning from Matthew chapter 22, if you'd like to find that in your Bibles. Hold that a moment, I want to use some passages from John too, chapter 1 in John, and also chapter 17 in the book of John. We do have out in the vestibule some of the old hymnals that we used to use. We had kind of white ones, probably a different color than that, but they were light colored and we were using them in here, now we're using them over in the other building. We had the red ones, which were a long time ago, and we now are taking them out. So there's some out there in the boxes. If you want to get one of those old hymnals and take it home with you, you're welcome to do so. We're going to have to throw them away because we've got too many old books in the building. So you're welcome to have one of those if you'd like to. In chapter 24 of the book of Matthew, Jesus is responding to a question that the disciples asked. He was absolutely clear, it was absolutely plain what Jesus had to say. They said, when is it that you're going to return? And Jesus said, the angels don't even know that. Now the people listening to Jesus had grown up as Jewish young men and they'd heard talk that the rabbis said that the angels knew everything that took place because they were the servants of God. So when he said the angels don't know, this would have been sort of a shock to some of them. And then many of them had seen him perform miracles and do wonderful things and they thought when they saw him that he had the very presence of God in his life. And he said, and the son doesn't know. And that had to be a real shock to them too. And then he said, only the father knows when that time will be. Jesus was not trying to brush this off as an insignificant event. In fact, he knew it was one of the most important events that would ever take place in the history of the world. He didn't want the people who were listening to him to be unprepared for that day. He didn't want them to come to the last dime whenever he would have come back and they would be unprepared for what was taking place. Jesus didn't want them to face that day and be shocked or surprised. So he gave them some instructions about what he could tell them was going to happen and take place. In chapter 24 of the book of Matthew, beginning with verse 36, no one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven nor the son, but only the father. Because it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the son of man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. And up to the day Noah entered the ark, they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. This is how it will be at the coming of the son of man. Two men will be in the field. One will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill. One will be taken and the other left. Jesus starts his discussion about what he can tell them about the end of time by saying it will be like the days of Noah. Now in Noah's time, the Bible says that the world had become so wicked that people did nothing good and God decided that he was going to destroy all the people that were in the world at that time. Now the Bible describes the people of that day as extremely wicked. The scripture says that their thoughts were wicked all the time and so wicked that God said I am sorry that I created people. The Bible doesn't give us many times in which God is sorry that he did something but this was one of them. I'm sorry that I created man. He was so upset with people. He decided that the only recourse he had was to destroy everybody and start over but then the scripture says, excuse me just a minute, happy birthday Alan. Alan has to go around and check all the doors and all the rooms and the bathrooms and lock them so that everything can be ready for us to be safe while we are in here. So God said to Noah, I want you to build a boat and he described to him at great length what it was, 450 feet long, 75 by 45, huge boat. He said when the time comes I want you to get two animals, a male and a female of every kind on the boat and then I'm going to send the rain and the world is going to be covered with it. Now when Jesus describes this event, he's not talking about the floodwaters, he's not talking about the destruction of the world. What he means is he's talking about the day of Noah and he amplifies that to let us know exactly what about that day he is talking about. In Noah's day, he said, none of the people who were around knew that the flood was coming. Now we know that they had some idea and a warning, I mean here's a guy that's building a huge boat, 450 feet long, 75 by 45, who in the world would see that out in a man's field and not sometime sort of come up and say, hmm why are you building such a big boat? So maybe they knew what was taking place, they knew Noah believed that there was going to be some great flood, they didn't believe it, but he said the people in Noah's day were unprepared for what happened to them. When the water came and the floodwater rose and they all died, they were certainly surprised by this. When the time came, God had Noah go in the boat and said seven days now and the rains were going to start and seventh day God closed the door of the boat and the rain started. We don't know what the people thought, temporary thing, water gets high, suddenly they realize this is a disaster. Jesus says the people there were caught by surprise because what they were doing during all this time that Noah was doing this and even when it started raining perhaps they were simply doing what normal people do. What do you do? You get up in the morning, have breakfast, you may work, have lunch, you may work, eat supper, living and eating, eating and drinking, going on as if life would just last forever and all of a sudden they were caught by surprise. Then he said people were giving in marriage and being married. You know what happens whenever a couple wants to get married? You say well let's set a date, then you then plan all the activities and events that are going to take place and in Bible days I suppose in the same way in Noah's time people would plan a whole week of festivities, a whole week of events with a banquet every single day. A lot of work and effort would go into planning a wedding and then the couple that gets married is looking into the future. What's it going to be like? Where are we going to live? How many children are we going to have? All the choices they have to make, what kind of career? These people were looking in the future and those giving in marriage, it would be the family of the bride and the family of the groom. Those days marriages were family events. In the wedding ceremonies they usually have a big banquet and the father of the groom would get up and toast the father of the bride and say you are now our family and the other father would get up and say to them you are now our family. So the whole families were joined together through this wedding experience and deciding about where they were going to stay and how they were going to, what career they would have, whether the fathers or theirs, children, grandchildren, looking in the future. In the day of Noah the people who were living their ordinary life, just doing what they do normally, their life was suddenly interrupted by a world changing event that cost them their own lives. The people who were there who were planning into the future and who thought they would have more time, there would be more opportunity down the road for them discovered that all of their plans the day of that flood were over. They were caught by surprise. They were not prepared for what was to come. Jesus warns us that his return to the earth will come at a time that will catch people by surprise. It's not that they haven't heard of this. That's not the case. In the day of Noah's day, probably people had heard something about what Noah was doing but they did not take it seriously. They were not planning for that event. They were not trying to get ready for what was going to happen and it caught them by surprise, unaware of this impending disaster. That's the way it's going to be when I return. There'll be people who have great plans and all of a sudden their plans evaporate. There'll be people going about the ordinary activities of life and all of a sudden when the trumpet sounds and the lightning flashes to announce the coming of Jesus, they will be startled and shocked to discover that all plans in this world are over. What Jesus warns us about is the time of God's coming, his second return, the second coming of Christ, will be sudden, unexpected, and no time to prepare. Now why was Jesus warning his disciples about this? He'd already told them that the judgment day was coming. Earlier in the book of Matthew he said that the final day, whenever the Son of Man returns, will come before him and they'll be judged and he'll say to some, I want you to come to the place prepared for you, the place I've prepared for you to be with me forever. And for those who had not prepared, he said, this is the place I have for you and the devils. And the people who were assigned to that place, some of them said, wait a minute, we've been faithful to you. We have taught the Bible. We have done wonderful things for people. We've done nice things for people. Why sometimes we've even done things that people say are miraculous. And God replies, depart from me, I never knew you. Here's a key word. You see a lot of people when they think about the judgment day are just like those people Jesus was talking about. They think, I will get to go to heaven based on how many good things I've done. I've heard people say, well, whenever I die, I hope I've done more good things than the bad things. So it kind of ends up on my side. Like it's a great scale. That's not the way God sees things. For the first place, it's hard for us sometimes to know what God considers a good thing. Sometimes that's different than what we consider to be good things. So you don't really know on the list whether things you think are good are actually weighty things in God's mind. So you can't keep that done. If you think, well, I'm better than most of the people around me. You may live around a bunch of people that are pretty bad people. And when God looks over the whole world, he says, boy, that bunch over there is pretty bad. If that were the basis on which God made that decision, you see it would be very difficult to decide from all of that. And you might even live a holy life, right up to the last minute. I mean, done everything good, and you can say, God, I've been a holy person, I've done everything good, and because I've been a holy person, I deserve to go. And you're out there fixing the wall, and you take the hammer and whack, and you hit your thumb, and you say some words that you shouldn't have said, and then the time Jesus comes and you're caught. One last failing event and you're under. But you see, that's not what this is all about. What the Father said was, I never knew you. He didn't say you aren't good enough. He didn't say you haven't done enough good things. He said, I did not know you. This is a key of what Jesus tried to do with his own disciples to get them ready for the time that he would return the second time. Now to understand what this is that God is looking for in my life, in your life, I wanted to read a passage from the book of John, chapter 1. It's John's Christmas story, really. He didn't tell about the baby in the manger, he didn't tell about many of the things that we read in the normal Christmas story. But in this one, he's telling about Jesus coming and what his mission and purpose was. John chapter 1, and I'm going to begin reading at verse 11. In here, Jesus is describing what it is that happens to a person that enables them to become known by God. Verse 11, he came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, nor of a husband's will, but born of God. What John describes is what it means to become a follower of Christ. To as many as received him, received him how? As the one who was the ruler of the universe, as the expected Messiah that the Jews have been looking for for so long, as the one sent from God with the message of God. John calls him the Word. He's the one that has the Word from God. We use it in the same way. You meet somebody and say, what's the Word? You're not asking for them to figure out some word. You want them to say, here's the message, here's what I have to say to you. Jesus was what the Father had to say to us. His life and his work was God's message to us. So as many as received this message from God and recognized it was the authority of God himself speaking, and they trusted this Word, and began to live in obedience to the instruction of Jesus. To those who did this, he gave them the ability to become children of God. Now let me describe for a moment, or ask you to think for a moment about what it means to be a child of somebody. If you're a parent, you know what it means to have a child. A child is born into your family, you love that child, you care for them, you start instructing them about how to be able to live. You start teaching them what they can do and they can't do. You learn their abilities and their inabilities, and you begin to try to help them develop their skills. You try to help them learn how to make choices and decisions. And in the time that you're raising that child, you get very close to them. You get to know what they think. You get to know how they feel. You get to know what they can do and they can't do. And at the same time, that child gets to know you. They get to know what's important to you. They get to know what's valuable to you. They get to know what you will not tolerate. They get to know what you're like intimately. This is the relationship that the Bible is describing. The word know in the Bible is used, has two Greek words that are used to say that. If I say, for example, I know about a restaurant in town that has good food, that's just knowledge that I have about something. If I say, I know my wife very well, that's knowledge of an intimate nature. In fact, the Bible oftentimes uses the word know to describe the acts of sexual intimacy. Adam knew his wife and she conceived and bore a son. It means the most intimate of all human relationships where you're so close to that person that you know them as no one else in the world would ever know them. And so when God looks at a person and says, I do not know you, it doesn't mean that he doesn't know their name. It doesn't mean that he doesn't know who they are and where they lived and all the things they've done in their life. He means to say, you and I have never been on a relationship of personal intimacy. Where you knew who I was, you knew what I wanted, you knew what I thought, you knew what I was trying to do. When Jesus called his disciples, he said to them, I want you to come and follow me. And you know what they did? For three years, they walked with him, they ate with him, they listened to him. He listened to them. There was this level of intimacy that developed over those years just like a child and a parent get close to each other. And they knew Jesus well. And Jesus knew them very, very well. They were learning what Jesus said they should do and they were learning what they shouldn't do. He corrected them, they listened to him, they learned, and their relationship grew closer and closer and closer. They were the most intimate of friends with Jesus. He knew them. Jesus shows this as what it means to become a disciple, a follower of God, a follower of Jesus. It starts as John describes in the beginning when you say, I believe that Jesus has the very words of God to speak to us. I believe his words are the words from God's mouth and I want to accept them as truth. And I pledge myself to live in obedience to what God is telling me through Jesus. And whatever he says, this is the word I live by. That's the beginning. And then as they walked with Jesus and they heard him teach and talk and explain what was important and unimportant, tell them what the most important things were and what the least important things were and what things offended him and what things made him happy or pleased. They got to know who he was. That's exactly what God does with us. Years later, we come into this scene. In chapter 17 of the book of John, this is Jesus' farewell event. You can almost feel when you read the whole chapter 17, the sadness in Jesus' voice, the melancholy that sort of set in as he's thinking back about what's taking place. Earlier in this chapter, earlier in this chapter, he's talking about his disciples. In verse 13 of chapter 17, he says, I'm coming to you now, but I say these things while I'm still in the world. So that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, for they are not of this world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but you protect them from the evil one. They're not of this world, even as I am not. Sanctify them by truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them, I sanctify myself, that they may be truly sanctified or holy. Here Jesus is leaving this group of guys he's trained, ready to do his work. He knows that the only thing they're going to have now is the presence of the Holy Spirit, and he intercedes for them. I have given them your word. I've told them what they should do, and they've tried to do that. But now I ask you to protect them. Then in verse 20, he starts praying for you, me. My prayer is not for them alone, he's talking about the disciples. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message. In all of the New Testament, the story of Jesus' life and what he said is his message. I heard so many people say, well, the New Testament is really the important part of the Bible for me. Because you follow Jesus and you accept this as a key ingredient in what God wants, it's because of that that you know who Jesus is, and you know what God wants. So I pray for them who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. What did Jesus mean by this phrase, that they may be one? We're all kinds of different people, different sizes, different intellects, different interests. And believers all over the world, different races, how can we be all one? Well you know whenever you get a bunch of people together and you tell them, I want you all to stand, if it's a stadium of 50,000 people, and you say, I want you to stand and they all get up, they're acting as one. When there is one God who is speaking to all of his children and they are all acting in obedience to what he says, we are one in Christ. I pray that they might be one, all connected together with each other. There is no place in the kingdom of God for a lone ranger Christian out there on his own. For what Jesus prayed for was that every person who believed this message would become a part of the family of God, children of God. Now what it means to be a part of a family is you're connected to all the people in the family. That's my brother, you know the old story, the guy sees a fellow carrying another one, isn't he heavy? He said, no he's not heavy, he's my brother, not a burden to me. It changes everything to be a part of a family. So we're made a part of a family and he says, Jesus said, I'm praying for them that they'll be one, that they will listen to you and your words and every one of them will act exactly as you tell them they should act. But as you and I are one, so they may be one also. May they also be in us so that the world will believe that you have sent me. Jesus prayed that we might understand the relationship between him and the Father. They are one, that all of them will be one Father just as you are in me and I am in you. The connection of ourselves with each other is like the connection of Jesus with the Father. Can you ever imagine Jesus telling bad things about the Father? Can you ever imagine Jesus getting mad at the Father and not speaking to him for several days or weeks? Can you imagine getting angry with the Father and saying, I'm not going to be around him anything for the rest of my life? Like we do with each other, you know? His prayer for us is that the walls would be so broken down between us because we're part of the same family that there would be nothing except this oneness of relationship. And the model for our relationship with each other is the model of the Father and the Son. And if your relationship with other Christians ever ceases to be that, then there's sin somewhere. For that's Jesus' prayer. So if you get mad at another believer, there's something wrong with you, brother. If you get so upset you don't want to be around them, there's something wrong with you. For what Jesus teaches us is he's praying that there'll be no barriers between us. That they may be one as we are one. Jesus speaking, I in them and you in me. You see, whenever we take Jesus Christ as our Lord, we are joined to him as a brother. And we're joined to the Father as our Father. So that we become in Christ all the way through the books of Paul and his writings. He describes our relationship with Christ as being in Christ. Now that's hard to imagine because we think of it in physical terms. How can one person, two bodies, we can't get inside each other. How can we be in each other? Well, we can be in each other's lives, that's what he means. So that these are two lives joined together. Just as the Father and the Son are joined together. So our model is this unity or this oneness. In the beginning, we say I accept you as my Lord and Savior and he makes us his children. And then we begin to learn what the Father's like. We begin to learn what he wants us to do and we start doing it because we pledge to do that. And the more we walk with God and learn about God and do what he tells us and feel his affirmation and the longer we do the things we shouldn't do and we feel his judgment and we know what we have to do to apologize, to make it right and grow in our relationship to him, the closer and closer we get to him. So that we are one in him. Now, all of this to say, what is supposed to happen to us at that last day? Let me ask you to think about this. Do you think if Jesus were alive on this earth and the end of the world came, he would be worried about meeting the Father? When he was on the cross, he wasn't worried about the fact he was going to die. In fact, he thought of it as a way, a great thing for him because then he would get to be with the Father. You and I, when we're in Christ, joined to him, learning about the Father, learning about the Son, learning how to live in that relationship of trust with him, we are slowly joined together in an inseparable bond that can no more be separated than the Son can be separated from the Father. And so the last day comes. We hear all the things he said which indicate that Jesus is coming. Should fear race up in our hearts? No. No more than when a child who's been separated from their parents for a week or two or three because they've been off would be upset that their parent was coming home. You can't wait. You're so excited. You know that your parent loves you and you know that you love them. And because there is this relationship of love between you, you are thrilled. That's what Jesus was talking about. If you live your life as a child of the Father and you live in that relationship of trust with him, it doesn't make any difference when the Father sends me back. It doesn't make any difference what the last day is. You will know that this is a wonderful time because you know the Father intimately and you know what he's like. And because he knows you as his child, you know what it's going to be for you. What Jesus said was, don't try to figure out when the last days are going to be here because that's not important to you. You'll never be able to figure it out and you'll not be able to get ready in any way when you know it's coming. But here's how you get ready. You get ready doing the very things I've been teaching you guys for the last three years. You listen to what the Father says. You do what he tells you to do. You trust him with your life. And when that time comes, no matter what it is, you will be ready. That's not true of everybody. If they don't know who the Father is as a father, if they don't know the relationship they have as a relationship of father and child, if there's not that oneness that comes from knowing each other, there will be fear, terror, weeping, wailing, crying. But for those who know God, there will be joy and excitement and exhilaration. I cannot tell you, Jesus said, when the last day will be. But I can tell you how to be ready. And that's what I've been doing, he said, for the last three years. When that time comes, you will be ready. Would you bow your heads, please, for a moment? I want to ask you, when you think about the end of the world, either dying or Jesus' return, what emotion does it draw inside of you? Fear? It shouldn't be. That fear is there for one of two reasons. Either you don't know enough about your father to know he's going to treat you as a child, finally closer to him, or because you don't have him as your father. And I can't tell you which one of those is. Those choices really is yours. But if you have fear, something needs to be done about it. If you believe that you really have given your life to Christ and you're living in obedience to him and you still have fear, it's because you're like a child who's been adopted and only knows your parents for about a week or two. You need to get to know your father in heaven. He needs to get to know you. How can you do that? You make a commitment to read the Bible. You make a commitment to be in worship with your other brothers and sisters in Christ. You make a commitment to ask him direction for your life, to depend on him for the provision of your life, and depend on him for the protection of yourself instead of trusting yourself. You only learn about God by seeing what he does in your life. But if you've never ever said to him, I pledge to you my whole life to live in obedience and submission to you the rest of my days, then that's where you have to start. You could start that today. God is here. He's right with you. All you have to do is say, God, I'm not ready to meet you. I don't know you that well. But I believe the things you've said are true. And today I want to say to you, I want to live my life as if you are the Lord and the ruler of everything. I give my life today and its future to you. And I'm going to start learning who you are and learning how to live in submission to your authority like a child does their parent. Whenever you do that, what God will do is he'll make you his child spiritually. And your whole life will change. Jesus said, there's not any way I can tell you how to get ready by telling you the day. But what I have told you is how to get ready whatever the day. This morning I'm going to ask you to make a promise to God. Promise to say, Lord, I want to get to know you so well that when I think of death or the end of this world, no fear will come. Or you might need to say, Lord, I want to start on this long journey of being your child. And beginning today, right now, I give my life and all of its future to you and your control. It may be that God wants you to be a part of the family of this church. That's part of your journey. It may be he's been telling you something you need to do, someone to pray for, a job you need to do. If your father's told you what you need to do, you need to do it as an obedient child. Father, I've said to these people what I think you wanted me to say. I hope they were your words. And I hope you give us those words with power, with the ability to understand what you want from us and what you want us to do. I trust that through all of this service you've been talking to each one of us about what you want to tell us. If there are changes you want us to make in our lives, point those out to us. And give us the courage to be able to take a stand and say, today I've heard the voice of my father and I'm doing what he tells me to do. In the name of Jesus we ask for this guidance. Amen. I'm going to ask if you would to stand please and we're going to sing this song. I'm going to be at the front. There'll be a couple of other people here. If you want to make a promise to God and you want to make it publicly so God knows you really mean it, you just come and come to one of us and tell us what your commitment to God is and we'll pray with you that the Lord will help you to be able to fulfill and live the life you want to live. I'd surely fail Without Him I would be drifting Like a ship without a sail Jesus, O Jesus Do you know Him today? Do not turn Him away O Jesus, O Jesus Without Him how lost I would be Without Him I would be dying Without Him I'd be enslaved Without Him life would be hopeless But with Jesus, thank God I'm saved Jesus, O Jesus Do you know Him today? You can't turn Him away O Jesus, O Jesus Without Him how lost I would be The difficulty of living a Christian life requires the presence of something we don't have. The very presence of the Spirit of God. Tonight in our Bible study at 6 o'clock we're going to be looking at chapter 8 in the book of Romans where he describes how the Spirit empowers us to get to know God in a way we could never without Him. Lord Jesus, we're thankful that we have this opportunity to know you and you know us. Thank you for the word that you give to us and for the life that you promise. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to close with a Psalm 89.1 I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. 625 I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever I will sing, I will sing, I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever I will sing of the mercies of the Lord With my mouth will I make known Thy faithfulness, Thy faithfulness With my mouth will I make known Thy faithfulness to all generations I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever I will sing, I will sing, I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever I will sing of the mercies of the Lord I will sing of the mercies of the Lord With my mouth will I make known Thy faithfulness, Thy faithfulness With my mouth will I make known Thy faithfulness to all generations