He Is Coming Again

Of course, Christmas is about the birth of a baby, Jesus, but the story of Christmas is about what this baby became, the kind of person he was and what he did. We wouldn't be celebrating this day if Jesus had died shortly after his birth. We wouldn't be celebrating this day if Jesus just became another man like all the rest of us, but there was something different about Jesus. He did things that changed the course of human history, and so we celebrate this day because of the man Jesus became and what he did for us. In this Advent season, I've just opened the Bible to the places I've been using to talk about Jesus, and you could do it anywhere in the New Testament. Just open the pages of the Bible and suddenly discover why Christmas is such an important time to us, because of the person Jesus was and what he taught us, and he helped us to understand how to live and what the world was like and what life is like. And in this story that I've been using, Jesus did a lot of things that helped us understand something we never understood before in history, opened up our eyes to things that are very critical and important to us. Jesus came and he talked to religious people and said to them, it doesn't matter how religious you are, unless your life is completely devoted to God, unless you accept the authority he has over your life, there's not any way in the world you can avoid spending eternity in hell. He came to show us exactly what it means to be able to live under the authority of the Father, for he himself did that. Jesus showed us what it meant to live a life of trust and faith in the Father. Jesus also came to help us understand something of the love of God. The people of Israel knew that God loved them, but they didn't understand the depth of all this. It's easy to love people that like you and are nice to you and kind to you, but when Jesus came, he was talking to people who were trying to kill him. In a crowd like this, he had people there who hated him so much, they wanted to see him dead. He looked at them and said, how many times I've come to this city where you live, and I've wanted to protect you like a mother hen does its chicks, but you've refused time and time again. In this act, Jesus shows us exactly what the love of God's like. It's not that he loves all the good people in the world, and he hates all those that are not good. Even those that turn their back on him, even those that disapprove of him, his love is there, and it's in Jesus' life that we've come to understand the magnitude of God's love for us. Never would have known that apart from him. Jesus came to help us understand what it meant to be a follower of God. The law was given in the Old Testament, and people thought, well, you know, if I do all these things God tells me, he'll be pleased with me. They never understood the significance of the relationship that a follower of God has with God. Jesus came to show us that. He said it's not about all the rules that you keep, it's about the relationship you have with God. It's a relationship you have like a father with a child. It's true that the father has certain things he wants you to do, but it's more than keeping rules. It is a relationship of trust and dependence. So I light this candle to remind us that following God is not a matter of simply keeping rules, even though he wants us to live in a certain way. It's a matter of looking at the father and saying, I trust you with my life. Today I want to light this candle to remind us of something really important that Jesus did. He came for the first time to help us understand the future. What life is going to be like here, and what life is going to be like whenever this life is over. There are many people who believed in God, who Jesus was talking to. They were very religious people. Did you know some of them didn't believe that you would be raised from the dead after you died? They thought that life was material. You lived your life out and you died and that was it, it was over. Nothing further past that. They lived a material life in a material world and they missed the significance of the spiritual dimension to what life was about. Jesus came to say to them, there is more to your human existence than the material world that you have in this life. There are many people today who live their lives thinking that this life is the most important thing for them. They simply look at living until they can die, and then that's it. And many of them foolishly think in the time that they're ill and sick, it'd be better for me to die, I'll be in a better place. Not always. Jesus opened the eyes of those who didn't believe that there was anything more to life than just living in this world. There's something very important about that. In this passage I want to read, Jesus is talking with his disciples about this. As Jesus was saying on the chapter 24 of the book of Matthew, verse 3 is where I'm going to start reading. And I'll read through verse 8 if you want to follow me in your own Bibles. Jesus had just addressed them in saying that the temple, as magnificent as it was, and the religious institution, would one day be nothing. That the time would come when the temple would be destroyed. Every stone piled on another would be torn down. As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. Tell us, they said, when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age? Jesus answered, watch out that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, claiming I am the Christ, and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you're not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nations will rise against nation, and kingdoms against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places, and all these are the beginning of birth pains. And so there were some people who thought the Messiah would come, and they waited for him to come, and they thought he would come as a great military king. Israel was now a country under occupation by Rome, and their imagination or dream was that Jesus the Messiah would come and raise an army, and run out all of the Romans, and install an Israelite as the king of the nation, and they would once again rise to glory and prominence and a world figure, and they would be important people once again. But Jesus didn't come that way. He came saying, it's not the military that wins the world, it's the Spirit of God. It's not whether or not you make people do things on the threat of death that changes their hearts, it's whenever their minds and will and heart is changed from the inside. And I indeed have come to make the world different and conquer it, but I want to change the mind and heart and will of people so that they choose to do what I want them to do. Jesus told the people who listened to him that the conquest he was on was a conquest far different than what they thought. And when the life of Jesus was over, he would have an impact on the world, not in the way they thought. There were some people who thought Jesus, when he came, would bring judgment. The Old Testament talked constantly about the day of the Lord, the time when God would line up all the people who had not lived in obedience to what he wanted, and he would condemn them to shield or hell. Jesus told them a different story. I have come to be able to teach you about the kingdom of God, and then I'm going to die as a sacrifice for your sins, and then I will be raised again, and then sometime in the future, I will come back. This was the first time in human history that people had known exactly what God's plan for the future really was. Jesus came to tell us what the future is going to be like, what he intends to do, and how it all is going to work. We're left in this world given the option to serve God or not serve him. Jesus came to describe to us what this place, what this time is committed for us to do. Jesus said, I've come to say the kingdom of God is at hand. It's near you, near you, right in your own mind. The kingdom of God is not a nation with a king on earth. It is a spiritual world where God is in charge, where God is accepted as the Lord and the ruler and the master and the king, and you enter it not by physical means, but by your own mind. He meant by that that you come to recognize that God created the world, and he made everything that there is, and he's the rightful ruler of all that there is, and when you come to acknowledge that in your mind, to say, I believe that you are the ruler of everything, and I surrender and submit to your authority, then you enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus described the kingdom of heaven clearly and plainly. When he called his disciples to follow him and they said, we're ready to do anything that you tell us, whatever you ask of us, just teach us, he did. If you look in the book of Matthew, where Matthew collects all those teachings of Jesus about the kingdom of God, chapter 5 through chapter 7, you'll see he outlines for us exactly what it means to live in the kingdom of God. It is not necessarily a physical place or a nation, but it is a community of people who are devoted to let Christ rule our lives. He said to his followers, this is the way you live if you will listen to me. And he described in detail how we were to treat people. He described in detail how we were to manage the money that he gives us. He described in detail how we were to deal with conflict. He described in detail how we are to deal with the issues that life brings to us. This is what it means to live in the kingdom of God. For God is directing our behavior day by day, word by word, relationship by relationship. And living in the kingdom of God allows you to be subject to him in this world in which he's placed us. Jesus then said to those who were followers of his, I will return. I'm going to die on the cross to make sure that the sins that you've committed against the father are taken care of so you'll be acquitted of those. So every person who enters the kingdom of heaven is acquitted of all the wrong that they've done with regard to God. Innocent you are declared. It doesn't matter what your sin has been. It doesn't matter how many times you've done it. Blood of Jesus Christ cleanses the charges against any person who enters the kingdom of heaven. Free from these charges. Free from the guilt and shame. And then after I'm dead, I will be raised again. And I will come and live with you. And every day I will help you learn how to put into practice the things that you need to do to live in this kingdom. You see, when I'm here in this world now, I can only talk to 12 of you, or even 5,000, but not them personally. But when I come back to life, by means of the Holy Spirit, I can personally guide each and every one of you. It doesn't matter where you are. I'll be there. It doesn't matter what issues you face. I'll be there to help you. I can communicate with you by the Spirit of God. So that as my children, every one of you will always have my presence. This is what it means to live in the kingdom of God. And then after a time, I'm going to return. That's what the disciples were asking. When are you going to come back? When is all this really going to take place? I will return, he said, and to take you to the place prepared for you. There, the place where you will live out your life in the kingdom of God. What I've left you here in this world to do is to prepare for the kingdom of heaven. All of a sudden, Jesus gives this world and this life a whole different picture. You see, we look at it and say, well, I've got to plan my life out to the end. And so we try to plan so that everything works out, we have enough money, we have people around us, and the last days we die, it's all over. Jesus said, you don't understand what I'm trying to teach you. This is the time of preparation. This time that you think of as so long, 60, 80, 90, 100 years, is just the very, very beginning. For when you enter the kingdom of heaven, and this preparation time for the time you enter it completely and fully is forever. I've given you this time in the world with the Holy Spirit and my instructions to begin to prepare yourself for living in the kingdom of heaven. For when this life is over for all of you, there will be a place that I will take you if you belong to me. If you choose not to live under the authority of the Father, there is a place for you too. You will have chosen life without God forever. And in this world, you will learn which of those lives you want to have. You make that choice. If you accept my message of the kingdom of God, and you surrender yourself to God's authority, then all of this world you live out your life learning and practicing so that as you begin to live in the kingdom of God, when your death is over, you will enter the fullness and completeness of God's kingdom. If you choose not to do that, you will never ever enter it. This was Jesus' simple plan as to what's going to take place. It's not confusing. It's not unclear. If you surrender to the authority of God, there's a place for you in his kingdom. If you refuse, you will never enter it. It's plain and it's clear. I have come to announce to you, the kingdom of God is available to you. It's near. It's present. You can choose it. And then in chapter 17 of the book of John, he prayed for us, those who are in the kingdom of heaven. I pray, Father, that they will complete the mission that I started. And so each of us has the responsibility that Jesus had to demonstrate and proclaim the kingdom of God to all those around us. Our job, you see, is to live out what it means to live in the kingdom of God in such a way in front of others that they would say, I want that. That is the answer to my life. Now, the disciples were curious about how all this would end. I think everybody is. What's going to happen at the end time? Jesus made that also clear. I want you to understand how all this is going to take place, he said. There will be many people who will come and they will tell you that the end of the world is at hand, but pay no attention to them. They will say, I am the Christ. Now, Jesus had already come and he'd already been proclaimed by the Father and by his followers as Christ, the Son of the living God. You have my life to compare with anyone else who will come telling you this. Do you see people who have my character, my nature? They won't have it. Many will come telling you that they do have God's answer and we've had them. In my own lifetime, there was a time when Sun Yung Moon was a household word across our country. He came saying he was the reincarnate Christ. That was his message. He gathered young people around him, brought them out of their homes, caused them to turn against their families. See, here's how you know. Does this person who's following this person who says they're Christ, conflict with the teachings of Christ? Do they have the character and the nature of Christ? Sun Yung Moon had a wife, he had a palace, he had all the wonderful things that money would buy, quite different than the nature of Jesus himself. And we have that example to weigh all of these people against. So many will come saying they are the Christ, but I want you not to be deceived. How can you not be deceived? You must know all those things that I've talked about that Jesus said was true. And if someone violates any of those or deviates from any of them, you know for sure this is not the promised one. That's why it's so important for you to know this book. If you know this book and you know what it's like, then the life of a person who claims to be Christ himself returned, you will know immediately that this is not the one. You will hear, he said, of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you're not alarmed. A lot of us are worried and anxious about military things and the world order, but you as my people within the kingdom of God are not to be alarmed about these, and we shouldn't be. Why? Because we understand something the rest of the world doesn't. All of the world is under God's control, and now that I am under his control and live in his kingdom, he stands to protect me. That's one of his promises. I will guide you, provide for you, protect you, and give you purpose. So when you hear that the world is in turmoil and there's wars everywhere, you remember I am in charge. And because I am in charge of your life, I will guide you through all of these things and take care of you. Such things must happen, and the end will come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places, and all these are the beginning of birth pains. Jesus said many people will look at the world order around them and will conclude from all the trouble that's going on that the end of time is near. It's here. It's now. But he said you're not to pay attention to those things. You're not to be disturbed by them. When wars come and rumors of wars and all these troubles happen, people say, well, there's earthquakes and volcanoes. I see articles periodically, and someone will go and say, well, you know, in the last 50 years, we've had this many earthquakes and this many bad weather events, and this is more than we've ever had in history. We don't know that. There wasn't anybody from year one to year 50 to keep records for us. There wasn't anyone from year 100 to 150 to keep records for us all over the world. We don't know. These only alarm us. You see, the end of the world is not intended for God's people to be a time of alarm or despair or discouragement. It is intended to be a time in which we look forward to what God is going to do. And what did Jesus say about the end time? He said it will be like a thief in the night. The reason you shouldn't get all alarmed about these things and shouldn't get distressed by them and shouldn't get discouraged by them or misled is because God in his own way is working his own things out, and he's not going to tell us when it is. When someone asked Jesus about this later on in the same chapter, he said, I don't know. Only the Father knows. And so when someone says the Mayan calendar has determined that December the 20, what was it, was supposed to be 21st, 22nd, you know right away that that's not true. If he didn't tell his son, he didn't tell the Mayans. If he didn't tell his own son, he didn't write, he didn't tell a guy that's going to write a book, 88 Reasons Why the World is Going to End in 1988. All of these things are Satan's way of distressing us about things God doesn't want us to be distressed about. You see, Jesus came to give us a clear passage about what it means to live in this world, how it's going to end, and what's going to happen after it's over. Without him, we would be blind to all of this. He's given it to us because he wants us to be able to face the future with security and safety and confidence. Confidence not that we can handle everything that's out there, but that the one to whom we've trusted our lives can and will and does. All through the Old Testament, nobody knew exactly what the end was going to be like. Even the great biblical scholars couldn't figure it out because God had not yet told it. When Jesus came, the Son of God, to walk on this face of this earth, the Father then revealed to us what the future is going to be like. It will come like a thief in the night. There are some pretty stupid criminals out there, but most of them don't tell everybody around them that they're going to rob their house. They keep it quiet. Even the stupid ones try to do that. He's going to come like a thief in the night. Don't try to figure it out. He's not going to give you a warning. That's the way it works. When I was a boy struggling with my relationship with God, I was scared to death that God was going to come before I had that settled. I remember some nights thinking, well, I'm afraid to go to sleep. I'm afraid that God's going to come tonight and I won't be ready to meet him. I'd been to church enough to know what the Bible said. I said, well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I know God's going to come tonight. I just know it with all my mind and heart. He's going to come tonight. In my own way of thinking, I would say, well, now that's fixed that. He can't come tonight because he said he would not come, he would come when no one would expect him. I expect him, so he's got to not come tonight. Jesus made sure that we understood that we're not in control of his behavior nor of the end of time. We're only in control of the choices we make with regard to God, and you have the choice of controlling your own destiny. You can say to God, I believe the things that you've told me and I see in your son's life the life that I want for myself. I give myself to you. I want to learn to think like you. I want to learn to treat people the way you did. I want to learn how to prepare for all of this life and forever, and so today I pledge myself to you, Jesus Christ, my Lord. In that surrender to him, you enter the kingdom. Then you begin to learn how he wants you to live, and then you begin to put in practice the life that he places inside of you, and every day that you live, you grow to be more and more like him until the time comes when he takes you to be with himself. It will happen in two ways. This much we know. For some of us, we'll be in the middle of our lives and activities, lay down, go to bed and not wake up. The next thing we see will be Jesus himself standing in front of us. For some of us, we'll be living our lives every day doing the things we normally do, but in the middle of all those activities, we'll hear the commotion and we'll recognize that Jesus Christ, the Lord, has returned this day, and we didn't even expect it. One way or the other, all of us will stand before him, but we only know that because Jesus was born a human being, lived on this earth, and helped us to know. That's why we have Christmas, to celebrate Jesus' birth in this world and the life that he lived, for he told us the future, all that there is that we need to know. Jesus is coming again. Get ready, be prepared, for when he comes, there is no more, ever, a chance to change. Would you bow your heads, please? So I want to say to you, with all the earnestness that I can, that you must be ready for this day. I wish I could tell you what day it was going to be so you could get ready, but the Lord said that's not the way it ought to be. I want to do that because that's the way humans think. It could be today, tomorrow, a thousand years from now, it doesn't matter when that is, you need to be ready. I just want to ask you, if you're not sure of your relationship with Christ, you can be today. All you have to say is I believe that you, Jesus, are the Lord, the ruler of heaven and earth, and I want you to be the Lord of my life. I'm prepared today to make a promise to you to live my life in obedience to you as best I can, but to do that I'll need your help. You can make that promise to Him right where you're sitting. If you've made that promise to God, He's brought you into His kingdom for a purpose, and it is that your life might lead others into His kingdom. I'd like to ask you to pray today for that one person you know that you're not sure is in the kingdom of God, that God would give you an opportunity to tell them what He's meant to you. Would you say, God, give me an opportunity to tell the people I know what I've found from you? In a moment we're going to sing an invitation hymn. If today is the day you're ready to receive Christ, I want to ask you to move out from where you are and come to the front and say today is the day I give my life to Him. He didn't want you to be alarmed or disturbed about what people think or whether or not you can do it, but to trust Him. I'm going to ask you if you are a follower of Christ and you've given Him your life that you would make a pledge to Him that you will commit yourself to lead other people to know who He is and to enter the kingdom of heaven. So Lord Jesus, you know our hearts and our minds. You came to this world to help us know how it all is going to end. Today you have something for us to do. I ask for myself and all of us here that you would tell us today what it is you want. And then on our submission to you we would do what you tell us. In Jesus' name I ask this, amen.