Preached · December 2, 2018
A Snow-Day Service
If you're just joining in, welcome—welcome to the Good News Community Church Facebook Live feed. After some hemming and hawing, we decided it's probably just not safe for people to head out in the snow. And even though we really value getting together as brothers and sisters in Christ, we also value people's safety and lives. So we thought we'd do this while we can.
Today is the first week of Advent. If we had gathered for our worship service, we would have had a family up on the platform reading Scripture from the readings set for these four weeks that lead up to Christmas. We'll continue that next week, assuming we don't get snowed out again—and even if we do, we'll figure out a way to make it happen.
Imagine that there is a candle lit, and that candle represents the concept of hope—the concept that the world is a dark place, and that in that darkness there is a light that shines. And even if that light starts small, starts tiny, it's going to grow. It's going to grow into something important. And that jumps right into what we want to talk about today, on this first week of Advent.
So let's have a word of prayer. Wherever you are, gathered around your laptops, your televisions, your phones, let's take a moment and pray, settle ourselves, and then we'll get into God's Word.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we thank you that you are here with us. Even in this strange way—gathered not physically but technologically—we know that your presence is here anyway, that you bind us together not just through space and the internet, but through the unity of your Holy Spirit. So we pray that that would be true right now, as we watch and hear your Word declared, as we think of our brothers and sisters whom we miss seeing today. We know that you bind us together in the Spirit. Father, as we embark on the journey of Advent, we pray that we would be a people of hope—a people who are confident that even though the world is a dark, sometimes fearful, scary place, we can be confident that you are working all things out for good for those who love and trust you. Thank you so much for your goodness and for your love, and for the fact that we can still meet in this way today. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.
Like I said, I hope you have the two most important things: a Bible and something warm to drink. I've got my coffee here; if you're not a coffee fan, find some hot chocolate or something, and your Bible or tablet or phone. We'll be looking at Scripture in just a little bit. But I want to start back with that thought about light and darkness.
The Darkness We Need Saving From
I think most of you would agree that sometimes the world can be a pretty dark place, and that difficult things happen. That's been true for me and for my family this year, with the loss of my brother in a car accident. I've been thinking about death quite a bit.
If we had been together in person, I was going to show you a video—a pretty simple little animation—showing a little Grim Reaper icon slashing away at little stick figures, two per second. That represents the number of people who die each second, every day—a really grim and dark reality. Merry Christmas, everybody. It's a grim and dark reality that death is part of our life here on earth.
In my notebook I had written a bunch of thoughts and facts about the darkness we have here on earth. Worldwide, globally: one in nine lack access to clean water. One in three lack access to a toilet. And having a toilet is a big deal, because without a toilet you can't have good sanitation, and without good sanitation you can't have good digestive health—which means a million die from malaria, another million die from diarrhea, and a lot of those are kids under the age of five, passing away because of these really simple needs that aren't being met.
In the United States—zooming in a little—there are 15 million children living in poverty. There are 250,000 kids placed in foster care each year, and 25,000 of those kids are going to age out of the foster care system this year without being adopted. Talk about car crashes: 30,000 people are going to pass away this year in a car crash. 600,000 are going to die from cancer. 19 million people—a massive number—are going to lose their jobs in some way, either being fired or through some sort of downsizing. A third of marriages are going to end in divorce. There's just tragedy surrounding us constantly.
Let's talk about Dickinson County specifically. Seven percent of Dickinson County lives in poverty—that's not a massive number—but then you realize that 20% of our children live in poverty. Women in Dickinson County are 200% more likely to binge drink than the national average, and men are 150% more likely to binge drink than the national average. And that raises our mortality in terms of cirrhosis and substance addiction and the things that can lead to.
So we look at the world and we see this darkness, this dimness, just how bad and terrible things can be. If we were all together in the sanctuary, we could each tell a story of something terrible that happened to us over the past week or month or year, or in our lifetimes. Sometimes there's a lot of darkness in our lives, and there's a lot of darkness in the world.
So why talk about darkness? It's Christmastime, right? What's the point? Well, Advent is about being a light in the midst of that darkness. In order to talk about hope—which is the theme of today—we have to recognize that there's something we need hope from. We need to recognize the depth of our darkness in order to know the depth of our salvation, to understand just how much we need to be saved from. That's why we need to be honest about it. So Advent is about that very thing: it's about hope. It's about being a light in the darkness. It's about that little candle that shines, that one day will grow brighter than the sun.
What Is Advent?
So what is Advent, and what is it all about? Advent comes from a Latin word that means "coming" or "arrival." The Christian tradition has long held that our calendar—the way we measure time—has to be different from the way the rest of the world measures time. The rest of the world, if you get a calendar, is going to have holidays on it like the Fourth of July and Mother's Day and Memorial Day and Labor Day. Christians have also had a calendar of their own, centered around the story of God and his people, the story of how God has redeemed them.
Today actually marks New Year's Day for the Christian calendar. Today is day one of week one of Advent—of the story of God bringing salvation to his people. And day one, week one, starts with the story of hope: recognizing that we live in dark times and that we need salvation from those dark times.
Advent celebrates three comings of Jesus specifically. It recognizes his coming in the past—in Bethlehem, in the flesh, as a human being, as the God-man Jesus of Nazareth. It's a remembering that Jesus has come. It also recognizes the arrival of Jesus in our hearts, in the present—that Jesus is here with us today, that for those who have put their faith in him, he is present in our lives and present in the life of the church. And then it recognizes his arrival in the future. Advent is about anticipation—not just looking back at what happened in Bethlehem, but looking forward to the fact that Christ is coming again. This is what the hope is about: that even in the midst of our darkness, even in the midst of our pain and despair, Jesus is going to come and make all things right. And that's what we celebrate.
Luke 21:25-36
So if you have your Bibles—and I hope you do—I hope you'll join me in the book of Luke, chapter 21. Over time, as Christians began to celebrate Advent in the different seasons of the Christian year, they began to place Scripture readings around those seasons, so that Christians could continually bring themselves back to remember the story of God and his salvation. That brings us to Luke 21—one of the traditional readings of the first week of Advent, this week of hope. I'm going to read it out loud, and we'll dig into it together. Luke 21, starting in verse 25. These are the words of Jesus talking to his disciples:
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. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. And at that time they will see the Son of Man coming on a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Be careful, for 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, for it will come on all those who live on the face of the earth. 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.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
God, we ask that you would open up your Word to our minds, illuminate our minds, that we may understand what your Son is saying, and how it may change our lives today. In Christ's name. Amen.
The Question Behind the Passage: The Fall of Jerusalem
If you're expecting a really Christmassy passage about stables and Mary and Joseph and wise men, you might be disappointed by Luke 21. Why are we reading a passage about the tossing of the sea when we're talking about Christmas? Well, remember: Advent is about not just remembering what has happened with Jesus arriving in Bethlehem, but also anticipating what will happen.
In this passage, Jesus is answering one particular question. If you go back to verse 5 of chapter 21, you'll see it. Some of the disciples are remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said:
As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another. Every one of them will be thrown down.
And the disciples asked, "Teacher, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign that they are about to take place?" So Jesus and the disciples are wandering around the Temple Mount, and the disciples think the temple looks really pretty, and Jesus says, "Yeah, it's pretty, it's great—but it's going to be destroyed someday." And the disciples' specific question is, "When is that going to happen?" That's what the rest of Luke 21 is about—a particular question about when the temple is going to be destroyed.
If you know anything about Jewish history, then you know that in AD 70—about 40 years after the time of Christ—the temple was destroyed in the siege of Jerusalem. The religious leaders of Jesus' day, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, got together and thought it would be a great idea to throw a rebellion against the Roman Empire. And if you know anything about the Roman Empire, they don't think too fondly of rebellions. So they threw a siege around the city of Jerusalem, and in AD 70 Jerusalem fell—and it was not a pretty sight. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Everybody under the age of 17 was sold into slavery. It was a really, really bad time for the Jews. Luke 21 is Jesus basically predicting that this was going to happen—that Jerusalem was going to fall, and that Israel would never be the same.
If you go back a page to Luke 19, verse 41, this is actually one of the things Jesus talks about quite often in his ministry. Jesus approaches Jerusalem, sees the city, and starts weeping over it. He says:
If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.
"Coming"—advent, arrival. They did not recognize the time of God's coming to them. So one of Jesus' primary messages is about the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, predicting that because of the religious leaders' desire for power, they were eventually going to get crushed by Rome. And Luke 21, where we are today, is the continued message of when this is going to happen.
From the First Coming to the Second
Now, something interesting happened in history. Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70, the Christian tradition continued on, and they went back to Luke 21. They recognized that this was about the destruction of Jerusalem, but they began to think maybe it was about something else as well—maybe not only about Jesus' first coming and the destruction of Jerusalem, but also about the second coming of Jesus. And that's how we read it today. That's why it's in our season of Advent: looking not only back at Jesus' first coming, but forward to his second coming.
In Acts chapter 1, verse 11, Jesus ascends to the Father in heaven, and the disciples are staring up at the sky, and the angels say, "Why are you staring up into the sky? In the same way that Jesus went up, he's also going to come back." That's the idea of the parousia—the return of Jesus, his royal arrival back to earth to finish completing his kingdom, as the Lord's Prayer says: "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So Luke 21 and its parallels in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 get reinterpreted over time to be not only about the first coming of Jesus, but also the second coming.
So let's dig into this passage and what Jesus is specifically saying. I see three main things that Jesus is asking us to do.
One: Pay Attention
The first—number one, if you're taking notes, God bless you—is to pay attention. Pay attention to what? Well, like Jesus said earlier, he was warning the people that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed. If they had paid attention to the fact that God was there in the flesh with them, maybe they wouldn't have ended up on this path toward destruction. Maybe things wouldn't have ended up so poorly for them. So Jesus is saying: pay attention to when God is showing up in your midst.
And we are in need of this. We need to pay attention to when Jesus is going to return and set up his kingdom. Now, interesting fact: every generation of Christianity has thought it was the last one. Every generation of Christians has had this thought: "I bet Jesus is going to come back in our lifetime." And we might find ourselves disappointed when it hasn't been the case for the past 1,970 years or so. But that doesn't mean we should stop looking, or stop looking forward, or stop paying attention—because at some point Jesus will come back.
Second Peter 3 talks about this concept. Peter—one of the apostles, one of the disciples of Jesus—would have been one of those standing with Jesus at the temple when Jesus was talking about all these things. This is what Peter says in 2 Peter 3, verse 3:
You must understand that in the last days scoffers—mockers, people who make fun of you—are going to come. They're going to show up and scoff and follow their own evil desires. And they're going to say something like, "Where is this coming that Jesus promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation."
In other words, there are going to be people who make fun of Christians and say, "You keep waiting for Jesus, but nothing's changed. When are you going to give it up?" But Peter continues on in verse 8. He says, […] In other words, the reason Jesus is waiting to come back is so that more and more people have the opportunity to hear the gospel, to hear about Jesus, to accept the good news, and to know eternal life with God.
So every day we come closer to Jesus' return—and it's true, every day is a day closer to when Jesus comes back. And every day is another reason to grow in our urgency, to throw off our complacency, to tell our neighbors about Jesus, to tell the world the gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ.
That's why we need to pay attention. That's why Jesus, in Luke 21, uses all these verbs about looking and seeing and watching. In verse 27: "At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in the cloud." Verse 29: "Look at the fig tree." Verse 31: "When you see these things happening." Verse 36: "Be always on the watch." Jesus is going to come back—pay attention, so that we are compelled, driven, to tell people the good news about Jesus. So that's number one: pay attention.
Two: Be Careful
Number two, Jesus says, "Be careful." He says this in verse 34: "Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day"—the day Jesus comes back—"will close in on you like a trap." So we need to be careful. Careful about what? Basically, Jesus is saying we need to be careful about the way we live our lives. We need to be careful that we're not only paying attention to when Jesus is going to come back and how we're telling our neighbors about him, but that we're living our lives in a way that is honorable, that brings good news and good fame to the name of Jesus.
I'm going to go back to 2 Peter, because Peter was one of the disciples there with Jesus when he was talking about these things, so I think Peter gets a lot of this right. 2 Peter 3, verse 11:
Since everything is going to be destroyed, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens, but in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless, and at peace with him.
"Since everything is going to be destroyed, what kind of people ought you to be?" This is a great question for Christians to ask themselves. If you follow Jesus, and you know that one day everything in the world is about to change—that when Jesus comes, everything bad about the world will disappear—then we have to ask ourselves: Do I want anything bad in my life? Because that means it's going to get destroyed.
Look, friends—brothers, sisters—if you want to speed up Jesus showing up, the number one way to do that is to live like Jesus is already king. Because, by the way, he is. If we recognize that when Jesus comes everything bad is going to disappear, then I want to do the work today to make sure there's nothing bad in my life that Jesus has to yank away when he comes back. So the number one way, according to Peter, is that we look forward to the day of God and speed its coming by living like Jesus is already king—by living as though Jesus rules and reigns over everything. Because, guess what? He does. And that's good news.
So in this season of Advent, I have to pay attention to my life, the life of my family, how we spend our time and our money, the thoughts in my head and the desires of my heart. And I have to ask: If Jesus were king, would this make sense for me to desire? If Jesus were king, would this make sense for me to do? If Jesus were king, would this make sense for me to spend my time on? Because it's true—Jesus already is king, and one day he's going to come back and set everything straight. This is what gives us hope. This is what gives us joy and peace, even in the midst of the darkness.
Three: Pray
So, back to Luke 21. Jesus says: pay attention—pay attention to the signs that Jesus is going to come again, so that we can be compelled and enlivened to tell our neighbors about him. Be careful—be careful about the way we live our lives, because the more we look like Jesus, the more our desires line up with his desires, the more we're actually speeding Jesus' coming. And number three, Jesus says to pray. Pay attention, be careful, and then pray. Verse 36: "Be always on the watch"—that's the paying attention part—"and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man."
Now, remember: Luke 21 was originally about the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, but the church reinterpreted this passage to be about his second coming as well. So I want to tell you something. You don't have to be afraid about the second coming of Jesus. If you have given your life to Jesus, if you have placed your trust in him, if you have believed the good news about him, then we don't have to be afraid about tribulation—about whether or not you're going to get left behind, about seven years or three and a half years, or post-trib or pre-trib or mid-trib. You don't have to be worried about that, because we are already saved. First Thessalonians 1:10 says that we are waiting for God's Son from heaven, whom God raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
Now, we've got to be clear about something. If Jesus the King is coming, and there are lots of bad things in the world and lots of people who propagate those bad things, and Jesus is going to get rid of them, that means wrath is going to come. Wrath is the natural consequence of love. If I love someone, if I want the best for someone, that means I'm going to fight and push against evil for that person I love. So God's love necessarily means negative consequences for those who want to harm the people God loves. When Jesus comes to consummate his kingdom, to bring the fulfillment of his kingdom, it means there are going to be some bad consequences for those who want ill for those who love God.
But the Scripture is clear. God's words are clear. First Thessalonians 1:10: "Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath." First Thessalonians 5:9: "God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." So we don't have to be worried about the tribulation. We don't have to be worried about falling underneath God's hammer. We don't have to be worried about God taking out the bad guy and somehow missing and hitting us instead. We are saved. Romans says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We can be secure in our salvation in God. But we do need to pray that our lives match up, line up, with what God wants for us—that we are lining up with God's desires for our life and for the world.
Application for This Advent
So let's summarize, and let's do a little bit of an action plan and some application.
Number one: pay attention. We need to pay attention to the fact that Jesus is coming back, so that we are compelled to tell our neighbors. And how can we live that out over the next three or four weeks leading up to Christmas? Advent is about anticipation and remembering—remembering that Jesus came, and anticipating that Jesus is coming again. So what do we need to pay attention to? I would encourage us to pay attention to the pain.
I mean that in a couple of different ways. Christmas and the holiday season can be a really hard and difficult time for people. People remember loss that's happened over the past year, or over many years. People all of a sudden are reminded of their loneliness. Maybe they have seasonal affective disorder, which basically means that because of the combination of the holiday season—the expectation that everybody has to be happy and joyful all the time—and the lack of sunlight and the increase in snow and cloud cover, you're just down and depressed. It's a real thing that people deal with. So we need to pay attention to that. We don't just plaster a smile on our faces and expect everybody else to do the same. We need to pay attention to people's pain and join them there.
There was recently a big sociological study that came out studying what you should do when people are experiencing pain—what's the right thing to say? And the study basically said there is no right thing to say. If you try too hard to say the right thing, you're just making it worse. The best thing you can do is simply be with people in their pain. You don't need to say a lot. You don't need to try to make it better. You don't need to say platitudes. You simply need to say something simple, like, "Yeah. I know. That's hard. That sucks. I'm sorry." And that's it.
So we need to pay attention to the pain in our lives and in the world's life. We often get to enjoy the pleasures of living in America—the freedoms and the joys that gives—but not everyone is there. So maybe we need to spend some time or some money helping ease the pain of someone else somewhere else, either in our community, our country, or in the world. And the reason I say that when it comes to the return of Jesus is that Jesus makes it clear that he is often with those who are experiencing pain in a really special, unique way. He says that when you give food to the hungry, or water to the thirsty, or visit those in jail, you are doing it as if you were doing it to Jesus himself. So pay attention to the pain. Pay attention to those going through pain—maybe even your own pain—because that's probably where Jesus is centering his presence.
Number two: be careful. And I want to say this specifically: be careful, because extravagance is for the sake of others. The Advent and Christmas season is often a time we can enjoy some extravagance and not feel as guilty about it. And I'm all for that. I think extravagance can be a good and necessary thing. I think Jesus lived an extravagant life—but that extravagance was for the sake of others. And that's what makes all the difference. So be careful how you live your life: if you're going to engage in extravagance this Advent and Christmas season, let it not be for yourself, because that just feeds those fleshly human natures of greed and consumerism and pride. Engage in extravagance in some real way this Christmas season for the sake of someone else. And I promise you, when you practice extravagance for the sake of others, you'll probably get something out of it too. Don't do it for that reason—that's terrible. Do it for the sake of someone else. But I'm telling you, there's going to be overflow from that sharing, and that's going to be a good thing.
Number three: pray. Jesus says, "Pray that we might be able to stand before the Son of Man." And what I want to say here is that becoming like Jesus doesn't happen by accident. We can accidentally be mediocre Christians—just about anybody can do that. We can accidentally be mediocre followers of Jesus just by falling into the lives we were given, following the social norms of our community. But it takes intention and vigor and a plan to be an excellent follower of Jesus—to do it, as Pastor Brandon would say, with mastery.
So I want to give one simple suggestion. If you're part of our communication hall, you've probably seen some of this already, but we have an Advent devotional guide that we borrowed from some friends at a church and put together for you, so that you can have some intentionality with becoming more like Jesus this Advent. If you head to our website, gncconline.com/advent, you can sign up for daily devotional reminders—daily text reminders. There's a printable devotional guide, and we'll also have some printed out at the Welcome Center whenever you make it back to 1010 Julia next. I'd encourage you to do some sort of intentional practice—whether it's this Advent devotional guide or maybe you have something else in mind—to become more like Jesus this Advent season.
Because Advent is about remembering—remembering the baby in the manger, remembering Mary and Joseph and the angels and the shepherds and the magi. But it's also about looking forward to the fact that he's coming again. He's coming again, and everything that's sad is going to become untrue. Everything that's bad is going to be removed—and we don't want to be part of what's removed. We want to be there with Jesus.
People of Hope
Let me give you a closing thought. Tim Keller said this: "Christians should not be optimists—we know too much about sin. We should also not be pessimists, for we know the living God." And I would conclude it this way: rather, friends, we followers of Jesus, followers of the light of the world, we are people of hope. That, I think, is the difference between optimism and pessimism. Optimism sometimes is blind and pointless, and pessimism—nobody wants to live like that. Rather, we are people of hope. We recognize the darkness. We recognize how bad things can be. We recognize just how dark the darkness can get. And yet we know that there is a light flickering in the darkness—and that light will grow until it burns brighter than the sun, and it will consume the darkness utterly. Friends, even death will die. And that is the hope of Advent. That is the hope of Christmas. Christ has come. Christ is here. And Christ will come again.
Announcements
Thank you, everyone, who joined today. I really appreciate that you spent your time this way. I'm going to give a few little housekeeping announcements.
Number one: just because we didn't meet at 1010 Julia doesn't mean the church doesn't have bills to pay. True story. So if you're able to, we'd love for you to head to our website and give online. Oftentimes when a church has to cancel services, it basically loses a week of income, and that can be hard on a church. So if you're able, head to gncconline.com/give and make a donation. We'd love it if you set up recurring online giving, so that we can have a consistent, planned income—and that makes decisions like this easier in the future.
Number two: we'll get this video posted, as well as the slides and text, on our website, so if you weren't able to take notes or pay attention the way you wanted to, we'll make sure that's all shared as quickly as we can.
Number three: we do our best at sharing information about when we cancel. If you're not part of our weekly newsletter or our texting, those are usually the best, fastest ways we can get information out. Head to the contact page on our website and you can sign up for that, so you can know as fast as we make a decision. We do put things on KUOO, though they can be slow in getting information out. We also put it on KICD, and they tend to be a little faster.
So thank you so much for being here today. This was fun. I hope you had a good time. And have a wonderful first Sunday of Advent. I hope you all are safe and warm. Let me close in a word of prayer.
Father, thank you so much for your goodness, for your love, and for hope—for the fact that Jesus is the light of the world, and that even in the midst of darkness, we know that light will grow brighter and brighter until the darkness is gone. So, God, may we live as the people of hope, the people of light. And may we break out into the world, spreading light into the darkness. God, we love you. We trust you. We need you. And we look forward to the day when your Son returns. We pray all these things in Christ's name. Amen.
