Faithful When You Don't Know

Transcript

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[0:00] Well, now is the time for the sermon. And we have our sermon text is written there on the screen. But before we go to that, a word of introduction for our sermon. As I said before, we're in Advent week one, week one, the first Sunday of Advent. And this is a time where Advent is about the coming of Jesus. It's from the Latin word advenir. It means for something to arrive. And so we're waiting in anticipation for Jesus to come. But our lectionary in a helpful way reminds us that the coming of Jesus isn't just as a baby in a manger. We'll save that for Christmas Eve. But the coming of Jesus is in justice, is in mercy, is at the end of time when he will judge the world, but also redeem the world. And so today we're looking at one of the more apocalyptic predictions of the coming of Jesus at the end of time. The setting for our reading today from Mark chapter 13. Is again in the week of the passion. This is last time we were in Matthew. We were in Matthew for several parables during the last week of Jesus' life. Now we're in Mark. And indeed we'll be in Mark for a fair bit later this year. But this is the week of the passion. And Jesus had cleansed the temple in Mark's gospel. Then he left the city. Then he returned and had more interactions with the religious leaders at the temple.

[1:23] And after that he left the city again and went up on the Mount of Olives. And if you've been. To Israel, you've probably been to the Mount of Olives. There's many churches on it. There's actually olive groves on the Mount of Olives.

[1:35] It's just east of the temple of the temple, the temple there. And in fact, you get this very clear view of Jerusalem and the temple from the top of the mountain. And on the top of the mountain, Mount of Olives in the last week of his life, his disciples started to ask him about the end times. And when those things that he's talking about would arise. For example, he had predicted that the temple would be destroyed. And they said, well, when is that going to happen? We want to kind of know about it. And so this is part today of what Jesus teaches them. If you want to see the entire discourse, read all of chapter 13 in the gospel of Mark later today. The whole of chapter 13 really is about the end and Jesus's prediction about when it comes. So we're really only looking at the last one third of it today. And it's the signs of when the son of man is set. To return.

[2:29] And the question at the forefront is how will we know? What time it is that the end comes and how should we live? Based on that information. How will we know when it will happen? And how should we live based on that information? So with that, let's go to our reading is Mark chapter 13 verses 24 through 37. And it goes like this. Jesus said, but in those days after that suffering. The sun will be. Darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

[3:06] Then they will see the son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. From the fig tree learn its lesson as soon as its branches become tender and put forth its leaves. You know that summer is near. So also when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near at the very gates. Truly I tell you this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

[3:49] But. About that day. Or our. No one knows. Neither the angels in heaven nor the sun, but only the father. Beware keep alert for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge. Each with his work and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore keep awake. For you do not know when the master of the house will come in the evening or at midnight. Or at. Cock crow or at dawn or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly and what I say to you. I say to all keep awake.

[4:40] Let's pray. Heavenly Father. Thank you again for your word. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it in Jesus name. Amen. Let's see. All right. Well, I want to kind of remind us that this text here and several other things in our faith are some pretty large claims that are actually articles of faith for us that are hard to explain logically hard to defend hard to prove to anybody and I want to remind you of some of them. For example, first off that the entire universe was created by an all-powerful being whom we call God. That's an article of faith. We can't really prove it. But that's what we believe. And actually, it's just as good as explanation as anything else. Like it just happened out of nothing. Well, that's hard to believe as well. We also believe that the being whom we called God is one God in three persons Father Son and Holy Spirit. That's an article of faith. We can't prove it. It's hard even to defend it because it sounds difficult to understand. It's not contradictory, but it's a bit of a paradox, but we believe that we also believe that God is. God redeems the entire world of their sin by the life death and resurrection of the son. And so we believe in the resurrection of the body.

[6:05] We believe in the resurrection of one person in particular and from that we believe in the resurrection of all who believe and that's a big article of faith right there itself. We also believe and I mentioned this a few weeks ago or was it maybe last week that time is not circular. We don't believe that time repeats itself endlessly and that we. Kind of do things over and over again until we get it right like maybe Groundhog Day or something like that.

[6:33] Or that we come back in another life as something else. We don't believe that other religions do believe that but we don't believe that. Time is not circular for us. But instead it is linear. It has a beginning.

[6:47] When the universe was created by the same God that we believe in and it has a middle when the history we know of takes place. So we're in the middle of time right now. Most likely. Maybe close. Close. Or to the end and.

[7:00] That's this time when Jesus comes in the flesh as a little baby. That's the middle of time. That's the middle of our linear timeline and redeems people by his death and resurrection. But also we believe that then time has an end this long line that begins one place. It also has to end one place and it ends when the sun will return and bring both justice and mercy to the world. And so that's an article. Of faith for us too. Is that there's this continuum of linear time from beginning to end and we're in the middle of it right now. The beginning is the creation and the end is the second coming of the coming of Jesus, right?

[7:41] And after that time time may have a different meaning or a different function at that time. We don't know but after that time our dwelling will be with God themself and what that looks like. We don't entirely know but we know it's going to be glorious. That's. Enough. We know enough to know that it will be wonderful because our dwelling will be with God. And so that's the end of time or after the end of time.

[8:08] So today we're hearing about this later stage of this linear timeline and I thought it would be good for us to kind of get that mental image of it first. And it is the second coming of the son or as Jesus says this calls himself the son of man, which is an apocalyptic figure that you can read about. And the prophet Daniel and that was an expectation of of the people of Jesus's time. So he talks about the son of man returning at the end of time and that there will be signs to accompany this or to actually presage it in some ways. And right away. I want us to address the challenges that that are posed by verse 30 and some of you were reading along and you said but what about verse 30? You said that to yourself at home. He said what about that? All right, and some of you didn't and that's okay. So I'm going to read verse 30 to you again. And this is what Jesus says after talking about all these signs. He says truly I tell you this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.

[9:16] Truly I tell you this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. And so the real expectation that the Apostles had and I think the Apostle Paul later even had was that it would be within the lifetime of the Apostles that the son of man would indeed return because all the signs that would point to it would have happened by then.

[9:44] And that leaves us with a challenge because here we are clearly 2000 some almost 2000 years later. And as far more than one generation. Has been born and died and gone on and so we have sort of a timeline problem here that we really need to address because we can't just act like it's not there. And so verse 30 brings us a great challenge with the text. But I think it's a challenge that really points to the graciousness of God, but at least let's look at our choices. All right. One of the choices is that the events that Jesus is talking about here actually did take place and some people think that maybe they took place in. 70 AD. That was when the the the the nation of Israel such as it was sort of a province of the Roman Empire rose up in rebellion and the Roman army was called up to come and put down the rebellion and as they would do to make sure rebellions didn't happen again. They laid waste to just about everything they could find and that was just sort of the beat the country back into some sort of submission so that no and it would be an example to other provinces of the Roman Empire. Oh, let's not try that. We remember what happened to Israel. Let's not let's not make that our story. And so the Romans did come in 70 AD and they destroyed the temple and Jesus had just predicted that the temple would be destroyed.

[11:08] And so there is some thinking that all the things that Jesus is talking about did happen within that generation in 70 AD. But then you might ask the question. Well, did he return then? Right? Did he return soon after 70 AD? Right? And here where we kind of have a trouble a little bit of trouble because that seems unlikely. It seems unlikely that Jesus came and that was in 70 AD or shortly thereafter. And that was the end of the story because God is still alive and active in this world. I know each of you have experienced that yourself. There's no way that God and Jesus are not present and the Holy Spirit are not present in the world that we are in today. So the other choice. Is that these things that Jesus has is talking about have not even yet happened yet or if they happen in 70 AD. There's this time between that time and some future time when the Son of Man will return. And I think there's a good reason for for him to delay his return.

[12:16] Sometimes with my children. We say we're going to go someplace at such and such a time and and they say, okay. We'll be ready by then and then you know that plan gets pushed off a bit and delayed and if it's something they wanted to do then they're disappointed. If it's something they didn't want to do they're happy because they get to stay home and play with their toys a little bit longer. But but as parents we sometimes things come up and sometimes we extend the amount of time that somebody else in our family has to wait for something to happen. And I kind of think that that's what's going on. Is that somewhere somehow God's. I saw what was going on in the world and he decided to prolong the day of Grace prolong the opportunity for people in the world to hear the gospel and he might have been very encouraged by say what happened at Pentecost. He might have been very encouraged by the ministry of the Apostle Paul and he might have said to himself. This is going so well. I'm going to wait. Until this whole world has at least heard the gospel. And at that point then the son of man will come back at the end of time.

[13:29] So I think that's I think that's what's happened. Now you have to make up your own mind about what this means. It doesn't mean that Jesus is lying. It doesn't mean that God's not true. It may simply mean that God's delighted on some level or at least hopeful on some level that coming back yet isn't the right decision yet because more people could come in yet. And and there I would say. I would think of the parable that we saw just a while ago about the parable of the wedding feast where the the master sent his servants out into the highways and the byways and the D X O dose this sort of crossroads where the city meets the countryside and says bring more people in there still room at the table. And so I think God is saying by this delay that there's still room at the table. There's still some inviting to be done. And so the day of Grace has been. Prolonged. It has been extended. Praise God for that. Okay.

[14:29] So it's for the sake of Grace that the day has been extended. And I like to think of it also as you know, maybe Jesus is saying, you know what? There's still one sheep. Out there in the wilderness. I'm going to leave 99 behind. I'm going to go out and find it and I'm going to bring it back on my shoulders. And so that's the nature of God. This gracious grace. This gracious nature of God. That's always looking for one more lost center to bring home. So that I wanted to address verse 30 because that was a problematic one. We definitely have to look at it, but we have gotten a bit ahead of ourselves. So I want to pull your attention back now again to the whole passage itself.

[15:13] The larger question as I mentioned is how should we live given that this is our future? Given that at some point. In time, the Lord will return and set all things right. And I think that if we if we knew not guessed but or hoped but if we knew that it was tomorrow. I mean literally tomorrow like Monday, November 30th. Okay, if we thought or knew pardon me. I just said it if we knew that God was coming back or Jesus was coming back tomorrow, November 30th. We would live a certain way. We would do certain things right now. To be even more ready for it, right? If also if we knew that it was going to be in a hundred years exactly. So it would be November 29th and November 30th. 2120 for example. If we knew it was in a hundred years, we would do other things. Most of us would probably say, well, I'm not going to be alive by then. Barring some miracle or some other medical breakthrough. So but if we knew it was in a hundred years, we would do other things. We would do other things. I won't list them all. But here's the thing. And this comes through so clearly in this passage. The reality is that we don't know. And not only that, it's very powerful.

[16:37] The angels don't know. If that's not enough for you, it turns out the son. Jesus doesn't know. It's not his department. It's above his pay grade. It's right. He's not on the memo list for that time. He doesn't know. So we live in a situation where we don't know. And so we have to live a certain way based on what we don't know or based on the fact that we don't know. And that's a challenge. I'll get into that in just a second. That is not to say, and this what this passage makes clear. Is that. The approach of this time. Comes with some signs. There are some things that start to point to it, even though the exact time is unknown. There are some things that point to it. Okay. Just like when the leaves change on the tree out here, we know it's fall. When a fig tree starts to grow new growth and, and the branches start to give off little buds that are leaves. Then we know that summer is near. And that's just a, that's like one of those things. And that's one of the tiniest parables in the new Testament right there.

[17:55] Or the master is going to come back and where his servant. Does he come in the evening? Does he come at midnight? Does he come at 5 a.m. When the rooster crows? Does he come at dawn? When the sun gets up? There's four choices there in our text. The point is we don't know. Sometime in the course of this very, could be very long night. The master will return.

[18:18] Of course. Then the message is to stay ready for it. Always be awake for it and be watchful for it. Absolutely. So when the leaves change, the season is near. When you're waiting for the master, he may be near. Now there's the problem. The interesting thing is that we don't have a scale for what the word near means. The word near is used twice in our text at least. Right. But we don't know what it's a, it's, it's just a word. It just means close. Soon.

[18:50] But in, in God's timeline, and I know you know this, in God's timeline, that could be 2,000 years. It could be two minutes. We just don't know. And so we're kind of left again, even though we can see some things coming, we're kind of left again with the reality that even if something's near, we don't know what near means. We don't know how long that is.

[19:17] And I've said this to a few of you. I'm personally, if the Lord comes back tomorrow, I will praise the Lord. I feel like I'm ready. There may be some things I wish I would have done, but at that point it won't matter anymore. And the Lord will forgive me for all my sins, including my procrastinations. So I'm ready.

[19:39] But so I have to live as if I'm ready. And we'll, we're going to talk about that in just a second. Here's the advice from Jesus. Right? Here's the advice on how to live. Watch for it. Be aware of what's going on in the world. Absolutely. Notice what's happening. Be ready. And then live accordingly. And I want to talk now about what living accordingly would look like.

[20:06] And just, just to backtrack a little bit and talk about this last year that, that kind of upended itself. You may remember back in January of 2020. There were small news stories that just kind of, they kept rising to the higher point on the headlines, you know, of your newsfeed or whatever about a disease in a distant land. And there's this question, is this going to affect us or not? Is it going to be like SARS was maybe 15 years ago or so where it was actually contained and it was kind of kept in place. It turns out that that didn't happen. And fast forward to March, mid March of this year. And we got a note. We got the news from the county that we'd be back. We'd have to lock down, stop meeting here in person. Right. And since March to now, almost a roller coaster of case counts and, and guidance and decisions and plan making and plan retracting. And so COVID-19 has raised for me the need for what I've learned to be an important spiritual discipline. And I'm going to ask you to maybe take on this discipline too. I'm going to recommend this discipline to all of us. And that discipline. Is faithful obedience in the face of uncertainty.

[21:21] I'm going to say that again, because this is what the discipline is. It's nothing more than that. It is. And if you're taking notes, take notes of this. Faithful obedience in the face of uncertainty. Faithful obedience in the face of uncertainty. We have uncertainty, right? It's up and down. We don't know what's what. Right. And the weeks at first we thought the lockdown was just going to be a few weeks. And if we kind of curtailed everything, we could go back to some kind of normal. Those weeks stretched in to months. And now, honestly, I do think there's some end in sight. There's a gradual eradication of the disease. May start in a few months. But it could last several years for the rest, for large parts of the world, depending on how complex the world is. It depends on wealth. It depends a lot on a lot of really broken systems to actually for the whole world to be free of uncertainty. The response is that we need to move forward. The response is that we need to move forward. The response is that we need to move forward.

[22:27] The response is that we need to move forward. The response is that we need to move forward. The response is that we need to move forward. The response is that we need to move forward. The response is that we need to move forward.

[22:36] The response is that we need to move forward. The response is that we need to move forward. The response is that we need to move forward. The response is that we need to move forward. certainty. And here's what it looks like. Each day, I can start with what I know. Each day, begin the day, not with what could be, not with what you hope could be, and hope is not really a strategy for anything. Hope is great to have, but you can't make your decisions on it all the time. I start with what I know. And what I know is that God is good, and God is just, and God is gracious, and God loves me, and God loves you. And that there are things unfolding that I cannot even see yet. So I start with what I know, and then I acknowledge that there are things that I cannot see, and a corollary to that is there are things that I cannot control. And that's a powerful and actually empowering realization, is when you stop trying to control the things you can't control.

[23:40] And that's when you develop this incredible sense of peace and empowerment for yourself. I also need to look, start each day by looking at the world, being watchful. Jesus says be watchful. So I need to look at the world. There are global challenges that look a lot like what Jesus said. There's a darkened sun and moon, and that reminds me of our wildfires. You know, we had wildfires just two months ago. It seems like forever ago, and it also seems like yesterday. It's the strangest thing. Like, this has been a crazy year. We all want to be able to do this. We want to forget 2020. And luckily, like I said, we're in 2021 in the church year, really. We're in the next year. It starts today. A darkened sun and moon, falling stars, shaking in the heavens. And if this is symbolic language, which it could be, not literal language, it still points to this sense that there's a disruption in the world. And yes, the world does feel disrupted. But then again, you might say, it has always been disrupted because of human.

[24:40] Activity and sin. And so I don't know if the world is more disrupted now than it was in 1917 or 1944 or 1969. I really don't know that the reason is because except for that last date, I wasn't alive for any of those other times. The world is disrupted and the world is always disrupted. But I have to stay awake and I have to watch. So I'll start my day reminding myself that God is good and just and gracious and loves me. that there are things that I cannot see or control in this world, and that I have to watch the world to look for the signs. And even if I see the signs, it may not mean that Jesus is quite near, but I need to watch and wait and be prepared. And I also need to tell myself when I wake up in the morning that at the end of our linear timeline, there is God. He is at the end of time. He is the one that will embrace us in that time. He will set things right. And even what that looks like, I don't know. I don't know what it looks like for God to set things right. I know He will bring His justice, and I know He will bring His mercy, and I know He will bring those in the right proportion with His infinite wisdom. And so I trust that God will do the right thing. And I also trust and believe that it won't look like what I think it should look like, and praise God for that.

[26:04] But He'll do it. So I have one job. You know, you can say to people, you had one job. And that's what I say to myself. You have one job. Be faithful for today. Watch for His coming. Do what I see ahead of me. Plan, but hold on loosely to those plans, and rest in the secure knowledge that God is far more in control of things than I am. That's that spiritual discipline of faithful obedience in the faith. The spirit of obedience is that spirit that moves you in that space of uncertainty, and uncertainty pushes back at us in such powerful ways that tells you you don't know what tomorrow brings. You can't control the future. You can't even control much of today.

[26:48] Don't make plans, Don't make plans Don't make Don't Don Don ! present to other people. It frees me up to listen. And I said, this is my spiritual discipline going forward. This is the oil I want to put in my lamp is to listen, to talk less and listen more. And to listen more, I have to be near people. Somehow, maybe even digitally, I have to be listening more.

[27:25] So that frees me up to be present in the world that I'm in, because I don't want to make the mistake that many believers have. And I have to say a bit of a word about some believers who take passages like this, and they read that and they say, okay, now is the time for us to go build a compound up in the hills and to sell all our possessions and to cut ourselves off from the rest of the world and wait there on that hilltop for the Lord to return. And the people they hurt the most in that is themselves, because they are cutting themselves off from this opportunity to be faithful for today in the face of uncertainty, but they're cutting themselves off from other people. And they're cutting themselves off from the opportunity to do the work that God calls them to do faithfully, which is to spread the good news. And you can't do that when you're up on a hill with no phone line, right? You're just all around each other. So the Christians who are always predicting the end and always, you can't do this too many times, I guess, but they're always selling their possessions and they're always running off and they're always sequestering themselves against the evil of this world.

[28:33] That's not what this is. This is calling us to do. This is calling us to watch, to wait, but to stay engaged in this world in a posture of obedience in the face of uncertainty. The command is this from Jesus, go out into the whole world and teach people the good news. I want everyone to memorize Acts 1.8. Remember Acts 1.8. I'll send it home with you later today. It says this, but you will receive power when the whole world is in your hands. And you will receive power when the whole world is in your hands. And you will receive power when the whole world is in your hands. And you will receive power when the whole world is in your hands. And you will receive power when the whole world is in your hands. And you will receive power when the whole world is in your hands. And you will receive your hands. And you will receive power when the whole world is in your hands. And you will receive power power when the whole world is in your hands. And you will receive power when the whole world is in your your hands. And you will receive power when the whole world is in your hands. And you will receive power when your hands. And you will receive power when the whole world is in your hands. And you will receive power when

[29:28] your hands. And you will receive power when the whole world is in your hands. And you will receive power when with the world and that faithful obedience in the face of uncertainty frees us to go and be present to people in the world.

[29:46] So finally I want to challenge us and I want you to think of the uncertainty that we're in and maybe a new way. Some of you are already doing this but maybe for some of you this will be new. And this is what I say to myself and I don't really like it but it means it's probably the right thing or close to the right thing is I want to challenge myself to see that some of the uncertainty I am in is a gift from God.

[30:11] Now I want to be clear about something, all right? Disease and civil unrest and strife, none of those things are a gift. I'm not talking about those things. Those things have happened. All of them can cause great harm. They are not gifts. We want to see those things healed. We want to see diseases healed. We want to see our social life. We want to see our social ills, our social diseases healed. We want strife to be brought together in unity and in reconciliation. But the uncertainty that comes from those things I want to see as a gift. While we're waiting, while we're watching, and we're faithfully doing what we need to do to be obedient and stay engaged with the world and not retreating, and that uncertainty can push us into the world. The uncertainty that Dash that we didn't have that much control to start with. So that's my job today and your job today, this week, all week, and for now on. Let go, say the serenity prayer. I'm gonna send that one home too. Say the serenity prayer, be faithful, tell people the good news, watch and be ready for what God has next. Let's pray.

[31:48] Father, thank you that you stand at the end of time. Help us to watch, help us to wait with anticipation, help us to live engaged in this world. And we thank you.