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Date: Last Sunday of the Church Year Text: Mark 13:24-37
www.kongsvingerchurch.org
Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.
Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota.
We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.
And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.
The Holy Gospel according to.
St. Mark the 13th chapter.
Jesus said in those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars
will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
And then they will see the son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory.
And 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 branch becomes tender and puts out 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 say to you this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
But concerning that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the sun, but only the Father.
So be on your guard, keep awake, 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 servants in charge each with his work and
commands the doorkeeper to stay awake.
Therefore stay awake.
You don't know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight or when the cock
crows or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.
And what I say to you, I say to all, stay awake.
This is the gospel of the Lord.
In the name of Jesus.
Here again the words of our Lord from our gospel text from this morning.
Be on guard, keep awake, you don't know when the time will come.
We confess in the Creed that Christ will return in glory to judge both the living and the dead.
And as Christians we are wise to remember that for those who persist in
faith, who continue to believe, who stay awake and trust Christ for the forgiveness of their
sins, waiting patiently and enduring suffering, that when He returns, He
returns as Savior.
But for those who persist in sin and unbelief, He returns as judge.
It's important for us to remember that.
So here again the admonishment of our Lord.
We don't know when this is going to take place.
It's going to happen on a Thursday, that's my best guess.
I always say that because no one expects Jesus on a Thursday.
It's the worst day of the week.
You're not in the middle of the week, you're not up to Friday.
Thursdays, I don't know why they're there.
And nothing happens on a Tuesday either.
So Marilyn's putting in her bet right now it's going to be on a Tuesday.
Do I hear a Saturday?
Do you think it's a Sunday?
That's too predictable.
Right.
So the idea is we don't know when it's going to take place.
And I don't know if you've noticed, the world seems to be ramping up and crazy.
But I don't know when it's going to happen.
It could be next year, next week, five years from now, a hundred years from now.
It's beyond my pay grade.
But I can say this, that our Lord, His words are ones that we should stay awake.
In years past when I've preached this text I've talked about the movie Hook.
That wonderful line that is in that movie, Neverland makes you forget.
Have you noticed that everything in this world, all the temptations, they come at us kind of from three different major
directions.
The devil, the world, oh and by the way, your own sinful flesh.
That all of those things are conspiring, working together to knock faith
out of you.
To get you to stop looking to Jesus, to basically say this Christianity stuff is for the birds,
and to wander off and do your own thing.
That's what it means to fall asleep.
And so with that in mind, Jesus' words, stay awake.
You don't know when the master of the house will come.
Whether it's in the evening or at midnight, or lest he come suddenly and find you asleep or in the morning.
You'll note that Jesus knows that the world is a globe.
Because when he shows up, for some it's going to be midnight.
For some it's going to be morning.
For some it's going to be afternoon.
You get the idea, even Jesus knows that.
So what he says, I say to all of you, stay awake.
You think of Peter and John and Jesus' disciples there in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night that
Jesus is betrayed.
Jesus has admonished them, stay awake, pray.
And what does he do?
He finds them sleeping.
Sleeping is a fun thing to do, by the way.
I'm beginning to enjoy it more and more the older I get.
Especially those afternoon naps.
They're the best thing ever.
But if we're going to ask ourselves the question, what does it mean to stay awake?
I think it's important that we take a closer look at the epistle of Jude.
A little fun fact.
Jude only shows up in the three -year lectionary.
He doesn't show up in the one year.
He doesn't show up in series A or series C.
He only shows up in series B of the three years.
We only hear from Jude once every three years.
But with that, I would like to consider what Jude writes here.
If you consider the bigger context of what's going on in this epistle, Jude is writing in the late
60s of the first century.
That's the time when they had those really weird fashions back in the Roman Empire.
But bell -bottoms and stuff.
Never mind, that was a joke.
You get the idea.
But here's what's going on.
Peter is dead.
He's been crucified upside down.
Paul, dead.
He's had his head taken off his shoulders by a Roman centurion.
Most of the apostles, they're long gone at this point.
Maybe one or two persist and live.
The Apostle John, for sure.
But you're going to note that Jude here, the half -brother of Jesus, with the departure of most of the
apostles, is alarmed.
Why?
Because just a few years after the death of the major prominent apostles,
already the Christian church is slipping into apostasy.
Christians who have been awakened by God the Holy Spirit, who had been vivified, who had been
regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, they're getting sleepy and
dozing off and no longer heeding the words.
Right?
That's what's happening here.
Sorry, I don't need my CPAP machine.
Actually, I don't have one of those.
But you get the idea here.
And how is that so?
And he's alarmed at this.
Well, the Apostle Paul, if you remember in Acts chapter 20, when the Apostle Paul is on a ship heading
towards Rome, they make a stop over in Ephesus and
Paul has his farewell address to the churches, to the pastors at the churches in Ephesus and he
says to them, very specifically, after my departure, fierce wolves
will arise among you.
Talking about the pastors.
Not sparing the flock.
And, well, as he prophesied, that's exactly what's taking place.
So, if you want to understand what it means to stay awake, think of it this way.
Is that God has given us all life.
We have been born.
We've gone through our childhood and now we are responsible for stewarding this gift of life that
God has given us.
If we spend our days eating Twinkies and nothing else,
how long are we going to live?
Not very long, but we will be happy.
We will not live long, but we will be happy.
The idea here is that we are to steward this life that God has given us.
Similarly, Jude is writing, and he's writing to Christians concerned that
they're going to fall asleep, knowing full well the onslaught of the devil and the agents of the
devil who have already crept into the church, and he's noting that the food that they're feeding these sheep
is garbage.
This is the kind of stuff that kills faith, and people are falling
asleep.
That's his concern, his warning.
So, it says here in Jude, verse 3.
I'm going to back up into the context in a minute.
First word in verse 3, beloved.
What a great word, by the way.
Beloved.
When I think of beloved, you think of those hallmark greeting cards, valentines, to my beloved wife.
You say things like this to those who are dear to you, but note this is a word from the Holy Spirit to each and every one of us.
Each and every one of us in Christ, we are beloved.
You sit there and go, yeah, but I'm not all that great.
I know, I heard your confession.
But you'll note that because Christ has bled and died for all of our sins, it is important for us to
remember that in God's eyes, we are truly beloved.
Christ has bled and died, forgiven us, pardoned us, and you'll see as we get to the end of our text today that this
beloved thing is not a throwaway line.
It's practically everything.
Beloved, although I was eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write
appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for
condemnation.
They are ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality
and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.
Where are these ungodly people operating?
These people who are designated for condemnation, who pervert the grace of God into
sensuality and deny Jesus, where are they operating?
From pulpits?
Does anyone else think that's just weird?
That's just weird.
But you'll note that the roots of the N .A .R., the roots of today's liberalism, you know where it all started?
All the way back there.
It was weird.
As soon as the apostles leave, up comes the N .A .R. and the liberals and the people who are denying Christ and who are
twisting and mangling scripture.
And here's the thing.
Remember what Jesus says in Matthew 7, on the day of judgment.
Many will come to me saying, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?
Lord, Lord, did we not do mighty works in your name and cast out demons in your name?
What does Jesus say to them?
Depart from me.
I never knew you.
You workers of what?
Lawlessness.
Huh.
So here we have it.
And always that's kind of the move.
I don't care what brand of false teaching it is.
Doesn't matter if it's crazy, bizarre, false prophecy N .A .R., charismatic,
mainline liberal, or just the guy who wants to get along with the world and grow his church and be
more relevant.
At the end of the day, you know what they're doing?
They're watering down the scriptures so that people don't have to hear that they're
sinners.
And then they kind of twist things up a little bit and say, you know, it's really not all that bad.
Jesus isn't going to condemn people for that sin or that sin.
And you'll note always and again, when people pervert the scriptures, lawlessness comes in, and then they
kind of wink at evil.
It's no big deal.
So the half -brother of Jesus says, listen, I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, apparently
you're falling asleep, things have kind of gotten squishy in your head, that Jesus who saved the people out of the
land of Egypt.
Yeah, that's right.
It was Jesus who saved the people out of the land of Egypt.
Afterward, he destroyed those who what?
Did not believe.
To stay awake is to keep on believing.
The angels, who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper
dwelling, he's kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.
Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and
pursued unnatural desire, they serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal
fire.
Yet in like manner, these people also relying on their dreams, they
defile the flesh, they reject authority, they blaspheme the glorious ones.
You're going to note here that Jude kind of expects, hey guys, haven't you been reading your Bible?
Don't you see the similarities here between these guys who are preaching nonsense and
the people who Christ condemned and killed?
Don't you see the connection?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just think you're just a little too uptight.
You're being a little extreme.
Don't you think, Jude, you better just cool your jets a little bit.
No, he's absolutely right.
So he notes then that these people that God punished in the Old Testament,
they serve as an example to us.
Pay attention.
Always and again, you know that it's a big red flag, practically the size of a
bullfighting red cape, right?
When somebody says, you know, that Old Testament, so irrelevant, so difficult to understand, we
don't really need that today.
Yeah, we do.
They serve as an example to us.
But yet in like manner, these people, they rely on their dreams, they end up giving
prophecies on YouTube that mean nothing, right?
They defile the flesh, they reject authority, they blaspheme the glorious ones, and haven't you, have you ever seen
somebody do something like this?
Satan, I rebuke you, right?
And they're actually talking to Satan.
You know, oh, you devils, you come down from your high place and all this kind of stuff.
When somebody does that, they're doing exactly what this text says nobody should be
doing.
You don't have to have any conversations with the devil or with demons, nor do you get to cast them out or rebuke
them and stuff like that.
If you run into a demon, pray.
Pray.
But these people, they blaspheme the glorious ones.
But Michael, the archangel, when he was contending with the devil and disputing about the body of Moses, he didn't
presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment.
Instead, he said, the Lord rebuke you.
But these people, they blaspheme all that they do not understand.
They are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand
instinctively.
Did Jude just say here that false teachers are like unreasoning animals?
Yep.
Is it any wonder that in some of these movements they tell people that the Holy Spirit wants them to bark like a dog?
It's really sick.
But here's what Jude says.
Woe to them.
Woe.
They walk in the way of Cain.
Cain is that fellow who had religious activity but no faith.
They abandon themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's heir.
Balaam was the prophet for profit, if you remember.
Oh yeah.
Balaam's heir runs rampant today when somebody says, send me a thousand dollar seed offering and the Lord will make you a
millionaire.
Uh -huh.
Yeah.
And they perished in Korah's rebellion.
Korah was the fellow who refused to recognize the proper offices that God had established within his
church.
You can see this when people sit there and go, we don't need no pastors.
Everybody has the right to be a pastor or a teacher in Christ's church.
No, that's not how Christ established things.
Talking about these folks there.
Hidden reefs at your love feasts.
That's right.
There they are.
There to shipwreck you while you're enjoying a meal with them or the Lord's Supper.
As they feast with you without fear.
They are shepherds who feed only themselves.
They are waterless rain clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn.
What good is a fruit tree in late autumn if it doesn't have any fruit on it, right?
They are twice dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering
stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
Now it was about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam prophesied, saying, O behold, the Lord comes with 10
,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment on all, to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds
of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way.
And of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
These are grumblers, malcontents, following their
own sinful desires, their loud mouth boasters, showing favoritism to gain
an advantage.
Yep, you let those guys take over the pulpit and the congregation will
fall asleep.
Back into the slumber of sin.
Back into the slumber of unbelief.
Made comfortable by the devil, entertained, laughing every Sunday,
all the while heading to hell.
But here's what Jude writes.
You must remember, remember, remember,
remember, beloved, that's who you are.
Christ has bled and died for your sins.
He's reconciled you for all the times that you have sinned against God and broken that first commandment by
listening to people like that.
Who are trying to lull you back into the slumber of unbelief.
Beloved, the predictions of the apostles, you must remember them.
The predictions of the apostles of our Lord.
They said to you, in the last time there will be scoffers following
their own ungodly passions.
In fact, if you think about it, everything's going exactly the way they said.
That's right, the scoffers are here.
People within the visible church who are openly defiant and hostile to the
Word of God.
Who are openly, obviously greedy for gain.
Those who without any fear of God whatsoever just make up
their own messages to scratch and tickle itching ears.
There's so many people who are asleep in the church today.
That's how they prefer it.
You bring in somebody who preaches law and gospel, rightly handles the Word, convicts people of sin.
I don't know if you've ever noticed, but have you ever had somebody wake you up from a nap and you were not happy that they
did?
That's kind of the thing.
Those who are in the slumber of unbelief in the churches, they don't like it when somebody wakes them up.
Tell that guy to be quiet, I'm trying to sleep here.
But this is exactly what the Apostle said would happen because Christ said this is what would happen.
It is these then, they are the ones, these false teachers who cause divisions.
They're worldly people.
And for all their talk of the Holy Spirit they're completely devoid of the Holy Spirit.
But you beloved, there he goes again, beloved, may I
remind you that Christ has gone to the cross.
God laid on him all of your iniquity, all of your sin.
Christ was scourged, beaten, and had nails driven through his hands and his feet and a crown of thorn
pressed into his head.
And he truly bled, suffered, died in your place and mine.
Carrying your sin in mine so that we can be reconciled.
Is it any wonder here that Jude keeps calling us, beloved, you beloved, building
yourselves up in your most holy faith.
Praying in the Holy Spirit.
And praying in the Holy Spirit here is not this idea of somehow clucking like a duck or
somehow speaking in gibberish.
Praying in the Holy Spirit is to pray according to the way scripture tells us in faith.
Believing that even our own prayers that we do not rightly know what we are to pray for.
Therefore the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
I always kind of like to picture it like there I am praying in the morning or praying in the afternoon and the Holy Spirit is going,
what he meant to say was and then kind of go along, that's what it means to pray in the
Holy Spirit.
Believing in faith that the Holy Spirit will even make up for what I should be praying for.
Keep yourselves then, and listen to the phrase, keep yourselves in what?
The love of God.
Now one of the worst sermons I ever heard, and I mean this, the worst sermons I ever heard on text like
our gospel text today was when I was in Nazarene.
One of my Nazarene pastors, the way he preached the text went something like this, Lord says stay awake.
Now it would be just an absolute tragedy, and I mean tragedy, eternal
tragedy if Jesus shows up at a time when you didn't expect him, when you were sipping on a beer
or a Long Island iced tea after having smoked a cigarette.
Jesus isn't going to let you into heaven with beer and alcohol on your breath and nicotine stains
on your shirt.
No, you're not going to heaven if he shows up.
So you, stay awake.
Don't be doing that stuff.
There are parts of the world that don't have these problems.
We Americans seem to still be hung up on the moralism of Methodism.
But you're going to know, that's not what he's talking about.
He says this, building yourselves up in your most holy faith, keep yourselves in the
love of God.
How is the love of God exemplified?
How is it held up for us to understand in Scripture?
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever, including you, believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
To keep yourself in the love of God is to stay hearing the Gospel.
To continue to believe, even though your sins be as scarlet, Christ makes them white as snow.
That's what it means to stay in the love of God.
Waiting then for the mercy of our Lord.
And consider that, when Jesus shows up, he's not going to sit there and go, boy am I glad to see you because man,
I've been waiting to throw you into hell.
That's not what's going to happen.
Instead, you're going to note, we are waiting for the mercy of our Lord.
And this is what leads to eternal life.
That forgiveness and hope and faith that God the Holy Spirit is giving us.
So in the meantime, what are we to do?
Have mercy on those who doubt.
Somebody among us who says, I'm not sure.
Meet with them.
Comfort them.
Assure them with the words of Christ that they are forgiven.
Save others by snatching them out of the fire.
You know somebody who's snoozing and dozing off while listening to these false teachers.
Shake them.
Wake them up.
Snatch them out of the fires of hell.
And here's an interesting one.
To others, show mercy
with fear.
Hating even the garments stained by the flesh.
Show mercy with fear?
Yeah, you'll note that in the book of Galatians chapter 6 it talks about those who wander.
To restore them.
Restore them by showing them faith, but at the same time don't fall into the
temptation that they fell into.
Even hating the garment that is stained by the flesh.
And then he ends with these words.
To him who is able to keep you from stumbling.
It is only Christ who can keep you awake.
Only Jesus.
And he does it through his word.
He does it through the Lord's Supper.
He keeps us awake today through his word, his warnings, and his comfort.
He is able to keep you from stumbling.
He will present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great
joy.
Ooh, think about that for a second here.
It legitimately says that when Jesus finally presents you before
the Father, before the Spirit, before the angels of heaven, before the saints that have preceded us.
When Jesus presents you in the presence of his glory, it is to his great joy
that he does so.
That is amazing.
But isn't that what the scripture says?
That who for the joy set before him he laid down his life, despising
the shame of the cross.
Who for the joy, it is Christ's joy to save you.
It is Christ's joy to forgive you of your sins.
It is Christ's joy to wash away the filth and the muck of your unrighteousness and to
cover you in the robes of his righteousness and present you in the presence of his glory.
It is to his joy.
Neverland makes you forget, but Christ keeps us awake so that we always remember.
Now to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and
authority before all time and now and forever.
Amen.
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