Matthew 24:36-44 Not Knowing is Half the Battle

Listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in.

Gathering Together and the Value of Worship

Good morning everybody and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here and just like that announcement said, at the end of this service, around 1145, we're going to have as many people as want to.

There's no judgment if you don't go over there. We recognize some people have kids to put down or you got something on the crock pot in the kitchen, whatever. But if you would like to join us over there, we're just going to gather around the property in some groups and pray and just thank God for it and then dedicate it to his use.

If you'd like to join us at the end of the service, feel free to do that. But it's a privilege to gather together, isn't it? How many of you are glad for the opportunity to gather together? I'm really thankful.

I don't know how many of you remember what was going on. I'm starting to get on my Facebook feed a year ago type stuff. Anybody remember a year ago that we were not meeting on Sunday mornings? A year ago, we weren't.

About this time of the year last year, we were taking a couple of weeks off to try to flatten the curve. That turned into 13 weeks without any gathering in this space. There were no chairs set up. I was up here preaching to an empty place and recording that and then we were watching that on Sunday mornings.

Having lost that for a season, I value it more. I value this gathering more. I don't know if you can testify to the same thing. Go ahead and raise your hand if you would say, I value it more. I recognize what it was to lose that for a season and having gone through the darkness of the last year, I hope you're moved to appreciate some of the things that you've been able to identify are more important than you thought they were, are more valuable in your life than you thought they were.

In my personal time of study this past week, I came across a verse that made me think of us, made me think of you, church. Psalm 21, 13 says this, be exalted, O Lord, in your strength. We will sing and praise your power.

God is not calling us, church, to a solo, but he is calling his people into a choir. We need each other in our lives. We cannot sing together alone. Logic, right? You can't sing together alone. And we together are told to sing his praises.

So we need each other and this morning together we're going to be digging into a text again that has us in the end times. That's just the section of scripture that we're in, Jesus talking about his coming and what that time is going to be like.

And it's a short text but a powerful text as always. I think that God's word, when we allow it to get into our hearts of faith, it has the power to transform and change us. And Jesus concludes with the goal of giving us the safest of all bets here.

Speaking about the end times, speaking about his return, he says, there's one thing that I want you to think about, church. Speaking to his disciples, he said, here's one thing I want you to think about.

I want you to rest in this one thing. It's a safe bet. Now, we're in the middle of March Madness. How many of you have a blown up bracket? Anybody? How many of you have a bracket that is probably blown up?

March Madness is a time for filling up brackets and then being disappointed. So, you pick a team. By the way, some of you are kind of cheaters and you have multiple brackets out there to hedge your bets.

Some people are just admitting it just outright. But then, you know that to fill out a novel bracket, to fill out a bracket, what do you have to do? You have to pick a team and put all your eggs in one basket.

Am I right? All your eggs are in one basket to fill out a bracket, and you've got a team going all the way to the end, right? And when they get knocked off by, let's just say, you know, say they get knocked off by a number 15 team or something like that.

I mean, not that that would happen or anything. Hmm. You know, sorry. I think we've got just maybe one or two Ohio State fans in here. And you're probably still Ohio State fans, right? That doesn't knock you off your game.

But we fill out these brackets and that happens every year. And there is no way to do that without putting all of your eggs in one basket. In our text, Jesus tells us that there is one safe bet. There is one thing you can bank on.

There's one thing that you can take to the bank. All else is up for grabs. The rising of the sun, Jesus is saying this. This is just a crazy radical statement at the end of our text this morning. The rising of the sun tomorrow is not as sure as this thing that Jesus holds out as a safer bet.

Now, how many of you take a bet that the sun's going to rise tomorrow? And he says, this is safer than that. More secure than the rising of the sun is what he's going to hold out. He's speaking about an eternal foundation here.

He is suggesting that there is one thing that is eternally stable. And when we see what he says is the most stable thing, well, you'll see once again that we've seen multiple times again a reminder that either Jesus Christ was fully mad and full of himself, just a complete egotistical maniac, or he is Lord and King because the thing that he holds out, because of the thing here in this text that he holds out as the most stable thing.

So open your Bibles if you're curious to see what this is. Open to Matthew 24, verses 32 through 35. Again, Matthew 24, verses 32 through 35, and see if you can identify what Jesus is saying is the safest of bets here in the text.

Recast God's holy and precious word. Let's read it together. Again, Matthew 24, 32 through 35. From the fig tree, learn its lesson. As soon as its branch becomes tender and it puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.

How many of you are glad that you're starting to see signs of summer? Are you glad for that? So also, when you see all these things, 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. Let's pray. Father, I thank you that we have solid ground. More firm than the earth beneath our feet is your promise to return for your people.

You're faithful to keep your word. And so, Father, I pray that you would move in our hearts. It's really only by faith that we'll believe that, only by faith that we'll trust that, and so only by faith that that even matters in our lives.

And so, Father, I pray that you would press this deep down into each soul that is gathered here and each soul that's listening in on the live stream and who hears this maybe later throughout the week or whenever, that this word explained and understood would have a powerful impact in the way that we live our lives in trust of you.

Your word is stable, more sure than the sun rising tomorrow. And so, I pray that you would help us to put our trust and faith in you today, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, I encourage you, as I do every week, to get comfortable during the time that we're going to spend in the word.

If you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts, take advantage of that back there, and then also just keep your place in your device or in your, if you've got a physical copy of the Bible, to keep it open to Matthew 24, verses 32 through 35.

The Disciples' Questions About the End of the Age

Now, I want to set a little bit of the stage, and I kind of try to do this from time to time. I know that not everybody was here for the last couple of messages, but you need to understand where this discussion is coming from.

It helps to know why we're talking about the end of time and why we're talking about the return of Christ. Back in verse 3, you can glance at it in your Bible, Matthew 24, verse 3, the disciples asked, when will these things take place?

Well, what precipitated that question was that he's just prophesied that the temple's going to be destroyed. And they're like, when's that going to happen? Like, what in the world are you talking about?

The temple, the place, the center of the worship of God in that era is going to be destroyed? How in the world can that be? So they ask, when will those things happen? When are these things going to happen?

And they add a couple of other questions. What will be the sign of your return? He said, I'm going to come back, I'm going to leave you, and then I'm going to return. So what will be the sign of your return and the sign of the end of the age?

When are you going to roll all of the kingdoms of this world up and set up your kingdom is what they're asking. So last week in the text, Jesus in part of the answer said, I offer one foolproof sign of my return.

This is the sign of my return. You will see Jesus coming in the clouds, and that's going to be the sign. You're going to see me. And all of the catastrophes and all of the cycles of lawlessness and all the difficulties in the headlines that we read and all of those things are like contractions of these end times, and he uses that illustration.

He says, we live in a time that's like a woman in labor, and the contractions come and go, and there's hard times. How many of you have experienced life that way, just to be honest? Have you experienced life that way?

Like there are hard times and there are good times. You know what I'm talking about? So our lives replicate that, but the cycles of history are that way as well. And I like that. I love the illustration, and I mean, obviously, Jesus is the one who gave it, so we ought to love it, but he illustrates that, and the interesting thing is you don't know how many contractions there's going to be.

I mean, a woman in labor doesn't know if she's going to have 50 or 500 contractions. She doesn't know how hard the next one is going to be, how difficult or how long that labor is going to be, and we don't know that either.

We don't know how long this history of these cycles are going. And Jesus, by the way, interestingly, he's not interested in telling us. He has no interest in informing us how long and when. He would say it if there was a text in Scripture where he said, where he wanted to know, wanted us to know as his followers, the date that he's going to return, this would be the time to say it, but he chooses not to.

But hear me carefully, church. He is interested in us living in a way that is ready and alert and motivated by his coming. That's why he talks about it here. Not to give us the time and the precise date, but rather to give us a sense of urgency.

I am coming back. You don't know when it is. Do my work. Live for me and love me and work for me in faith. The urgency on our part, by the way, should not be an urgency as often has been expressed in the church, an urgency to figure out the time.

A lot of times the book of Revelation is studied to try to figure out the time. The words of Jesus here in Matthew are studied and meticulously poured over by people who are doing the opposite of what Jesus wants us to do, trying to figure out the time.

When is it going to be? But the urgency on our part should be to get busy with the things he's called us to do while we're in this waiting room of history. Things like proclaiming the gospel to the nations.

Things like loving one another and loving our community well. Things like being salt in a tasteless, increasingly tasteless society. You know what I'm talking about? Being light in the very dark seasons of contractions.

Let me be clear before we dissect this text. Urgency would actually be thwarted by knowing what day he's coming back. Do you know what I'm saying? If you can figure it out and you could know what day he was coming, then you could just put off the rest of your life until that day, right?

That's kind of the interesting thing here. In many ways, our desire to know the time is to forego urgency. I think the disciples thought that as well. Could you let us know? Maybe we could go back to fishing for a while until that day.

That would be the thought there, and I think we're guilty of the same. Let's take, for example, just a couple. I'll just illustrate it with one thing. Take, for example, the temple in Jerusalem. If we think that the temple in Jerusalem must be rebuilt before Jesus returns for his people, then we can live less urgent as long as there's no temple in Jerusalem.

There isn't right now, so we could kind of sit back and kind of relax until that occurs. If Jesus offers here in this text clear-cut signs, then we will be tempted toward apathy and spiritual laziness.

But Jesus is constantly telling his people, be alert and stay awake. Be alert, stay awake. Be alert, stay awake. I say all of this to help us make sense of what he's saying here in verse 32, so that's all preamble to the message.

He is not saying, consider the fig tree so you can try to figure out when I will return and end this age and start my new kingdom. That's not what he's saying. No, he's saying, look at the fig tree and the way it signals that summer is coming.

And in the same way, look at the cycles of contractions and difficulties and pandemics and cataclysms and see them as reminders that I'm returning, that I'm at the very gate, he says. He stands at the door, and the only thing necessary for him to return is that the Father will say, go get your inheritance, and he will come.

That's the only thing historically that's needed. That's the only thing that's necessary for his return for us. Go get your bride, and he will come. So, Recast, I want you to shift your thinking. This has been a year of, has anybody like me gotten too involved in the news?

Anybody this year maybe got a little too involved in politics? Anybody got a little too involved in reading and fretting and worrying and anxiety and anxiousness and some of that kind of stuff, maybe even some anger?

Anybody ever shouted at the TV this year or the radio or a podcast or anything? But you see, when we read the headlines, what are we supposed to do? When we see these cycles of cataclysms and we see pandemics and we see difficulty, what are we supposed to do with this?

Do we listen to the headlines? Hear me, this might be convicting to some of us. Do we hear the headlines and go, oh, there goes my 401k? Or do you read the headlines and watch the politics and think, oh, here come the gas price hikes.

Oh, hold on to your hats, here comes the gas prices. Or even worse, I would suggest, and I felt this in my own heart, and I repent of it, and it is, ho hum, more tragedy. Ho hum, more death. Ho hum, murders in Atlanta.

It wasn't Madelon. Does that convict anybody else? Because I mean, I get tired of the news cycles, right? And it can just be one more day on planet earth. But what are we supposed to think when we read these things?

Let me encourage you, less ho hum, less financial concern, and more, my deliverer is coming. My deliverer is standing in the wings, ready for the command of His Father, and He will return. That's what we should be thinking when we read these headlines.

That's what these cycles are for. That's what the pandemic is for. It's to get us ready. It's to make our hearts a little less connected to this world, a little more connected to Him. Do you see it? Do you feel that?

We all need that. We need reminders like this from this text. Look at the fig tree and know that you're smart enough to be able to discern that summer is coming. Look at the things that you see around you.

Look at these signs and look at all the stuff that's going on. And at the end of the day, it doesn't mean He's coming back tomorrow. It doesn't mean He's coming back in my lifetime, but He is coming. That is what we're supposed to think when we see these tragedies.

Jesus is calling His followers in verse 32 to a life of urgent expectancy. He's calling us to a life of urgent expectancy. The fig tree is often the first to send out its shoots and leaves in the Middle East, like the snowdrops coming up in my woods.

And that's an actual picture that I took this week in my woods. I love that. They're the first ones that come up. Sometimes they even come up through the snow or the crocuses. Any of you have crocuses coming up or tulips coming up?

Pretty soon, we're going to start to see the red buds blossoming with their purple. Who names these things? Do you ever wonder that? Do you guys identify? Do any of you have a red bud that has those really pretty purple blossoms on it?

Whatever. But the point being, a person who is attentive will see regular and routine reminders that summer is coming. And so will the follower of Jesus be reminded with eyes to see the world around us, ample reminders that Jesus is coming.

This is not saying you're going to figure out the date. You're going to figure out the time. Far from that. Instead, Jesus is saying that in your lack of knowledge of the date and time, you will see signs that it could be today.

It could be today. You will live in a way that is mindful and thoughtful and considering His return. And you will be alert that He is near. All we need is the word from the Father, and the Son will return.

So let me add the first point of application here at the end of verse 33, and it's just simply this. You can see it kind of as it has come out in my explanation of the text, but live with urgent expectancy.

Live with urgent expectancy. I would suggest to you that one of the greatest enemies of my faith is complacency. A partner in that is forgetfulness, just not being mindful of him tomorrow morning through the rest of the week, forgetting him.

But complacency is right up there. There are so many diversions in our world. There are shows to watch. There are games to play. There are projects to work on. There's money to make. There are people to please.

And I would suggest to you, cautiously and carefully, that those are not the enemy. Those aren't the enemy. Those things are not the enemy. You see, those things can be done for the glory of God with a heart of worship.

If we shun complacency and thank God and love him in it, when done with a mind to please God, everything that isn't sin can be done as worship. If it's not sin, it can be done as worship. But complacency and apathy toward God are often a byproduct of thinking that we have all the time in the world.

That's where complacency comes in. I've got all the time in the world. Just, you know, I've got tomorrow. I can put it off till then. But the return of Jesus is held out as a reality that is meant to fuel our passion for his work in the here and now.

We have been given a real opportunity, by the way, as a culture. I think more and more, increasingly in our generation, in the time that we live in right now, with 24-hour news cycle, the very things that God holds out as reminders of the return of Jesus are always in our face.

Very accessible, routine, frequent reminders of his return. All we need to do is shift our mindset from discouragement in those things to acknowledgement as we take in the world around us. I'm not suggesting, by the way, in any way, shape, or form that we move into a cold and callous celebration of the tragedies in the news around us.

We do indeed grieve and mourn the brokenness in our world, and we ought to be those who are quick to be moved by the tragedy and plight of the others that we see around us. But for the follower of Christ, the bad news that we take in can only ever be a backdrop for the best news of all.

As dark and painful as the world can get, we have a deliverer waiting in the wings. We have a Savior ready for the Father's Word to come and fix it. And the main thing holding him back is the salvation of more.

The reason he hasn't returned is that he has more to bring into his kingdom. So let the headlines remind you that salvation is coming, and also let the headlines remind you of your primary calling to proclaim the gospel until his return.

Live with an expectant urgency. The second thing that we're going to see from the text is found in verses 34 and 35 taken together. 34 is potentially one of the most confusing passages with a whole host of different interpretations.

A lot of this depends on the way you think the end is going to go. It depends on how you're going to interpret this. It's confusing, has a bunch of, I'm going to give you three potential interpretations, and I'll tell you which one is my favorite.

Let's go ahead and look at verse 34 just real quick here. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. So potential interpretation number one is just straightforward.

Jesus is saying that he will return during the lifetime of the 12 disciples, and therefore he was wrong on this point. I read commentaries about that view, espoused that view. Some liberal scholars who would say, yep, Jesus was wrong.

Jesus got this wrong. He thought he was coming back during their lifetime, said it, said as much here, and he was wrong. Now I don't agree with that. I wouldn't believe that for a second. I don't think that that wasn't his intention here.

He's going to just next week, he's going to literally say, I don't know when I'm coming back. I have a hard time believing that what he meant by this statement was, I'm coming back in your lifetime, I don't know when I'm coming back.

I don't think that, I think that's illogical. The second option is that when Jesus says that the generation will not pass away until these things take place, that these things are the destruction of the temple.

Now that's a possible solution, and I think scholars can argue a strong point on that, but he just got done speaking about his return. That's what the message was about last week. So he speaks about these tragedies and these cycles, and then he speaks about his return and coming in the clouds with great glory and trumpets and all of that, and then he says this.

These things won't happen, this generation won't pass away until these things. So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, this second option. The third option is that the word generation ought to be interpreted in a way that doesn't mean a narrow grouping of people alive at a particular time.

The word generation is a fairly plastic word in Greek that has both a time component as well as a people component to it. And I lean towards this third option, and I apologize if this has been a bit technical.

I don't know if it's answering a question for you, but I think if you read this text or if you've ever read this text, I have the feeling that most of you have had a question about verse 34 unanswered.

How in the world, why would he say that this generation will not pass away until he returns? It's a confusing text, and it's important to have a way of understanding Jesus to be consistent in this passage.

As I said, our text for next week, in that text, Jesus is going to say he himself doesn't even know when he's going to return. So to posit in verse 34 that he's telling them when he will return just makes Jesus inconsistent.

Now I believe that he is either saying that mankind, that the word generation can be interpreted as race, not just generation, but race of humanity, and that mankind in general will not pass away before the end.

Now have any of you ever questioned that before? Like, are we going to destroy ourselves? And he's basically, this interpretation would be him saying, nope, don't worry about it. You're not going to all die off before the end.

There's not going to be some nuclear holocaust that God's going to go, oh my goodness, I didn't see that happen. And now how Jesus comes back to no one. Oh, bummer, like that would not be good. So I don't, I think that that's a reasonable interpretation of this, but better than that even, is my understanding of this word generation.

I think Jesus is saying that this age will not end until everything I've told you is fulfilled. In other words, you can trust me. And that, I like that understanding because that matches this context very well and what he's trying to get across to them in verses 34 and 35.

It puts 34 and 35 together in a way that I think best makes sense of the whole text. So they're parallel, 34 and 35. My words will not pass away. This generation, this age will not pass away until everything that I've said is going to be fulfilled.

Do you see how those are parallel? And so one of their questions was, what will be the sign of the end of the age? And he's saying the temple will be destroyed first. He said that already. Cycles of hardship and tribulation will happen before I return.

Then I will return and you will see the son of man coming in the clouds and then the age will come and everything will end like I've said. All of those things will come to pass and my word is solid. And so Jesus adds that solemn and serious and amazing statement here in verse 35.

Heaven and earth will pass away and be remade but my words will not pass away. This age will not pass away until all that Jesus predicted comes to pass. The earth and the heavens will pass away, heaven being not the abode of God but the sky, the cosmos.

Earth and the cosmos will pass away and be reformed and remade but there is one sure bet. The words of Jesus will not pass away. Not a single thing that he has declared to be true, not a single one of his promises will be left aside.

His words are a solid bet, a more solid bet than the earth beneath your feet. Church, this is said for our encouragement and I hope you find it. Jesus is calling himself the trustworthy one here. You can trust his promises.

What he says will come to pass. And with this I'd like to end with one final application. Trust the one who is eternally stable. Trust the one who is eternally stable. If you've asked Jesus Christ to save you, if you've asked Jesus Christ to save you, then keep coming back to him and his promises as your stable foundation.

What kind of promises can we take to the bank? What kind of things has Jesus told us? I'd encourage you to rehearse those. I'd encourage you to go back but here are some of them that I take to heart that I say, man I'm so glad that he says I keep my promises.

My word is trustworthy. Heaven and earth will pass away, my words won't. Promises like he will never leave us nor forsake us. Promises like he will raise us to new life on that final day. Promises that he rewards those who are his.

Promise that he is going to prepare a place for his followers. How many of you like that one? Promises that he is returning to take us there to be with him forever. Precious and important promises especially as we face cycles of ongoing hardship and difficulty.

But if you've not asked Jesus Christ to save you from your sins against the holy and righteous God, please consider doing so today. Place your trust in the one who is eternally stable today. The reality is and I think all of us know it to a person here in the room, we spend all of our days in a system of intense instability.

How many of you experience some instability? In the course of your life, five of us or and the rest are just so tired you can't like, oh man that's me but I can't get my arm up because no. I think all of us know we live in a significant and it's intense.

But today you can connect your life to a hope that is the safest of all bets. Think about it. Jesus is saying here in our text, I always keep my promises. And if you'd like to know how you can be a beneficiary of these promises then I encourage you to skip communion this morning but come talk to me or come and talk to the elder on duty this morning or talk to pastor Spencer or I'm sure Dave who's leading worship up here would love to talk with you but do so with urgency.

I don't put this out there very often. I'm not a not a particularly manipulative individual. I don't necessarily want to manipulate or play with your emotions or whatever but at the end of the day it is urgent.

It is urgent that if you have not made this decision to follow Christ and ask him to save you from your sins, it's urgent. In this shifting world we do not know how many days we will be given and we certainly do not know when the Lord will return.

And so as we come to communion this morning please think of this as a time to visually proclaim that your sin and brokenness has been covered by the blood of Christ. Feel free to go to the tables that are set up in the back to pick up communion.

If you didn't grab it on your way in then that's available back there and you yeah you might have to stand in line for a little bit but even in that physical act of going to the tables, remember that you are showing everyone around you the dirty truth.

You are merely a sin sick beggar who has been miraculously healed through the gracious and merciful sacrifice of Jesus Christ your Lord. That's what you're saying by getting up and going to these tables.

I love and I missed that opportunity to go to the table in part because it's the physical demonstration. You're literally seeing people get up and go and say I'm a mess and I'm such a mess that it took the very son of God to die for me.

It's because of that that I go to this table in reflection and remembrance of the love that he has expressed for me in his cross. So look around and rejoice Recast because you're in good company and let's all go out from here with a commitment to live with more of an expectant urgency and also a commitment to trusting in the promises of our savior.

Trusting in him, leaning on him, whatever the future holds for us and let's keep a lookout for opportunities to proclaim the good news in a world full of cycles of really bad news. Let's pray. Father I thank you so much for the stability in the midst of such an unstable world that is your word.

We have this one thing around which all things are to revolve and it is Jesus Christ and his promises. A promise that we've been studying more recently, his return, a promise that he is indeed in the wings just awaiting your word.

And I think I can speak for most of us that we would love for that to be soon. We would echo with the the writings of John at the very end of the bible even so come Lord Jesus. But in the days of waiting, in these days of expectancy, father I pray that you would give us an urgency to live for you.

I pray that for myself father, I don't do this perfectly. I pray for an urgency for me as well. I pray that you would help us to set right priorities in line with what's at stake here in this world. We can become so complacent in our hearts.

And so father I pray that you would help us to figure out if there's diversions in our lives that we need to shun for the sake of being more streamlined in our efficiency for your kingdom. If there's conversations we need to have, if there's people that we've wronged that need to be made right, if there's opportunities to share the gospel that we've been putting off till next year at Christmas or when we see them next or whatever.

Father I pray that you would give us boldness for your kingdom. And I pray that even now you would give us a joyful celebration of the sacrifice that has been made for us through Jesus Christ. And as we have an opportunity to go to the tables, I pray that you would just be in our midst and that we would remember you and love you this week in Jesus name.

Amen.