Dark Horse Hope

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Don Filcek; Matthew 24:9-14 Dark Horse Hope

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You're 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
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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. You should have found one of these at or near your chair this morning.
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This is our worship folder. It's a tool to help orient yourself to Recast. It has information about who we are as a church, what we value, ways to stay connected, and some upcoming events that we have going on here.
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Inside of the worship folder, you'll also find a connection card. If you're new or newer to Recast, you can fill this out and drop it off to the volunteer at the welcome table for a free t -shirt.
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Also inside, there's an offering envelope. We don't pass around an offering plate here at Recast, but if you feel led to give, feel free to put this in the welcoming table up front.
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We wanted to briefly highlight a ministry partner we support here at Recast, Dale Kurte. Dale and his wife,
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Abby, are involved in evangelistic ministry on Western's campus with a special focus on the international student community.
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Dale also equips effective Christian leaders to share the gospel on campus. Go Broncos! The vote for the purchase of the property on Front Street was approved by the membership by 98 .4%,
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so the elders are working on the paperwork and getting that ball rolling. We are so excited for this opportunity that God has provided for us.
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Hey, Recast. One service. March 7th. That's next week.
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1030. Don't forget. Bye, Recast.
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I'm Jason. And I'm Hope. We've got a worship service for you for the rest of the morning. Woo! All right, well, good morning.
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I'm Don Felsick. I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm really glad to be together as God's people this morning.
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The gathering of God's people is a glorious and beautiful thing. I hope that you experience it that way. I hope that you also are connected with one another through faith in Jesus Christ and that that's the real anchor that keeps you coming to church.
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Our church name is a little bit strange. It's different, and people ask me questions about it a lot.
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Those of you that are here regularly, you probably, hopefully, already know the core values that that name is an acronym.
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Recast is an acronym for our core values. You see that on the sign back there. Replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.
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Those are the core values that kind of drive the mission, which the mission is to worship God and to find more worshipers for his name.
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When we talk about truth here, when we think of that as a core value, we are talking about that which conforms to reality.
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What is real is kind of the gist of what is true. We have an increasingly difficult time in our culture telling truth from fiction.
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You guys agree with me on that? Increasingly difficult to tell what is true. Objective journalism has increasingly become spin and opinions, and how many of you know what
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I'm talking about? You experience that all the time? How many of you know that you can tune into a radio talk show, and you can hear what somebody is going to say in a speech tomorrow, and then the opinions about what they're going to say in a speech tomorrow that they haven't even given?
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You guys know what I'm talking about? That's what our news has suddenly become, is there's a lot of opinion and a lot of spin, and then the internet fills the gap of our understanding with all kinds of voices ready to just make stuff up for us to read.
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There's a lot of just made -up stuff out there for us to read, and it becomes more and more difficult to tell what is true.
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How many of you would raise your hand and say, I'm really glad for a stable truth of God's word to keep coming back to?
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Are you glad for that, that it's in writing, it's there for us to study, it's been there for down through the centuries for people, and scholars, and all of us, and common church people to just study on our own and to dig in?
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In our text this morning, Jesus is going to set forward some expectations for his followers.
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That's not expectations of what he wants of us, it's really trying to correct our expectations for the future.
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Really the question comes down to, how are we going to live, and what does the future hold for us in a fallen world?
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He's going to tell us, surprisingly, he's going to tell us what the future holds for us. He's also going to tell us what the present holds for us as well, but he's going to tell us what the future holds for us, and he says in this text that it is going to be tough.
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He doesn't pull any punches here in the text. He tells us that his expectation for his followers is that it's tough.
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You are not, he says in this text, his disciples saying, what's this future look like for us?
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And he says, you're not going to lead at all in this game. In regulation time, you're never going to be leading. But you will win in the last seconds of overtime.
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How many of you are glad that he tells us we will win? Are you glad for those words that his gospel and his word will go forward with power and authority and will reach the ends of the earth?
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It's glorious, it's beautiful, but he also cautions us about our expectations in the here and now.
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He is correcting expectations for his followers. And if we believe that this text that we're looking at to be the very words of our
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Lord and Savior, to be the truth, then we must be those who shift in our expectations of the world around us.
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What do we really expect and think tomorrow will hold for us? So let's open our Bibles or your devices to Matthew chapter 24, verses 9 through 14.
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Again, Matthew 24, 9 through 14. And as I read it, I want you to consider whether or not your expectations for the future match what
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Jesus has to say here in this text. Again, Matthew 24, 9 through 14.
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By the way, a difficult text, a hard one in terms of what it holds out to be true and equally glorious in its ending of particularly the final expectation.
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Matthew 24, 9 through 14, the very word of God that seeks us to conform to it, not us change it to match our opinions.
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Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.
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And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another, and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
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And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold, but the one who endures to the end will be saved.
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And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for a word that corrects our expectations and our thoughts, a word that corrects what we think we deserve or what we need.
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Just even at the end of the day, what I would ask of you is a life of ease. I would ask you for a life of comfort.
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I would ask you for a life of health and wealth and good things, and I think all of us rightly do so because you are the giver of all good gifts.
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And at the same time, what we expect of this world around us needs to conform to the truth of Jesus' expectations here.
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So Father, I pray that you would do a work in our hearts, a work in our minds to adopt what
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Christ has to say to us. Not our own feelings, not our own thoughts, not our own wants or desires, but at the end of the day to conform to the reality of the truth of what it's like to live in this waiting period.
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What it's like in the waiting room of history as we're awaiting the announcement, it's a boy, the birth of a new kingdom at the return of Jesus Christ.
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Our hope is in that, our hope is in his return, our hope is in that glorious kingdom that awaits us.
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But in the meantime, Father, I pray that you would give us right expectations and right thoughts as we live and move day to day and give us the right mission,
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Father, where it's in that mission that we find purpose, it's in that mission that we find hope, it's in that mission that we find significance in our day to day.
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So let everyone in this place walk out of here with a firm understanding that your mission is the gospel, in Jesus' name, amen.
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Okay, well I encourage you, like always, to get comfortable, keep your Bibles or your devices open, you probably already are, to Matthew 24, 9 through 14, so that you can follow along and see that the things that I'm saying are coming from the word, not my opinion, not my thoughts, and anywhere that my thoughts or my opinions diverge from the word, stick with the word.
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I'm not infallible. If at any time during the message you want to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts, take advantage of that back there, you're not going to distract me,
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I'm kind of like, I'm on it once I'm up here, so we'll keep plowing through. But I want to start off with a question, a question that I think all of us can relate to.
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How many of you, go ahead and raise your hand at the answer to this question, how many of you like to know what to expect when you go into a new situation?
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You like to know what to expect. One thing that I've been noticing over the years is that increasingly as we do this thing called
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Lunch with the Pastor, we're going to be kind of picking those back up again, and that's just really, it's kind of funny how we name things around here, but we name them kind of what they are.
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So Lunch with the Pastor is, well, a Lunch with the Pastor, it's primarily for new people to get an opportunity to ask questions and get to know the church.
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And so one of the questions that I ask often at those is, did you go to our website beforehand, and increasingly the vast majority of the people that come through those doors for the first time have already been on our website.
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Most of them have already heard me preach once or twice, they've listened to our podcast, they've listened to the
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YouTube channel or something to be able to kind of know what to expect, know what it's going to be like here when you arrive.
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And we all like to know what we're getting into, and the disciples of Jesus were no different. They're signing up for this whole
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Jesus thing, and they want to know what's going to happen. And so last week in our text, we saw them ask Jesus directly, when are all of these things that you're prophesying going to take place?
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He was talking about his return, he was talking about the destruction of the temple, he was talking about some pretty cataclysmic things. And so, when is that all going to happen?
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And then what will be the sign that you're returning? Because he kept talking about his return, so they're like, when are you going to return?
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They were thinking, they weren't even thinking about his death by this point, they weren't even, I don't, I'm not even convinced that they believed he was going to die. They're talking about, when are you going to return to the temple, or when are you going to return to Jerusalem, and everybody except you as the king?
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And when is the sign of the end of the age, and then when are you going to usher in your new kingdom? And they were hoping for some detail about the end of all things, and him kind of setting up his messianic kingdom.
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But instead, Jesus is giving them expectations for what life will be like, waiting for his arrival.
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What's it going to be like in that period of time, waiting for him to show up? You see, I want to just point this out, church,
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Jesus is much more concerned for how we live in the present, than he is in giving us a road map to the end.
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I hope that that stands out really strong over the next several weeks as we continue through this
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Olivet Discourse, through Jesus talking about end times. That's where we're at right now in the text of Matthew. That's why
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I'm going through it. Not anything to do with a pandemic that I'm talking about end times. It's literally, we've been going through Matthew for years, and we're kind of continuing on in that, and so that's just the next text this week.
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But Jesus is much more concerned, as he even talks about end times, as he answers questions, when is the end coming?
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He's still much more concerned for how we live in the waiting time. He's graciously, in the text, preparing his people for what to expect as the sands of time slip through the hourglass toward that final day, and he says here in a nutshell, expect to live as underdogs who will win in overtime.
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Expect it to go that way. Expect that to be what life is like in the kingdom. Expect to be like a dark horse that rises up from obscurity to win the day.
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A sleeper in the bracket that, at the end of the day, nobody's putting their money on.
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Nobody's got him going all the way. There's no way that this ragtag 12 guys in Israel and Palestine is going to go global.
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There's just no way that's going to happen, and so expect it to go that way, says
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Jesus to his 12, and in our outline in this passage, he issues five expectations that should fuel our lives every single day.
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The things that should drive our expectations of our present and our future are what he's getting at here, and I think at the end of the day, really,
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I mean, we're talking about present things, how we live in the present, but a good question to ask is what do you expect from tomorrow?
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What do you expect from next week or next month or next year? What do you expect things to be like?
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If you expect tomorrow to be all gumdrops and rainbows because God is on your side, you need to listen to what
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Jesus says you should expect. If you expect God to make you healthy, wealthy, and popular, then this message is for you.
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If you measure his faithfulness according to how easy he makes your life, then he desires to correct us all this morning in this, and here are the five expectations found in this passage very clearly.
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Number nine, I mean, in verse nine, number one, I'm kind of cheating a little bit. I'm going to give you three words.
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It's one point. It's three words. I think you're going to understand why they're connected, persecution, martyrdom, and hatred. He says expect those.
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What? The second thing in verse 10, betrayal. The third thing in verse 11, false teachers.
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The fourth thing in verse 12, increased lawlessness and lovelessness. Anybody just feeling really edified by this list so far?
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Anybody feeling like, wow, this is going to be a light message, Don? It's not a light message, but it's
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Jesus' message. This is not mine. This is what Jesus has given us to hear, church, today.
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And then the fifth, glory he gives us reprieve. He gives us light at the end of the tunnel. Gospel expansion.
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You can expect it. You can count on it. The first four, dead set against his church, dead set against his people, the nations against his people, people internally within the church against his people, wolves in sheep's clothing against his people, the culture at large turning increasingly lawless and loveless against his people, and the gospel will continue to go forward and advance to victory.
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Do you see it? That's our outline. The first point is expect persecution, martyrdom, and hatred.
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Again, we're going to go through, and this ought to, by the end of the fourth point, you ought to be ready for the fifth.
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You're ready for some reprieve, because this is dark and difficult stuff. It's scary stuff.
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But Jesus throws us into the deep end here in verse nine. Right away, he says, swim. We live in the beginning of the end, according to verse eight.
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Let's remember where we've been, where he's been at in his dialogue and his teaching with his disciples, really monologue here.
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Verse eight, he says, the waves of cataclysm, the wars and rumors of wars, the earthquakes of the first eight verses of this chapter, natural disasters, the news cycle reminds us that we live in a fallen world, and that this fallen world is like a woman in labor.
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Each horrible headline, each horrible catastrophe and difficulty is like a contraction moving us closer to the birth of a new kingdom, a glorious end, a difficult travail, a glorious end of holding the kingdom, that baby, that glorious end, however, a very difficult labor to get there.
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Do you see it? That's what he's answering. That's what he's saying. As Jesus continues to answer the curiosity of his disciples here in the text, he tells us what to expect.
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Expect to be delivered up to tribulation and persecution by them. There's always a them in history.
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There's always them out there, them, in essence, those who are opposed to him, them.
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Expect for some to be put to death. By the way, I think that this first point is really external to the church. The second point is internal to the church.
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Expect difficulty from without. Expect persecutions and tribulations from the nations and hatred from the nations, he says.
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Expect the outside to not understand the inside of these four walls. Expect them out there to have animosity and difficulty putting their mind around what it is that we stand for and who we are.
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In church history, some of them, he says, you're going to be handed over to tribulation by them and persecution by them, and expect to even some be killed by them.
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Of course, we know that that's happened down through history and still happens. Even today in various countries, people are put to death for their faith.
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Church history, by the way, has 10 of the 12 disciples being martyred for their faith.
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John, being the exception, who wrote the book of Revelation, who was actually spared. Their attempts to kill him, they attempted to kill him, and according to church historians and tradition, he was spared in order to be able to write the book of Revelation.
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Of course, we know that Judas died at his own hands, and so we are left with the 10 who, according to church history, did indeed sacrifice everything for the cause of Christ and lost it all, were turned over to tribulation and persecution and even death.
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But I believe Jesus is speaking to them, yes, and it really happens to them, but he's also speaking to us here today.
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You see, they were followers of Christ, so are we. They were facing cataclysm, so are we.
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They didn't know when the cataclysm was coming, neither do we. We're very parallel right now in where we live to where the disciples were when they were first hearing these words, and he's preparing them for a rough time, even as he is preparing us for any difficulties ahead.
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It says, expect to be persecuted, expect even martyrdom, and expect, and this is an interesting phrase, expect to be hated by all nations.
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Now this phrase gives me increasing confidence that he has a longer term view in mind, because in order to be hated by the nations, the gospel has to reach out to the nations.
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Jesus is peering forward in history to a time when he envisions the gospel having reached many nations, and he sees opposition against his people wherever the gospel takes root.
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And just to clarify, I do not think he's speaking of some future time still out ahead of us in any of these points. He's talking about our current present time and going out into the future, a way of life for his people, the things that they can expect in the day -to -day grind of waiting for his return.
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And I want to point out, all nations do. I believe that every single nation that has encountered the gospel of Jesus Christ takes issue with Jesus and his followers.
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At some point, it will happen. You see, I have a king and a government over me.
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How many of you would raise your hand and say, you're in that same boat? Are you in the same boat as me? Raise your hand if you've got both a king,
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Jesus, and a government over you. The government that is over me, her name is the
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United States of America, and I love her. But I also have a king over me, his name is
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Jesus, and I love him more. Do you hear me? I love my nation for the freedoms that she's granted me, but I love
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Jesus more. And by the way, I would say to you this, they don't hold a candle. They are not worth comparing.
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So you put my love for America on the scale, and you put my love for Jesus on the scale, and one of them looks insignificant.
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And it ought to be that way for a follower of Christ, when you understand what he has done for you.
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Now, you can be a patriot, and you can be enthusiastic about your country. You could even lay down your life for your country, and that would be a glorious thing.
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But things work fine having both a government and a king, as long as I am free to continue to honor my king and whatever he tells me in his word to do.
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You guys tracking with that? As long as I am afforded the freedoms to walk with God according to his word, and still be within the confines of what the government asks of me, we're good.
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We're copacetic. Everything is clicking. But every government that has ever existed comes to a point where they recognize that allegiance to Jesus gets in the way of things.
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Every government. Allegiance to Jesus takes away from allegiance to government, and that is where persecution begins.
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When the people of God find their allegiance divided, the church will humbly follow her king.
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What do I mean by that? Well, just like the disciples in Jesus' time in the book of Acts, it's recorded for us, said we must obey
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God and not man, when man's laws interfere with God's call.
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They were speaking specifically about something that is very close to this text that's going to come back up at the end as our mission.
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We will share the gospel when it's illegal, because our Lord has told us to, our king has told us to.
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We will preach that sin of all kinds are an eternal mortal danger, even if the government seeks to require us to celebrate those sins.
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We won't celebrate it, and that moves the church into the category quickly of hated by the nations.
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Do you see it in the text? I'm not making this stuff up. This is what God is saying in his word, hated by the nations.
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It's just a matter of time. Every nation will turn sour to the gospel at some point.
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So what do you expect from this life with Christ? Do you expect wealth? Do you expect health?
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Do you expect fame, popularity? He tells his followers that the future for his people looks much more like persecution, martyrdom, and hatred than wealth, health, and fame.
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And he says, expect it to increase, more so as the day approaches. Expect there to be an increasing hostility toward his people.
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The second point is expect betrayal. Now this is more internal to the church, not just outside. How many of you know that you can only be betrayed by somebody you love?
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You can only be betrayed by somebody close to you. No closeness, the word betrayal doesn't work there. People can persecute you, they can have animosity towards you, they can do all kinds of bad things to you, but you don't call it betrayal unless they at one point were close.
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And I wonder if it's an overstatement. I'd be curious, anybody that's in the category of over 60 in the room,
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I'd like to get your feedback on this. Feel free to come up to me after the service and give me your thoughts. But I don't think it's an overstatement to say that the average
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Christian by the age of 60 has a good reason to give up on the church. If you've been a
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Christian for a while and you've been kicking it in the church for a while, I have the feeling that you've been kicked in the teeth by somebody in the church sometime.
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You know what I'm talking about? Is that a reality? I'd be curious to hear if you think that's an overstatement. I'm saying it, it's my opinion, it's not in the text, but I have the feeling that you've sensed some betrayal by the time you're 60.
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From the church, within, from wolves in sheep's clothing, from those who are not connected to Christ but claim to be connected to Christ and are betraying and hurting each other.
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What I mean by that is I think as we age and as we go and as we live this life that Jesus is predicting here, we will be wounded, we will be hurt, we will be betrayed to such a degree that it would not be unreasonable to walk away from church.
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You're going to be tempted to, you're going to feel like it, and you're going to even have, I would say, justifiable cause to walk away, except that Christ says don't walk away.
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It's the only reason to stay. Jesus says many will fall away and betray one another. This is not, by the way, some future again, some future end times reality.
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I think it will be ramped up in the end, but this is a reality of our present day and age. And by the way, the words you see occurred three times, one in verse 10, one in verse 11, one in verse 12.
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The word many there in Greek means large scale. It's like a high percentage. That's the way you could translate the word many in those three verses.
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A high percentage will walk away. I believe that this will only increase over time, but it's real now.
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There are people who come to church, but are not truly connected to Jesus. They are not born again.
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And Jesus predicts that many of those will fall away. And they won't just fall away and walk out the door, but in the process of walking out the door, they will betray the church and hate one another.
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There will be animosity between the church and those who walked away, and they will try to stir things up and break things down on their way out the door.
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Now, to clarify, it might be good to rehearse what Jesus taught about this, because some of you are going, wait a minute, you're asking me to think about whether or not
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I'm all in or not. And that is a legitimate application to this. To contemplate and consider, are you sitting here taking up a seat, or are you in the end connected legitimately?
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Are you born again? Are you connected to Christ? Now, there's plenty of room here for people to come in and just check things out and figure it out.
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We're all on a journey of growing in faith, and that means some of you have crossed a line with Jesus and asked Him to be your Lord and King and your
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Savior, and you're walking with Him in that way. Some of you are here, and you're trying to figure things out, and you're welcome here.
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I'm not asking you to leave because you're not connected. But the question has to come down to, am I connected?
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The problem comes down to when a person says, I'm connected, and you're really not. Clarify this.
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It might be good to rehearse what Jesus taught about it, though. He told a story. He told a parable. How many of you like the stories of Jesus?
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Do you enjoy the parables and the places where He kind of tells a little bit of a story? He talks about the Word of God being like a seed sown by a preacher, or like a farmer just casting seed out, and the seed lands on different types of soils, and the
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Word falls on some and starts to take root. But then, it's crowded out by weeds, or it's scorched by the afternoon sun, or it's plucked up by birds.
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And I think that's the picture of what we have here. People who never really were in with Christ from the beginning.
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They've heard the Word, they kind of liked it, and they never got past that. They didn't really embrace it.
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They didn't live it. They didn't walk with God. Some will look to start off strong in the Word, only to fall away because they have more concerns for the world, more concerns for comfort, more concerns for ease.
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How many of you can picture a falling away increasing as the temperature of culture and society increases?
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Do you get what I'm saying? As it begins to cost you something to come to church on Sunday morning, as it begins to cost you something to testify of your
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Lord in public, as it costs you something to identify yourself with Christ, how many of you can picture some falling away happening in that context?
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And that's exactly what I think Jesus is talking about. In other words, to some degree, the ones that are on the margins will walk, they'll fall away.
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That's not really worth it anymore. I'm not getting any social clout or any social benefit from being a Christian anymore,
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I'm out. That's the picture of this walking away. And not only that, but in that walking away, there's increased animosity toward the church.
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By the way, for this to happen, think about it logically, for this to happen, especially in the future for any large -scale walking away, apostasy is the big word for it, for that to happen, it would require churches full of people who are not all in with Christ.
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Can you imagine a context where there would be churches filled with people who are not really all that into Jesus?
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I think we can picture it in our minds, right? I would suggest that the church in America, just in general, is ripe for that type of apostasy, that type of falling away.
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A mass falling away that is made possible if we go to church because of the kick in worship, or the comfort of the seats, or because the donuts and coffee are good.
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If those are the reasons that we're attending a church, then golly, we ought to take a little bit of a look inside our own hearts.
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By the way, the counter to this is a ... I want to caution you against this application.
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You're not supposed to be looking around the room going, I don't think she's in, I don't think he's in, I bet he's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
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That's not the goal. The goal isn't to enter the fellowship and the church without love and a pure skepticism towards others and going, they're going to fall away, so I'm not going to get close to them.
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They're going to betray me if I get too close. No, we're called to a robust community of love with one another.
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That opens us up to abuse. That's why it happens so often in the church, to be honest. I mean, it opens our hearts to being betrayed and all of that, and that's what love is.
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At the end of the day, I mean, love is always a risk. It's always a putting your neck out. The other person has the sword, right?
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They can chop it off. I mean, that's what it looks like to love. We're not called to skepticism like that.
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He says, expect there to be hatred and betrayal from those who once walked among you.
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Jesus predicted that it would happen. Many will fall away, and I believe that there is indeed a large -scale apostasy, a large -scale falling away in the future, but I also believe it's routine reality in the
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Christian life in the here and now. Don't be surprised. It hurts, and those of you who have experienced it in this room, you know what
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I mean, but the fact that Jesus tells his followers to expect it should give us some comfort at least.
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Doesn't take him by surprise. Expect this apostasy, a falling away. Expect betrayal, but remember who is uttering these words.
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The one who himself was betrayed by one of his best friends, by one of his inner circle.
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He is not calling us and predicting anything over us that he himself did not experience on our behalf.
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He was betrayed by a close friend, a close confidant, the one who was trusted with the money purse.
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Trusted like that. He knows this is part of life in a fallen world, and he says, this ought to be an expectation.
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The third thing here, again, still dark. Anybody? Anybody just feeling the weight of this? It's still here.
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It's still here, yes. Ben's like, I'm feeling it. Gotcha. Expect false teachers. Now, Jesus mentioned this in our passage last week, so much so that within just five verses, he's quoting himself again, and we've got to take note of that.
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He repeats himself here. This is such a major theme in the New Testament that we ought to sit up and take notice when we see it.
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It's a major, it's not a minor theme in the New Testament. False teaching is a major, big picture caution to his church.
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Every single one of the four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all talk about false teachers.
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Peter, in both of his letters, talks about false teachers. John, in his gospel, his three letters, and then also in the book of Revelation, talks about false teachers.
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Jude, this little book, talks about false teachers. All mention false teachers, and Paul, Paul throughout most of his letters talks about false teachers, so that the vast majority of the writing of the
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New Testament cautions. If you were to just grab a random book out of the New Testament and read it, you would hear something in it, likely, read something in it about false teaching.
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Caution against it. It's striking how much it's talked about in the New Testament. It seems as though we ought to be especially prepared to deal with what?
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False teaching. It's mentioned everywhere. Church, think about that as a calling on your life to be cautious, to be thoughtful, to be discerning.
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We ought to be a people of strong minds and strong doctrine. Strong convictions based on the
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Word of God. We need to be those who know what we believe and be able to cite our source.
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Where does our belief come from? The Word. We are called to a robust ministry of our minds.
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To a person. How are you going to avoid false teaching if you're not in this
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Word? Many false prophets, he says, will arise and lead people away on a large scale.
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Not a small scale, a large scale. High percentage. Again, this is a current reality,
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I believe. We live in a fulfillment of this every day. Expect to be bombarded with false religious messages.
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How many of you would just guess that you heard something false on the religious front in the last week?
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I think probably most of us did, and some of you, you don't raise your hand and you probably did, you just don't, might not even be aware of it.
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I think all of us hear it all the time. So study the truth to counter all the false teaching that is coming at you week in and week out.
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And I want to just suggest this to you here at the end of the third point, moving into the fourth. We probably rarely start out our day consciously thinking, boy,
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I need to be prepared for persecution today, or I need to be prepared for betrayal in wolves in sheep's clothing today, or I need to be prepared for false teachings today.
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How many of you, that's the start of your day, that's the first thought on your mind is I need to just be equipped for all of these difficulties that are coming at me?
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No, that's probably not the way you start your day. But let me just suggest this to you. You are preparing if you wake up in the morning and talk to God in prayer and keep that conversation alive throughout the day.
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You are preparing for the difficulties that are going to come at you if you start out in His Word and continue meditating on His Word throughout the day.
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In other words, if you're talking to Him and you're listening to Him, you're connecting to the right source. And that's going to be protecting you from all of the other things.
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By the way, the word meditation is kind of like a word that implies, especially the Old Testament word, is like chewing the cud, only you're not rolling it over and over in your mouth all day.
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You're rolling it over in your mind all day. We need that kind of life. We need a life that is grabbing the word, maybe through a quiet time, read it for 10 or 15 minutes in the morning, let something stand out to you, highlight that, write it down, carry it in your pocket, read it throughout the day or something like that.
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That can be a powerful transforming thing in your life if you're working through His Word day by day.
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We are preparing ourselves to stick with Him and to stick with the truth, whatever the day brings. And that means when we start our day talking with Him, we continue throughout the day talking with Him.
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We start our day hearing from Him and we continue hearing from Him throughout the day. The fourth point, the fourth expectation is expect increased lawlessness and lovelessness.
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Again, difficulty but something that we see increasing in our culture. Now the word lawlessness needs a little bit of definition because it immediately probably in our mind turns towards criminal activity, but it's not, the increase in lawlessness is not narrowly defined as criminal activity.
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It's not merely like as if Jesus is saying here, hey, expect more burglaries and violence. Though those things will be a byproduct of lawlessness, lawlessness is more of a major overarching theme of a life.
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Lawlessness, think of it this way, lawlessness is unhitching a person from God. An unhitching of the person from the constraints of doing things
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His way. Unhitching yourself from the authority of a God who has the right to tell you how to live your life.
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How many of you see some lawlessness in our culture? Is it increasing? I think it is.
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A lawless one in this sense is a person who sees no obligation to God and therefore has a hard time explaining why in the world they would have any obligation to others.
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Why would I live in any, where do ethics come from? Where does a moral life come from? It comes from a relationship with God and an understanding of what
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He desires of us. If you don't understand what He desires of us, how many of you know that it's not a far shot from going,
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I don't even know why I shouldn't rob a bank. I don't know why I shouldn't take something from someone that's weaker than me.
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Why I shouldn't eat your fries and your burger. Do you know what I'm saying? Why shouldn't I just take from you if I'm stronger and bigger?
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And that's a reality of lawlessness. All of the laws that are Godward and all of the laws that are toward mankind appear optional to the lawless one.
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We see this run in cycles, by the way, throughout human history. It's not something that's unique to our time and our era.
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We see all kinds of history. If you're a student of history, you know that there have been seasons and times and cultures and nations of lawlessness.
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We see it in the Old Testament. But here He says that lawlessness will be increased as time goes on.
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As those cycles, those cycles will ramp up towards an ultimate type of lawlessness. And we see it right before our eyes.
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A person without God has no moral foundation and further has no grounds, by the way, lawlessness connected to love, has no grounds for love.
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The very basis of our obedience, the very basis of our, of law in the
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Godward sense is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
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Why obey? Because you love God. And what does that love look like or what does that obedience look like?
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Love your neighbor as yourself, the very foundation. This sums up, said Jesus, this sums up all the law and the prophets.
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Love God with your everything and love your neighbor as yourself. Done. That's the law. And without, with lawlessness comes lovelessness.
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The love that grows cold in verse 12 is not defined like the kind of emotional ooey -gooey feeling that we have.
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There's no expectation that you love God in some ooey -gooey kind of way or that you love others in some kind of emotional, like, abandon.
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As a matter of fact, how many of you know, and you probably, those of you especially that are married know, that the best act of love is when you don't feel like it?
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Like at the end of the day, that's what love is made of. Love is made of not feeling like doing the good for the other and doing it anyways.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? Like, I mean, certainly we want our spouse to love us in some kind of romantic, you know, kind of giving of themselves kind of way, but at the end of the day, a true love is a love that goes beyond that.
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That can't sustain anything in any long -term way. We need a love that continues to do what is right regardless of our feelings.
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It is a dedicated commitment to the welfare of the other as a part of the obedience to the way that God desires
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His followers to live. It is an understanding of what He wants of us. So without a law based on love toward God and love for our fellow man, we can expect all kinds of upheaval in our society.
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Now here's the thing. Here's the trick with these four things that I've talked about. Don't read
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Jesus writing to America. Is He writing to America here?
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In 2 ,000 years of history, is He talking about this nation that has just existed for 200 years?
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Is that who He's writing to? At this point, maybe your mind draws too many parallels to things you see in our country right now.
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And although this is the context, of course our minds are going to go there because this is where we live and so we are drawing attention to our here and now.
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But you can begin to think that Jesus said this primarily to address the political and social climate in America in 2021.
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How many of you read it? It looks like He could have written that to us. Do you see what I'm saying? Expect animosity, expect there to be difficulty, expect there to be lawlessness.
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Anybody with me? You're giving me some blank stares right now. I just really want some feedback. Does it seem like He could have written this to America?
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Absolutely. But He didn't. He said this to His disciples in Palestine 2 ,000 years ago or nearly 2 ,000 years ago.
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None of what we have experienced here in America is unique. It's not unique.
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None of this is written to give us a take back our country kind of message. Hear me carefully, church.
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That is not what God is going on about here. As a matter of fact, I would suggest to you that He has a much more glorious, much bigger and deeper and more profound mission for His church than take back your country for God.
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God forbid that we walk away with chintzy and trivial and these shallow thoughts about what
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God is calling us to do, church. Far, far, far from that.
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Before we dig too deeply into that, let me give you a caveat real quick. Verse 13. In case you're going through some personal discouragement over these four things that He said,
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He graciously attempts and drives to calm our fears by saying that there is a salvation in all of this.
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It looks dire. It looks difficult. It looks like, man, how in the world are we going to make it through this? But He says, those who endure to the end will be saved after many being put to death in verse 9, and many falling away and betraying
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His church in verse 10, and many being led astray by false teachers in verse 11, and many growing cold in their love in verse 12.
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What hope do we have? How do I imagine that I'm not in that number of the many who will fall away?
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And Jesus says, those who endure to the end will be saved. How many of you want to know, am I going to endure to the end? How many of you want to be numbered among those who endure to the end?
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Five of us. Great. I don't know what that means for the rest of you. You just hate it when I ask you to raise your hand, don't you?
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You're getting tired of that. I need to get one of those cranks. Just practice. Practice with me, everybody.
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You want to be among those who endure to the end. I think all of us, all of us do. And Jesus says, only those who endure to the end will be saved.
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So go into your tomorrow, He's telling us, be armed with these expectations and then hold fast to Jesus, and here it is, even as Jesus holds fast to you.
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Saving faith is a faith that does indeed hold us to the end. If you're saved, you will endure to the end.
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How do I know, church, I'm talking to myself here, how do I know that I will still be in the faith tomorrow, or in a month, or even more importantly, in my final breath?
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How do I know I'll still be in with Christ? And I know it, and I know it with confidence, because I am confident that He who began a good work in me will carry it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus.
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That's Philippians 1 .6. That's my hope. My hope is in Him who holds me.
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Beware of any other answer. How do you know you will still be with Christ in the end?
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Will it be because you attended church? Because you watched out for false teaching, you had a good eye for that kind of thing?
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Because you followed the law with love? The only right answer is that my trust in Jesus Christ alone will carry me to that final day.
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That's it. And that's enough. And here in verse 15, or verse 14, we get the final and most important expectation.
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The glorious, we finally get a reprieve, church, we get a little bit of light. Expect gospel success.
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Expect gospel success. Expect His message to be spread through us. Verse 14 serves as the only point of light in this text, and it's with intention.
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It's the only place that hope can be found. It's the only mission that He leaves to His church. In the face of all of these unsavory expectations, we might expect
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Him to conclude with some other marching orders. He's just given us a dark and dire expectation for the future.
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So what would it look like? What would it be maybe if we were just looking at our culture around us, or what the internet is telling us, or what others are saying to us?
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What would we expect Jesus to advise His church at this point? Here's these bad things.
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Here's four bad things. Is it our mission to counteract those four things? Fight off those who deliver you up to persecution and death.
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Arm yourself and then kick the nations in the teeth and take back your country. Is that what Jesus says here?
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Is that what He says? No. No. Or make sure your church is betrayal -proof by demanding uniformity in all things internally.
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Or restrict the flow of information to weed out false teaching. Is that what He says? Or form a foundation for ethics and morality to bring back love and law to your country.
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Make a more moral America. Is that our mission? Is our mission to make this country more moral?
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To make them obey better? What is our good news, church?
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That's not the message that He gives. Look at the simplicity of the hope for us in these tough times, in these tough days.
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The good news that Jesus Christ is King and Savior will be proclaimed throughout the whole world.
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Mission accomplished. As a testimony to all nations. And that will be a prerequisite to the return of the
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King. To a small band of followers, this was the mission He gave them. And He says here,
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He says to these 12, you will succeed against all odds despite the uphill climb.
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This thing is going global. Despite all the opposition, despite the martyrdom, despite the betrayals, despite the false teachers trying to kill the truth, despite the increase in lawlessness and lovelessness, despite the daily, monthly, weekly, and annual setbacks, the gospel will continue to spread.
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Glory. What is Jesus holding out as our greatest and most fundamental mission, church?
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Proclaim the gospel. Proclaim the gospel. That is our mission.
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That is our task. That is the only tool that He has given us to kick back against the darkness, is the light of the glory of forgiveness and salvation in His Son.
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Full stop. That's the hope. We all have platforms for our voices to be heard.
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And I want you to answer this question. I'm going to give you just a pause to think this through. I know my time's basically almost up here, but I want you to listen.
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I want you to think for just a second. What are people hearing from you? If you had to summarize your life in one central message, what are you messaging?
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Because you are. Your life is communicating. Your life is speaking. What is the central message of your life to your world right now?
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Think about it. Answer it. What is the message that people who observe and hear your life walk away thinking?
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Is it political opinions? Or is it a proposed solution to the problems of morality around you?
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Hey, I think we should just have more of this or less of this or more education or those kinds of solutions?
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Proposed or decrying even just, maybe it's just a negative voice of crying about the lack of law and love that you see around you.
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Or maybe it's just puppy pictures or kittens, I don't know which one it is for you.
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What's your primary messaging? Jesus doesn't hold out hope for us to stem the tide of these expectations, not at all.
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He doesn't say, church, get busy fixing it. He says, get busy sharing the gospel.
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To be honest, he doesn't even hold that out as a goal for his church that we would fix these things. He doesn't say, bring back law and love, fight opposing authorities or put down false prophets.
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He says, proclaim the gospel. Whether you find yourself on the bow or the stern of the
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Titanic, proclaim the gospel. And none of this should be a downer to anyone who is all in with Christ.
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If you read these first four, they begin to fade into the background in light of this glorious fifth expectation, the success of his mission that he began in those 12 standing there listening to him on that day, that we still have the privilege of carrying forward today.
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The gospel will, and I would say, in my own opinion, has been spread to the nations.
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I believe that Jesus could come back at any time and has nothing more that he needs done when we continue to share the gospel with those around us and we continue to share the gospel with the nations.
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There are still tribes out there that haven't heard, but I think that by and large, the globe has been blanketed with the good news.
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There are places that are still in darkness and there's no question about that. But all the darkness of the first four expectations fade into the glorious light of his successfully expanding kingdom.
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So think about it. Who can take this weak and feeble gathering of these 12, this weak and feeble gathering of us and bring about a powerful global saving work from people like them, people like us, and it's only the one who died and was buried and rose again victorious over sin and death.
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That King, that Lord, that Savior that we remember every week as we take communion together,
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Jesus Christ is the one who leads us through the tough battle to this last minute victory.
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So let's come to communion to remember this good news. He paid the punishment for our sins, that our sins deserved, so that anyone who trusts him by faith can be set free from the punishment that we deserve for our sins.
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And I don't think I make this very clear every week, and I really should make it more clear, but only take communion together this morning if you have asked
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Jesus Christ to save you from the consequences of your sins and you've asked him to be your King. If you've asked him to forgive you and you've asked him to lead you and you take him as your master and your
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Lord, the one who calls the shots in your life, then feel free to join in communion during this next song. Let's go out from here with an adjusted expectation.
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Life is not going to be easy. Did you see that in the text? Do you think I'm exaggerating? This is what he has declared for us.
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It's not going to be easy, but the call on all of us is to be a people of the gospel this week.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that brings us into this huge global thing that you're doing.
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It is the very cause of the persecution and the difficulty, but it's also the cause of the great mission and purpose that we all experience in our lives.
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Father, thank you for the blood of Jesus Christ shed for us. Thank you for his body broken in our place, him taking on himself the punishment that we deserve so that we can be set free.
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Father, I pray that you would place all of our hopes in the future kingdom and the right expectations in the present, that things are going to be difficult, they're going to be hard, and you walk with us through the trials.
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Just like the angel in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you walk through it with us, and that is the place of our hope.
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I pray that you would make us a gospel people, boldly proclaiming the truth with the hope that many will believe because we testified of your goodness, in Jesus' name, amen.