Matthew 24:15-28 His Glorious Appearing

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I'm Don Felsick. I'm the lead pastor here. And would anybody believe me if I told you that that was originally five minutes long and we cut it down to three.

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And so we're glad for your effort to show up and just so that you know, uh, what, what you've joined here is an effort to grow in faith.

Growing community, growing service. That's what we're all about here, here at recast. That's how we define maturity.

Uh, despite some of the immature things that we do, um, we define maturity in the church primarily as a process, not a line that you cross.

As if there's a point in your journey where you go now I'm mature. Mature is defined as a commitment to a continual growth lifelong.

It doesn't matter how old you are, how long you've been with Christ. You always have new room to take on more faith, more community and more service.

And so, um, it's a commitment on our parts to keep trusting God more and more by hearing and believing his word, both by coming together on Sunday morning, but also as a commitment to his word throughout the week.

And that's what we mean by growing in faith, believing his word enough to live it out. It's a commitment to growing in deeper relationships with each other in the church that's growing in community.

And it's a commitment to increasing in service to one another, um, and, uh, also outside in the community at large as well.

And that's what we mean by growing in service. And so, we are, um, we're doing this, uh, as a people who are motivated by, uh, love for our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the one who motivates us. He's the model. He's the example. And he's the one who has redeemed us.

And we've been going through the gospel of Matthew to really see the life of Jesus over the past year. And we're in the final week of the life of Jesus when we come to the text that we're going to be reading this morning.

And we're smack dab in the middle of a section of scripture that's, um, it's called the Olivet Discourse. It's a section of scripture that stretches from Matthew 24 through 25, um, where Jesus is talking primarily about end times.

Now, I didn't pick this because of the, the things that we see going on in our culture around us or anything like that.

Not that I, that I thought, oh, wow, end time stuff. Um, it's just where we're at in the book. And yet,

I think it's really cool how God brings things that are relevant to our time just as we need it.

How many of you have noticed that in your life? Like, he just gives you a word that you need at the time that you need it. This morning, we're going to be taking only three verses, um, but they have a dramatic announcement coming from Jesus Christ.

And I'm, I'm saying all this to set up the reading of God's word. But I think many of us know that the book of Revelation at the end of the

Bible talks about end times. And some of us are maybe even aware that Paul talks about end times.

In various books, including, uh, his letter to the Thessalonians. Um, but even fewer probably would, uh, put the

Old Testament prophet Daniel in the mix in talking about end times. And some of the other prophets have some allusions to end times as well.

But here in our text, what I want to point out that we're about to read is Jesus Christ himself speaking about his return.

Here we have Jesus in the flesh speaking with his twelve disciples about an epic, cataclysmic, apocalyptic return.

And, and what I want to point out is that as we read this, if you put yourself in the shoes of those that were there standing, uh, he seems to boost himself up and sees himself as a pretty significant person in human history.

When you think about what he says is true about his return. You see, Jesus knew his mission.

He knew his role as the son of God and as the son of man. Uh, he was the one who is the only mediator between God and man.

He is both God the son, who is able to put a hand on God as a mediator. And the son of man, who is born of humanity, able to put a hand on humanity as well.

The one who stands in the gap between God and man. And I'm going to read the text, um, uh, before I explain it and we really walk through it as a sermon.

But I want to, I want the force of it to fall on you as we dissect it. I want you to try to place yourself in the shoes of these disciples who didn't know everything about the rest of scripture.

And listen to the place as I read it that Jesus gives himself in global history. So, if you have a

Bible, open it to Matthew 24, verses 29 through 31. If you have a device, uh, and an app, you can navigate over in that to the

Bible as well. Again, Matthew 24, verses 29 through 31. Not a huge chunk of scripture, but recast a privilege that we have to be able to read it and take it on together.

So, here it is, Matthew 24, verses 29 through 31. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened.

And the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from heaven. And the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Then will appear in heaven the sign of the son of man. And then all the tribes of the earth will mourn.

And they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call.

And they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for a word that reminds us of the return of your son.

A word that is, you know, mildly mysterious to us in terms of what that day will be like.

And what really is the future. And it creates a lot of questions and a lot of concerns. And maybe even some fear in some people's minds as we are unsettled or unsure about the future.

But Father, I know that you desire for us to receive calm. And to receive joy. And to receive gladness.

And to walk in and lean into faith as a result of taking in this word. To trust you as good.

And to trust you with our future. And so Father, I pray that you would open our eyes to the meaning of this text.

More than just some future map of how things will go in the end. But a force in our lives now.

That these things would motivate us. The things that we study and the things that we look at today would motivate us for the remainder of this day.

And the remainder of this coming week. And our months and our years. And that we would be impacted by the truth that we take in even this morning.

That things would change slowly but surely as we take in your word and we grow in faith. That you would give us faith and trust and hope.

And love and joy. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. So get comfortable and keep your

Bibles open. Your app open to Matthew 24 verses 29 through 31. And remember there's coffee and juice and donuts.

If anybody missed out on those, those are available back there. If you need more coffee at all or anything. Restrooms are out the double doors down the hallway on the left hand side.

If you didn't find those on your way in and need those at any time. In our text last week,

Jesus spoke of the days being cut short for the sake of the elect. And I want to go back to that statement for just a moment to help set the stage for what he's talking about here.

Now it's possible that that statement. That the days will be cut short for the sake of the elect.

Is a veiled reference to the rapture of the church. In the book of 1 Thessalonians, the

Apostle Paul wrote there under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That there was a time coming when

Jesus would return for his people. And that we, anyone remaining here on this earth alive in Christ would be caught up in the air to meet with Jesus and his people.

And thus they would be with him forever, says the Apostle Paul. So some think that this may be what he means by this mercy here.

A cutting short of the days for the sake of the elect. A taking them out of the situation. I'm one of them. I lean towards that.

I believe that what we're reading here comes after that rapture. And that he's already given us a veiled reference to it earlier.

So that what we're reading about here in our text comes after that rapture. That rapture being the cutting short of the days for the sake of the elect.

And so when Jesus used the phrase those days in verse 29, it needs some explanation.

What days is he talking about? Well, I believe that those days are the cycles of disaster. The cycles of wars.

The cycles of betrayals and false teachers that are the routine of human history that he talked about in the first, really the first 20 or so verses of this passage.

He predicted that the days we live in while we await his return would be like, and he likened them to contractions of a woman in labor.

And he did so for a few reasons. A woman who's in labor doesn't know how many contractions she has.

She doesn't know how long they're going to go. She doesn't know on which one the final birth, the baby's going to arrive.

And that's how he answered the question of his disciples, when is this going to happen? They're wanting a date.

How many of you know when they ask, how many of you would like to know the day and time that Jesus will return? Anybody with me on that? You'd like to know that, right?

And so when's this all end? When does it all get rolled up? And they're asking that kind of question. He's like, there's going to be cycles, just settle into it.

There's going to be cycles of cataclysm. There are going to be cycles of difficulty. In other words, what he's getting at in this answer, they say when, he says,

I'm more about the journey. I'm more about the process here. And there's going to be a process and you will be tempted.

He's speaking to his disciples. And the reason he's talking about these cycles and these contractions is he's saying you're going to be tempted every time there's a cataclysm, every time in history that there's a pandemic, every time that there's a huge war or battles, every hardship for the church.

And you're going to be tempted to see that as the end. You're going to be tempted to see that as the end every time.

And I have had conversations. I mentioned this in a sermon a few weeks ago. I'm sitting at the coffee shop. A person that doesn't even attend our church walked up to me.

They knew that I was the pastor of this church and I've interacted with them just briefly here and there. They walk up to me, grab a chair.

I was outside. This was last summer. And I was outside at the coffee shop here in town.

They walked up and they said, so is this the end? Any of you thought that, to be honest? Any of you thought that, like, in the last year?

I mean, with just all the stuff going on, it's like, is this the end? And it's a logical question that runs over our minds.

And he's answering that. He's saying, expect this kind of thing. Expect years like 2020.

2020, by the way, is not the lowest year in human history. I just want to clarify. We did a whole bubonic plague thing back in the

Middle Ages. Study history a little bit to understand how these cycles roll. Things are cyclical, very, very cyclical.

And these things, says Jesus, wars, catastrophes, earthquakes, hurricanes, genocides, all kinds of both human and non -human evils and pains and cataclysms and all of that stuff, these are just the beginning, he says, of the labor pains.

This is the beginning. Yeah, it's the beginning of the end. We live in the end times. End times defines that era of the cycles of contractions.

We're in it. We just don't know how long they go. You get it? We're here.

And when these days of cycles are over, he says now, here in our text, immediately after those cycles are over, when the cycles of contractions finally give way to the end, the cycles of tribulation will begin to finally wrap up.

When that happens, there will be major cosmic shifts, he says. Things like the sun being darkened, the moon being darkened, the stars falling from heaven, according to verse 29.

Huge, earth -shaking, cosmic -shaking kind of events, which I would categorize as, according to Scripture, according to other passages.

You don't see it directly mentioned here, but I see that as seven years of great tribulation, where there's a ramping up of those contractions.

One glance at the book of Revelation and all of the mysterious imagery that you find there, and one thing stands out clearly in the midst of all that's unclear in the book of Revelation, the end of time will not be the same as routine history.

It will not be merely contractions. Now, I think it will be some contractions, but I think it's more like transition in labor, like that really super -intense time that's coming from active transition to pushing.

It will be a time of upheaval like the world has never seen. Now, I don't want to get too lost in the weeds in trying to interpret these things, these figures of speech, literally or whatever.

Many theories have been put forward about verse 29, about the sun darkening and the stars falling in from the sky and all of that.

Everything from volcanic activity that chokes out the sky to nuclear holocaust has been posited, to the sun going through.

I was a bit of an astronomy geek in high school, and I took a college class at Cornerstone. I love astronomy, not astrology.

Those are two different things. But I love astronomy, and it's actually one of my favorite classes in college.

But some people have posited that it's just our star going through its end sequence, going through its life cycle and diminishing towards a white dwarf or something like that.

And so they posited all kinds of possibilities there. But I believe that this is a reference to some literal events of the end times that Jesus is referencing in verse 29.

But it's worth noting that the Old Testament prophets, this is kind of figurative usage of this type of language, the

Old Testament prophets in their day and age spoke also using terminology, like when

Babylon fell, for example. Some of the prophets talked about Babylon's fall in terms of the sky darkening, the sun and the moon darkening and the stars falling from the sky.

So they used that language for figures of speech for cataclysmic life events. So it's very possible that this is a figure of speech.

I kind of hold out some literal understanding and some possibility for it to be some literal things that are happening, like the sky being dark or something like that.

By the way, to make it too literal, we know that there's figures of speech in here, mainly because anybody who's studied anything about science knows what a, if you know what a star is, how many of you would say,

I know a little bit, at least enough to know that a star can't fall to this planet. A star could consume this planet, but stars aren't going to fall here.

So we know that there's figures of speech here in this, and it's likely it's possible meteorites or something like that.

There's other possible explanations. But at the end of verse 29, Jesus mentioned something that at least I can state with some confidence about what he's talking about.

The word powers that is used there is used consistently as a metaphor for one primary thing.

The word powers as used in Scripture throughout the Old and New Testament is a word for angelic hosts.

And the word powers is used primarily when there's a desire to not differentiate between good and bad.

So it doesn't differentiate between good angels and fallen angels, but instead is taking in the totality of the angelic hosts.

And this end, Jesus says, at my return, it's not going to be a mere rattling of humanity.

It's not going to be a mere shaking up of the nations. It's not going to be a mere shaking of the earth, but it is going to be even a rattling of the heavens and even the angels and heaven will be brought to attention at my return.

All things will turn and face the sun when he returns. S -O -N, son.

Jesus is making a huge claim for his return. Think about, really try to put yourself in the shoes of those disciples standing there in Palestine 2 ,000 years ago on a hill, the

Mount of Olives just to the east of Jerusalem, standing there as their teacher sits and teaches them.

This obscure man in this obscure corner of the world, and he is saying that at his return, he says,

I'm going to come back. You're going to see me leave. They did not fully understand what that meant. How many of you know that was a big deal? They're going to see him leave, and he's got to leave to return, and they don't fully understand that, but he says, when

I return, the cosmic order both on earth and in heaven will be shaken.

How many of you think that this guy's either A, completely and utterly insane and full of himself, or he's right, or he's right?

Those are the two options that we have in front of us. Either this guy was off his rocker and we're wasting our time this morning, or he was right, and at his return, everything will pay attention to him.

Think that through. Significant and amazing claim for himself. All will be brought to attention at the final glorious appearing of Jesus Christ.

Now, don't forget that the disciples asked Jesus back in verse 3, what will be the sign of your return?

They're looking for signs. Could you give us some things that point to how are we going to know that these cycles are ending?

How are we going to know it? Because he's already told them. He's telling them here that it's just going to be like routine life, right?

I mean, how many of you know that earthquakes are pretty routine? You know that hurricanes come, they come seasonally. Like we can actually predict like, oh, there's going to be hurricanes during this time of the year, right?

We have some understanding about the way that these things work, and you can watch the news and go, I think there's tension in the

Middle East again, and you can kind of get an idea there's going to be some attacks or something like that. You can wrap your mind around these things that come in cyclically.

So they're like, how are we going to know? Give us the definitive sign. And he gives them what I believe in verse 30.

You can check it out there. What I think is a mildly sarcastic response. Back in verse 30, they asked for a sign.

He's been talking. I mean, back in verse 3, they asked for a sign. Now he's been talking to them for 27 verses and finally gives them a sign.

And it's cheeky. It's ironic. It's funny. He's intentionally, I think, being sarcastic. He says, things are going to get dark and cataclysmic in those final days.

Still not giving them a sign. He's not even clearly indicating these stars falling in the sky are going to be signs or anything like that.

The only thing he uses a sign for is he says a sign will appear in heaven, and that sign is, the

Greek grammar bears itself up that this is the coming of the

Son of Man. What is the sign in the heavens? I believe that that sign is Jesus Christ coming on the clouds.

All will know it when they see him, he says. He mentioned last week, like lightning that flashes across the sky from east to west.

All can see it at the same time. He will arrive and his arrival will not be hidden. It will not be private.

Instead, it will be conspicuous and obvious. As a matter of fact, the sign of his arrival will be so utterly clear to all that the tribes of the earth will mourn in recognition of what that means for them.

But consider what Jesus is saying to any of us who would want to be able to figure out the signs of the times and pinpoint it.

Any of us that would be tempted to go, I think it's going to be this year, or I think it's going to be next year, I think it's going to be on this date or whatever.

Jesus says, you want to clear an obvious sign of the return of the Son of Man? You will know it beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's returning when you see him return.

That's how you're going to know it. You want a sign? Here's the sign. You'll see him in the clouds.

Amen? That's the sign. Boom. All else is complete and utter guesswork.

Now, he is going to indicate and does in other passages of Scripture indicate that we ought to be smart about the cycles.

He says we're not dumb. He says just like you can look at the clouds in the sky and kind of see in the morning, you know, red sky in the morning.

Sailor, take warning if you ever hear that and those kinds of warnings. He says you can look at the sky and kind of predict the weather and kind of see things coming.

So, he says for his people, there's no problem with you identifying and being interested in those cycles.

There's no problem in saying, man, it feels like it's kind of ramping up. There's something that's good about thinking it could be today.

There's something that's good about living that way. But the only foolproof sign that Jesus Christ gives to his return is that you're going to see him riding in on the clouds.

Now, interestingly, the fact that he uses riding on the clouds here, an Old Testament metaphor coming out of the book of Daniel, but one that was very well understood in Daniel's day and in Jesus' day as an ancient metaphor for divinity, locked down metaphor for divinity.

Only a God rides on the cloud chariot. All the religions of that area had this metaphor, had this idea, had this concept of God's riding on the clouds and his coming on the clouds of heaven.

And as he declares that for himself, it was an obvious way, obvious, obvious, obvious way for him to his disciples to declare himself as divine.

When he says, you will see the Son of Man riding on the clouds, everybody goes, whoa. They would have been like, no question what he's saying here.

I believe that this is speaking of his glorious appearing, by the way, and not the rapture of the church.

And the rapture of his church that we find in 1 Thessalonians, those who are alive and are with Christ at the time of his rapture will join with those who have died in the faith, and they will join together in the air to meet with Christ and be brought to heaven for a season,

I believe for seven years of greater and increasing cycles of God's wrath poured out on this planet.

But here we see an emphasis on him coming with power and great glory, and all will behold him at this final and ultimate return.

And the tribes of the earth will mourn, it says, when they see him, and I mentioned that before. And I want to just point out something about them mourning.

Why would they be mourning? Well, for these tribes or nations of the earth, they recognize that the end of their kingdom has come when they see

Christ return. For the one whose hope is in this life alone, the coming of Jesus can only mean the end of things that they valued most.

But for those who have faith and trust in Christ, his arrival can only mean that we will finally come into that which we have been longing for.

If your treasure is here on this earth, you stand to lose it all when he returns or when your number is called up.

But there is a way to live, storing up treasure in heaven, so that when he comes back, he will bring his reward with him.

And I love the timing of this statement, by the way. Yeah, this is all set, you know, we get into end times and we start thinking future, future, future, but I want you to take a moment and think back to when he sang.

What's the context where Jesus is stating this? He is two to three days tops from the cross.

Two to three days away from suffering the torture and hideous death for us.

But further, he is only two to three days away from shouldering our sins and facing the wrath and judgment of the eternal father on our behalf.

He will not merely suffer a physically excruciating death, and he knows as much, but he will take the wrath our sins deserved on himself.

Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 5 .21, for our sake, he, the father, made him,

Jesus, to be sin who knew no sin. He was perfect, he was sinless, but he made him to be sin, so that in him,

Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God, Jesus Christ, taking on our sin and being punished in our place so that we can be set free and be declared righteous by God Almighty.

And here, Jesus declares that he will return with power and great glory. Think about that in the context of him knowing what was before him.

Jesus knew what the future beyond the cross looked like. He knew what he had to go through to get there. He knew he would endure great shame, naked, stretched out on a cross.

He would endure great suffering. He would endure the wrath of the father, and he would do so out of love to save his people.

And all the while knowing that he would return in great power and great glory.

I spent some time, some good time, some, I think, valuable time in preparation for this sermon, staring at the clouds, looking out the window.

I wrote this message, I did some of the study for this message at Rixie's Restaurant, second floor, lots of windows.

Spent some time up there, literally, I don't know how long, gazing out the window. Thinking about it, for real,

I really did. I looked out the window there with my books open in front of me and tried to imagine a day like that day.

A day like today, beautiful sunshine, opportunity to see some blue sky if you look out the windows.

I encourage you to take that on today. Maybe even spend some time just gazing at the sky today, thinking, could it be today?

Well, the truth is, when you take an exercise like that, how many of you know you've got some busyness in your life? You've got some things that press in on you.

You've got some people that depend on you. You've got some relationships. You've got some stuff you've got to get done. In the middle of all that, how many of you actually think, for just a moment, just being honest, that the return of Christ seems at least mildly mythical, at least mildly detached from my day to day?

It seems, on some level, absurd, and yet, on all levels,

I believe it to be true. On all levels, I believe it will happen.

You see, the reason is much more than that just, I look at the sky and I say, well, that makes sense. I look up at the sky and I'm like,

I could picture a human form in the sky coming down in bright light, with trumpets.

No, that's not it at all. How many of you think, to look up in the sky and go, oh, I expect that to happen, seems a bit absurd.

Are you guys tracking with me? I'm getting some blank stares. You're like, well, where's this going, Don? Are you giving up your faith or something?

It does. It seems a bit mythical. It seems a bit absurd, but here's the thing. Jesus makes sense of the world

I see. He makes sense of the world I live in. In Him, I find my brokenness healed.

In Him, I find the rift between myself and God reconciled. In Him, I find true and honest and real nobility.

In Him, I find real and true hope for justice. In Him, I find a reason to keep breathing.

In Him, I find the puzzle piece without which I cannot make sense of the things around me, and I believe

He will return. I believe that when He returns at the rapture, it will be for those who are

His, and I believe that that could happen at any time. I believe that could be today. But the return in this section of Matthew 24 is a return with power and glory.

It will be for all. It will be a return that will result in judgments against the Antichrist. Judgments against the false prophet.

Judgments against those who follow them. And it will also result in an obscure and strange thing, the chaining and imprisoning of Satan for 1 ,000 years as revealed in Revelation 20.

If that's mysterious to you, that's confusing, go and read Revelation 20, and it's pretty clear that there's going to be 1 ,000 years of the binding of Satan.

And there are many opinions and thoughts about how the end of time will roll out, but here we are loosely committed to teaching what is called pre -tribulational, pre -millennialism, a couple of really long words that are a view about when

Jesus will return and how that all falls out. Any of you read the Left Behind series? Anybody familiar with that?

That's kind of where we land loosely on that. But we hold it loosely, so loosely, as a matter of fact, that you can be a member here, and you only must believe that Jesus is returning.

You don't have to have everything hammered out and look just like us in terms of the way that the end is going to roll out together.

You just have to be confident that Jesus is coming back. You can be a member here with that. All the details of that return are fun to discuss but are not worth fighting over, not worth dividing over.

If you have more questions or interest in discussing end times, after talking with Spencer a lot about it this week,

I think he'd be just as confident and fun to talk with as me. I would love for you to set up a meeting with us if you want to talk more and have more discussions about this.

There's no way that I can fit everything, even a series of messages, about end times.

I'm not sure they're necessarily valuable. I want to go through the text that's in front of us. I don't want to get off into all these rabbit trails.

If you want to rabbit trail it up, we can get some coffee or come to my office and we can talk, or you can text me and we can interact that way.

But in verse 31, Jesus who, just see what he's claiming for himself here.

Jesus who talks about his angels, he declares himself to be in charge of the angels and he says,

I'm going to send out my angels when I return with a loud trumpet call and they will collect all of his chosen people from heaven and earth.

In other words, all who have proven themselves chosen by God through faith in his son will be gathered together at the start of this earthly kingdom that he sets up.

And there will be believers who come to faith in Jesus. This is kind of technical, but there'll be believers who come to faith in Jesus after the rapture.

So his church goes up to be with him. Some are left behind and there will be people who come to faith during that seven years of tribulation so that then he will have more on earth to collect when he comes back.

So here are some things for us to live out as a result of listening to and believing these three verses of scripture. What do we do about it?

The first is pretty obvious and it is just make sure that in your life,

Jesus is a big deal. Make sure that Jesus is a big deal. Now, I want to point out to you that generally speaking, spirituality is still in vogue.

It's good to have a fuzzy notion about spiritual things. Whatever works for you is good.

It's considered good in our culture as long as it's not too pushy to others. Do you know what I'm talking about? As long as it's accepting, as long as it's inclusive, it's all good.

Yoga, centering prayer, getting your worship on in your car, all good stuff. But this text calls us all to pause and to pay closer attention.

If what Jesus says is true here, then he is the center of it all.

It's not, I mean, you can talk about God in public just fine. Mention Jesus and you're going to get censored.

You know what I'm talking about? Somebody is going to take issue when you start talking in your workplace about Jesus. Talk about God, that's all right.

Keep it general, but when you start getting down to the specifics of it all revolving around Jesus, you see when he returns, the sun, the stars, and the moon respond.

The angels are shaken and paused from their ceaseless activity to behold these events.

And so, where is Jesus in your life? Where is he in your life?

Where is he in your day? Where is he today in relationship to you? What part will he play in your

Monday through Saturday this week? Or is Jesus kind of more of a Sunday morning hobby?

Think it through. Jesus is a big deal.

Second, be ready. Be ready. One day we will wake up for the last time.

I'll let that sink in. One day we will wake up for the last time under the kingdoms of this world.

How many of you are glad for that? There's a day when you will wake up and sometime during that day something's going to shift.

Now, it may well be, you know, in a more grim note, it may well be death that takes us, right?

We all know that. But it also may be that we are the generation who sees his return. How many of you like the idea of that?

I think every generation is like, maybe it's us. Maybe it's us. That's a good thought. Maybe it's us. But now the question, and I don't want to ask this.

I know there's a way of asking this that's manipulative. There's a way of asking this that's melodramatic. I'm not shooting for manipulation.

I'm not shooting for melodrama. But it's a question that I think is valuable. If you knew he was coming back tomorrow, what would you need to do today?

What would you wish you had done today? I say it to remind us all that we have work to do for him as long as we have breath.

What gospel conversation have you been putting off thinking that, well, there's going to come a more convenient time to share the gospel with that person?

Who have you been harboring a grudge against thinking, maybe someday I'll forgive them? What is the good that you know you should do but have been putting off till tomorrow?

What is procrastination holding you back from today? The doctrine of Christ's return reminds us we have a limited time.

Did you know that? We have a limited time. I suggest action today, not procrastination for tomorrow.

There are good things that God has for you to do today.

Be ready. The third one's kind of funny. The way I'm wording it, I crack myself up.

But be elect, be elect. Do I have a choice on that?

No, I'm telling you, be elect. I intentionally worded this last application in a funny way to get us to think.

How do I know if I'm elect? How do I know if I'm chosen by God? How many of you have ever wrestled with that thought?

How do I know if I'm chosen? I would give it a simple answer. You are elect if you have come to see

Jesus as glorious above all else. You believe He died on the cross for you and you have asked Him to save you and to be your master.

If that defines you, then the word elect also defines you. He chose you to be one who would choose

Him. Melts my mind, melts my brain. But if that's true of you, then you are elect.

And if that is you, and you love Jesus, and you've asked Him to save you, and you want to honor

Him as your Lord and King, you don't do so perfectly, but you value that and you want Him to take the reins of your life.

And when you stray, you give Him back the reins again and say, I'm sorry and repent and turn from your own ways and give

Him the control once again. If that's you, then I encourage you to rejoice.

Maybe some of you are here and as you think about the role of Jesus in your life, you recognize that you have not asked

Him to save you. You don't recognize His authority in your life. You haven't asked Him to be your King.

And if there's anything, anything, anything, even a shred of pull in your heart toward Jesus, let me encourage you to skip communion this morning, but come and speak with me at the end of the service.

I'll be standing out by the doors. You could talk to Spencer. You can talk to Dave who was up front. You can talk to the elder on duty in the back.

We would love to talk with you about how you can start a new life of forgiveness and hope and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

And during this next song, those of you who love Jesus and have been loved by Jesus through His cross, that I encourage you to take the cracker to remember

His body that was broken for us and take the juice to remember His blood that was shed for you. And we're going to do so like we normally have, sitting in our seats, but just an announcement real quick.

Starting next week, we're going to begin to have tables set up in the back so that during our communion time, you can get up and go back to a table and grab a pre -wrapped cup and cracker.

You can take some action. I think there's something that's valuable about that to get up and head back there and again, just engage and be involved more largely with the body of Christ.

Communion will still be available at the front door for anyone who doesn't want to get up and stand in a line and go to the table. We recognize that some people might just still feel uncomfortable with that, so there'll still be some out there that you can grab on your way in if you choose to do so.

But as we wrap up this service, let's rejoice together that we follow a King who is returning.

Who is returning for his people. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

I thank you that he did not only go to the cross and die in our place, facing your wrath in the place that we deserved.

We deserved your wrath. He took it on himself, and we celebrate that through the Lord's Supper, through the cracker, and through the juice that represents his body and his blood.

But I thank you that he raised again to new life three days later. That he is now sitting at your right hand, where he's awaiting the command to go.

Return. Go collect your people. Father, I pray that you would ignite our imaginations with hope and gladness for that day.

That even as we don't understand all the nuances, we don't all understand all the technicalities, and we're not confident that we've got everything 100 % right on this, that we do believe fully that you're sending your

Son back for us. So help us to live in these waiting times, in these times of cycles, these times of contractions, these times of difficulty.

And I get some sense that we've lived a lot of our lives in the gap between contractions.

But Father, I pray that you would help us to be faithful to the things that you desire of us. That we would not be those who procrastinate and put off till tomorrow the good that you have for us to accomplish today.

We woke up, and every one of us who is breathing your air, woke up breathing your air for the purpose of serving you and doing good.

The good that you desire of us. The good that you can do through us because your

Son died for us. Father, I pray that you would help us to walk in you with joy and gladness this week.