Not Knowing is Half the Battle

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

Church Vision for Faith, Community, and Service

Good morning and welcome everybody. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and it is a great privilege for us to gather together and worship together. Here at Recast Church, we're committed to growing in three primary areas, and I like to kind of get that up in front of us regularly.

We want to be growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service, and that plays itself out really in a plan of simplicity. What we want to do is we want to provide an opportunity for you to grow in faith through our Sunday morning gatherings, taking in God's word, trusting it, believing it, and then going out from this place and living it.

We also provide a way to grow in community through regularly scheduled community groups. Now, that's been something that has, I would say, the second one, the second area of growth. How many of you have felt a little stunted in your growth regarding community in the last year?

So, we're really hoping to kind of pick back up as, obviously, people are getting vaccinated and things are moving forward, and we're hoping that in the fall we're able to pick back up with community groups.

We have some that are going and some that have continued to go, but really looking forward to kind of launching out into the fall with significant movement in the community group area. And so, we also provide opportunities for people to grow in service by using their gifts to serve the church and the community outside of these four walls as well.

And so, our belief is that everybody that's sitting here, if you're calling this your home church, then you have something to offer, then you have some talent, gift, skill, ability that ties in with our church in a way that God desires to use you for the furtherance of his kingdom here among us.

So, it's a pretty simple model that comes out of a core value of simplicity. You can see the core values up there above the donuts in the back on that sign. We don't have a ton of programming in part because we want everyone to have time to engage in your community around you.

We want you to be able to be engaged with your neighbors, with the other families that your kids play sports with, things like that. And one thing that I found as a pastor of another church, an associate pastor before, I found that every night of the week I could be tied up with things.

We lived in a house for a long time and could not find a time to have our next door neighbors over for a barbecue because we were busy at church all the time. And so, our goal as a church is to not have that kind of busyness so that you can, not so that you can binge watch more Netflix, it's your time.

You can choose to do what you want with it, but we're intentionally trying to give you more free time so that you can engage more directly in your community around you. Now, how many of you already knew that this was Palm Sunday?

This is Palm Sunday. Those of you that kind of follow the traditional calendar know about the waving of palm fronds and stuff. We're not doing that here. We're not doing that here. We really haven't done that in 12 years.

Maybe we should at some point, but we're not doing that this morning. One of the things that we are doing, however, that's kind of cool, is we're actually going to be looking at a text that occurs during Holy Week.

Jesus’ Return in the Context of Holy Week

So it just happens to be where we're at in the book of Matthew, but we're going to continue on. And I just want to point out that the words that we're reading this morning from Jesus, the words that we're studying, come at a point where it comes between that Palm Sunday entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem and his crucifixion.

So he spoke a lot about end times in his last week. He spoke a lot about his second coming right before he departed. So we know that he departed in the ascension. He was killed and crucified on the cross.

He was buried. He rose again on the third day, which we celebrate on Easter. And then a few weeks later, he ascended into heaven. In this text, and throughout this text, we've been talking about the words of Jesus regarding his coming.

And this is a word that is given to us for growth in our faith. And I recognize that we've been spending a lot of time talking about end times in the past few weeks. And we're going to have a few more messages on end times before we get to the end of Matthew chapter 25.

But I want to be clear that we're only spending as much time on this as Jesus did. He took the time to speak at length in this section of scripture about his return. And so it's good that we take time to listen to him.

I think it's refreshing coming out of this last year to be reminded of the things that matter most. The reality that one day the sky will split open and he will return for his people. His words are spoken to help us grow in our faith in the here and now.

And interestingly, the focus of this week is a little unique. It's a little different. It's a call to value something that we do not know. It's really rare that the point of my message is found in what we do not know.

But Jesus here is intentionally highlighting a gap in our knowledge. And just like a black hole, which is nothing, exerts a strong gravity on everything around it, the one thing we do not know about the end creates a rotation drawing all of us who belong to Christ to revolve around this one unknown fact that we're talking about here in this text.

In other words, the absence of this information changes and transforms the way that we live in the here and now. The fact that we don't know this piece of information changes the things we are supposed to do and causes us to live in a certain way.

So in this case, I'm saying the title of the sermon is not knowing is half the battle. So open your Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew chapter 24, verses 36 through 44. Again, Matthew 24, 36 through 44.

The Unknown Day and Hour of Christ’s Return

Grab your device and navigate in an app over there if you've got a paper copy of the Bible. And let's listen to Jesus explain to us what we cannot and will not figure out. Recast God's holy and precious word, a word for our building up of our faith.

But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark.

And they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away. So will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field, one will be taken and the other one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill, and one will be taken and one will be left.

Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.

Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Let's pray. Father, I ask that you would be present with us in this place and in this time where we have an opportunity to reflect on your holy and precious word.

I pray that you would speak through me with accuracy that the things that I say would be true of your word and of your intentions in saying these things. I pray that you would allow there to be a clear communication, that you would remove those things that would distract us from the things that your spirit wants to say to us.

And that in this clear communication, it would be a communication that goes out beyond this hour or so that we spend together this morning, but that at the end of the day, it would move us and it would become a part of us and it would transform us from the inside out.

And then, Father, I pray that you would speak through me with zeal, with a passion that is consistent with the content here. These are the very words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. They are worthy of our attention.

They are worthy of our passion. They are worthy of our focus. And so, Father, I pray that you would press these things deep into our hearts during the remainder of our time here together this morning.

I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I encourage you to keep your Bibles open, your device open, to Matthew 24, 36 through 44. And as I say every week, if you need to get up and get more coffee, juice, or donuts, take advantage of those.

If even just for your own comfort, you need to get up and stretch out in the back or whatever, you're not going to distract me. So, do what you need to do to keep your focus on God's Word during the remainder of our time together.

Why No One Can Know the Day or Hour

There's a question that I think all of us naturally is the first question that we want to ask regarding the return of Christ. Can anybody, really a one-word question, can anybody say it? When? You guys all had it already.

When? We want to know when, right? And I think there's all kinds of motivations for why we might want to know when. I think we are both naturally curious, right? How many of you would just say you're pretty naturally curious?

You kind of want to know how things work. You kind of want to know you're naturally curious. And how many of you would just raise your hand and say, yeah, and I'm also naturally self-centered? Trick, right?

But I think that's all of us. I think to a person in the room, we're naturally self-centered and we're naturally curious. And those two things combine to create a question that when we ask the question when, it kind of amounts to when am I going to need to give an account for my life?

How much more time do I have to mess things up before they're going to get fixed? Do you know what I'm saying? Or even how much more time do I have just in general? How many of you would like to know that?

How much time do I have left here? Or maybe even the more tame motivation for asking the question when may be, am I going to have to die or will I be raptured? How many of you have wondered that? Like you would just kind of like the latter rather than the former.

I wouldn't mind it if he just came back for me and I got to go up and be with him and that was it, right? No heart attack, no car accident, none of that business. It would just be, I'm there. But Jesus just dives right in here at the start of verse 36.

Do you see it? Speaking about the day and the hour of his return, quite specific time stamps there. I don't think that you can get down to, you know, just try to modify that so that it's straight up. No one knows the day or the hour but you might know the week or you might know the month or something like that.

No, no. I think that would be the way that our hearts would want to go with it but no, he's getting, he's saying you're not going to know when. You're not going to figure this out. No one knows the day and the hour.

He is so emphatic that he even exposes a mystery that kind of boggles our mind here in the course of verse 36. This is such an extremely exclusive piece of information that not even the angels know the day and the hour.

Now the thing that I was thinking about this week that makes that kind of significant is just the fact that the angels are extremely involved in the book of Revelation. They're extremely involved in the end.

They're the ones blowing the trumpets when Jesus returns. They're the ones gathering the people from the four corners. He hasn't even let them know. They're going to have to take a break from whatever they're doing and time's time now guys.

Get busy. Blow the trumpet. Like now. Okay. Blow the trumpet. Do you get what I'm saying? Not even the angels know he says here in the text but then what he says next is even more shocking than that. Further he says not even the son knows.

Something that Jesus doesn't know. The only thing that we are told that Jesus doesn't know but only the father knows. He says it both directions. The son doesn't know but the father does. Okay. Is anybody in agreement with me that you would at least read verse 36 and walk away thinking that Jesus emphatically is declaring that you're not going to figure this one out?

Anybody ready to just kind of make that the conclusion of verse 36? I hope you all are. I hope you're not holding out not even a shred of hope that you're going to figure this one out. How in the world can a Christian pastor with this in their Bible propose to know the date is a mystery to me?

He's emphatically over the top saying stop the concern and the questioning of the when. It's not going to get in your brain. You're not going to figure this one out. Jot down a mental note on this passage.

That whenever a person proposes that they know the date of the return of Christ they are not merely a curiosity. They are not merely a kook or kind of a strange pastor or something like that. They prove themselves to be a false teacher.

Disagreeing with Christ himself. Even further proclaiming that they know more than Christ himself. Do you see it? To say that you know the day and the hour is to elevate yourself above the son of God.

That's a pretty significant place to put yourself. Would you agree with me? It really is kind of blasphemous at the end of the day, is it not? They are not merely a curiosity, but they are dangerous. Either due to their ignorance of scripture, they don't know that this passage is in here and I'd hold that out as a possibility.

But they're still dangerous, even though they don't know. They're basically saying, I don't know all of scripture. Maybe that's the best that can be said of them is that they're ignorant of scripture or they are intentionally malicious.

They know this passage exists and they just want to deceive people for some other gain. Some see a theological conundrum in verse 36. I can understand it needs to be explained. How can the son not know something that the father knows?

I would suggest to you that this doesn't interfere with the doctrine of the trinity, but instead agrees with the doctrine of the trinity. The doctrine of the trinity as understood from scripture is that God is both one and three.

I admit this to be a divine mystery. Not one that I'm going to explain to you up front and you're going to go, oh, Don, that makes sense to me. But one that is expressed in scripture, I believe, abundantly.

I told you guys a while back about my journey in college about trying to figure out is the son really God and kind of wrestling with that in a previous message, and I'm not going to go back into that, but came to the strong, strong, strong conclusion from scripture that Jesus indeed did declare himself to be equal with God.

God is one in essence. God is one in purpose. He is one in power and eternality and holiness, but he is also three in persons, father, son, and Holy Spirit. Not three gods, but one God eternally present as three persons.

It's mind-bending stuff. But this passage indicates that the father and the son and the Holy Spirit are not completely one in knowledge on just this one point, on just this one thing that we see revealed directly from scripture.

There is something that the father has kept from the son. The son does not know the day and the hour of his return. He's awaiting the father's declaration. Go and inherit your kingdom. And I would suggest that since the doctrine of the Trinity is already fraught with mind-bending mystery, anybody's mind get bent thinking about three in one?

Add this one thing that the son doesn't know to the category of that mystery. It fits in there. Now, I don't wrestle much with the doctrine of the Trinity like I did when I was younger. I'm settled on a God that I cannot fully comprehend.

As a matter of fact, I have grown to appreciate and to understand that I will not wrap my mind fully around God. And if I can fully understand him, then he's no longer God. If I can wrap my mind all the way around God and understand every edge and every nuance and every way that he exists, then I'm not talking about God anymore.

I'm talking about some idol that I've lifted up in my mind and my imagination. I will not fully grasp him. But hopefully the words of Jesus here are sufficient because he's got another intention. It's not all about the doctrine of the Trinity.

That's not the purpose of the passage or anything like that. The purpose of Jesus here is to knock us off the trail of trying or even attempting to figure out the timing of his return. This is his primary purpose in this text.

To declare to us what we will not know. To declare to us what is that gap in our knowledge. And I want to remind you again that this is a passage about his glorious return at the end of time. It's important to understand this is not a passage about the rapture of the church.

I say that because the imagery of this entire text is a return for judgment. In 1 Thessalonians, it's made clear through the Apostle Paul that there's a return of Christ that is not unto judgment. A passage that is not primarily about judgment but is about a return in the clouds for his people where we will rise in the air to be with him and then will ensue a seven year time of great tribulation on the planet.

And so that's the indication from 1 Thessalonians and that's not a declaration of coming in judgment. This you can see is all about judgment. That's a final return at the end of that seven year period where Christ will return on the white horse to make war against the nations.

It will be a quick war according to the book of Revelation. It's not going to take long. It's going to be just and it's over. But a final retribution, final judgment. So everything in this text is geared towards judgment.

He speaks about the flood in Noah's time. You see it in the text. He speaks of a thief coming in the night. By the way, we sing that song but that's not a great thing. How many of you want a thief to come in the night?

Anybody signing up for that? Like that's a judgment thing. So everything in this text indicates that final ultimate coming for judgment. In verses 37 and 39, 37, 38 and 39, Jesus uses the days of Noah as a metaphor for his return.

Noah, the Flood, and Everyday Life Before Judgment

And the main linkage between the days of Noah and the days of his return is the fact that people will be doing normal everyday things when he comes back. You think about that? A day just like today. Now, I'm going to mix our metaphors a little bit because what we're waiting for is a return that's going to come like that but it's the rapture.

We're waiting for that. How many of you are longing for that? You're looking forward to that day. Again, there's another judgment that's going to come during the great tribulation and people are still, according to this, they're not going to be expecting it.

Jesus says that in the days leading up to the flood, people were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage. Marrying and giving in marriage, the male side of that, marrying somebody, the giving in marriage, the female part of that.

And right up to the moment that Noah entered the ark, people were just living normal lives. It's a funny side note and I think just kind of worth a side mention that the word Jesus uses for eating in this text kind of demonstrates some kind of a barbaric sense that he had during those times because he uses a very rare Greek word that ought to be translated stuffing your face or something like that.

It's not the everyday word for eating. Matthew uses the everyday word in Greek for eating and this is one that's kind of like voracious, like ravenous, like Viking meal or something like that. Stuffing your face is what's going on here.

He says people are going to be stuffing their faces and celebrating and having banquets and getting married and everything's going to be like normal life and then boom, he returns for judgment. In verse 39, he links the illustration directly.

They were unaware, doing their thing. Noah went into the ark. The rain started and the rains didn't stop until every single human on the face of the planet minus those in the ark were drowned. And he says this is the way that the final coming of Jesus, his final coming will be like that.

People won't be aware. And I want to point out to you that Scripture of the Old Testament declares that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. He was a voice crying out an important message that was ignored.

Is it possible that we would be a generation like that? We could be ignored, but God forbid that it's not for a lack of voice that people don't believe. I hope we're proclaiming the message at least. We don't proclaim the message only for results, church.

Ours is not a calling to figure out whether they're going to believe before and I'm not going to waste the message on them because they're probably not going to believe anyways. Ours is a proclamation of just sowing seed everywhere we go.

Just keep casting the seed out and see what kind of soil it falls on. That's our calling. We proclaim the message in order to be faithful to our Lord. That's the calling on us. But when Christ returns, he says they will be unaware.

I don't think that that equates with unwarned, unaware. And I think disbelieving is the reason for their lack of awareness. I hope that they will have heard, but just not believed it. Now this return will be set in the backdrop of the Great Tribulation and having lived through a pandemic for the last 12 months, I hope you've gained a bit of perspective on what it's like to live during global upheaval.

It's kind of strange. I still took my garbage to the curb every week. You guys with me on that? Did you guys do some pretty normal stuff in the last year? Raise your hand if you did some normal stuff this last year.

I mean, it was just routine stuff. It was still there. I actually did still perform weddings. I did still stuff my face with food. Anybody with me on that? Did anybody gain your, what are you going to call it, the Corona 15 or the COVID 15 or something?

Anybody get that? I did, and then I tried to lose it again. I think I'm working on it still, getting rid of it. Yeah, a little too much food during the height of the pandemic there. So a few years ago, I found this text more uncredible, I guess incredible sounds like a strange word, but uncredible than I do today, a little bit of a hard time wrapping my mind around this.

A few years ago, I would have asked, how in the world could people be taken off guard by the return of Christ after all of the global catastrophes of the Great Tribulation? How in the world could they be like, oh, I didn't see that coming.

It seems like people would be tipped off by God shaking the planet by the kinds of things that Scripture says are going to happen in the end times, and Jesus here predicts that his return will surprise people, and they will be unaware just like they were in the days of Noah, and the flood came and swept them all away.

Can you imagine how that could happen a little bit better now having lived through a year of pandemic? How people could still just be stunned and shocked that global things are happening and Jesus returns.

Note that the imagery in verse 39, by the way, put this in perspective because I want to set the stage for this a little bit because there's a significant misunderstanding about verses 40 through 41. So in verse 39, away is a bad thing.

Going away is a bad thing. And now people in verses 40 through 41 want to interpret going away as a good thing. And I don't think Jesus intends for us to shift our understanding. Look at what verse 39 says.

And they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. But then verse 40, then two men will be in a field and one will be taken, implied taken away, and one left.

Two women will be grinding at the millstone, and one will be taken and one will be left. Swept away is a bad thing in the flood, right? Anybody with me on that? Swept away is a bad thing. So let me play a trick question on you for a minute.

I'm tipping my hand. I'm telling you it's going to be a trick question. So now we'll see how many of you can answer it rightly. Look at verses 40 and 41. Think about the two men in the field. Or think about the two women in the room.

You've got your illustration. Men, you're out there plowing with each other in the field. Women are at the grindstone grinding some flour to make some bread. Which one do you want to be? Do you want to be the one taken, or do you want to be the one that is left?

Let's go ahead and get that in your mind. Now how many of you want to be taken? Raise your hand if you want to be among those that are taken. Okay, raise your hand if you want to be among those that are left.

Okay, it was a trick question. I told you it was a trick question. It was a double super mega trick question, because you don't want to be either. None of you want to be either of these. Yeah, those of you that didn't raise your hand, you're like, yeah, finally rewarded for my laziness.

Yeah, you know. The context of this passage indicates that the one taken is taken for judgment. Despite a common mistake in the interpretation, this passage is not about the rapture. Only one of four commentaries that I read this week even entertained the possible interpretation that being taken is a good thing.

One out of four scholars who study these things, and even just a cursory reading about the context. You didn't want to be taken in the flood. You don't want to be taken from the millstone. You don't want to be taken from the field.

Taken is a often potentially pejorative derogatory term in this context. Taken in the context of judgment is not a good thing. I read this week even, I read some that entertained the idea that this was about the rapture, but it's just the context of this passage is overwhelming about Christ coming back for judgment.

And the reason you don't want to be the one left, now you're going, well, then I want to be the one left. Well, the reason I would suggest to you that you don't want to be the one left is that that means that you've just endured the great tribulation.

This is talking about his final return at the end of seven years of terrible history of this planet and him shaking, God shaking the very earth itself. And that means that you've survived to see the glorious return of Christ.

That's awesome, but that also means that you weren't a believer at the rapture. You don't want to be in that place. That means that you weren't taken with him when he came back for his church and instead stayed for seven years of tragedy on this planet until his final and ultimate return for judgment.

Are you getting what I'm saying? Do you see why you don't want to be in either one of those camps? You want to be in heaven while these things are occurring. You want to be returning with Jesus at this return to enter into his millennial kingdom.

I find it interesting and just the way that God works out things that Spencer was teaching on Wednesday nights on eschatology and times just this past Wednesday and he covered kind of some of the potential timelines for these kinds of things and that's just a shout out for the RBI classes.

I mean, an opportunity to dig a little bit deeper into these kinds of things and those classes are going to continue to be offered as we roll those out and so just encourage you to do that and then this morning, I think he was covering the book of Revelation in his New Testament class, the last class on that and so again, you get an opportunity.

Is it ironic? I think God orchestrates all things but that some of us here were studying the book of Revelation and studying eschatology just this past week and then here we are kind of digging into the nuances of some of these ideas about how the end is going to roll out.

Stay Awake and Be Ready for the Son of Man

Now, you don't want to be out in the field at this time in history. You don't want to be at the millstone at the end of the great tribulation and I recognize that what I said here could produce some more questions and answers in some of your minds and Spencer and I do love to talk theology.

We spend some time every week talking about the text, talking about the Bible, talking about his class, talking about different things and we would love to talk with you. If you have questions about the end times, encourage you to study, to know what you believe about that.

Would also encourage you as much as possible to hold those things loosely. Be strongly convinced. Dig deep into scripture. To be strongly convinced of what you believe but also hold it loosely saying, God, it's likely I got some of this wrong.

He's going to fix it in the end. And so the command that Jesus gives in light of this lack of knowledge is found in verse 42 here. He says, here's the command for us, church. This is the instruction this week.

Stay awake. Stay awake. Now it's not that Jesus is against a literal good night's sleep. How many of you appreciate a good night's sleep? Like I mean when you can get one, that's a great thing. But since we do not know the date or the time of his return, the very lack of that understanding means that we are meant to live in a way that is constantly awake and alive to his spirit.

Now this is not a way of living that drops everything and just does spiritual things. As a matter of fact, the Thessalonian church is being corrected to some degree for that in Paul's letter. They are dropping stuff left and right.

Don't show up to work tomorrow because Jesus is coming back. Like that kind of stuff. Don't work, don't store stuff in your barns because Jesus is coming back. Just pull out a blanket and sit on the rooftop and wait and watch the sky.

Not at all. Or really just have a quiet time until he returns or something like that. And I think a good question to ask in all of this thought is are you living in a way that is mindful of the worship of God through your everyday life, through your everyday tasks?

A way to ask this is what do you want to be doing when Jesus returns? I've heard that like a club when I was a kid. Do you know what I'm talking about? Make sure you're not doing that when he returns.

Make sure you're not doing this. You don't want to be caught doing this. Whatever. And there was almost kind of like a shame and embarrassment kind of factor. And even that could filter down into simple things.

Like I wouldn't want to be playing baseball when he returns. What a waste of time. Right? That'd be shameful. I want to be reading the Bible when he returns. Or I want to be sharing my faith. Or I want to be praying or whatever.

And you can imagine all the different kinds of answers. And that would be cool. But ask yourself this. Would it be so bad if you were teaching a room full of rugrats how to add and subtract when he returned?

No, that would be glorious. That would be great. If you see your God-given role as a teacher, as a ministry to him, then you're just only praising him as you teach those kids. That's a glorious thing.

Or what about driving a big brown truck to your next stop when you see a bright light in the sky that you have to pull over and gain your bearings as suddenly the reality settles on your heart that Jesus has returned for you?

Would that be a glorious thing? Oh, that would be awesome. Would it be to your shame that you were at work when he returned? Not at all. I want to be sure to state that I'm mixing the end times here a little bit because there are two events yet to come.

They are both going to be equally surprising but not equally unexpected. For as followers, we do not know the date of the rapture, but we live in constant anticipation of it. We won't be surprised when it happens because we're expecting it.

He will come in the clouds to bring us back to him in the blink of an eye. And then comes that seven years of great tribulation. And at the end of that seven years, Jesus will primarily return unexpected and with great shock to the watching world.

And he will come back to take in judgment all who have remained in opposition to him. And it will be like the flood, he says in this text. And then in verses 40 and 41, it will be like two people doing their daily work and one is taken and one is left.

And it will be like a thief coming in the night in verse 43. And again in verse 43, that's a negative example. His coming like a thief in the night is not about the rapture. It is about the final judgment.

And it will not be good for the homeowner. Think about it. He says it right in the text here. If you were given credible evidence that someone was going to break into your house and steal your stuff tonight at 2 .35 in the morning, what would you do?

What would you do if this guy was showing up? That guy right there, that smile, whoever he is. That's cheesy. That's fun. Thanks Hope. That's a good one. I mean, what would you do? If you knew that a robber was breaking into your house at a certain time, how many of you might do something different tonight?