The Future Work of Christ

The Present and Future Work of Christ in Salvation

Well, tonight is our last study in the subject of Christology, at least that's the goal, is to make tonight the last study. I'm real bad about having a plan and not finishing that plan, but I have three points to look at tonight.

That's a normal sermon, three points, so we'll try to stick to that as closely as we can. Again, while you guys are getting your notes and everything in line, I just want to remind you where we are. We've looked at Christology now for several months.

We've looked at Christ, that is the study of Christology, as part of our larger study of an overview of Christian theology and doctrine. Christology, of course, focuses on the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ.

Now, next week, our plan will be to begin pneumatology, which is the study of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. And so, if we finish tonight, Lord willing, that will be where we begin next week.

In our Christological overview, we have looked at the preexistence and eternality of Jesus Christ. Certainly, He preexisted, the birth in Bethlehem, and He is, in fact, eternal. We looked at Him as truly God and truly man.

We looked at the fact that He is impeccable, meaning that He not only did not sin, but because of His perfect nature, could not have sinned. And we discussed what that meant and the implications of that.

We looked at His earthly life and ministry. We looked at His offices when Brother Andy gave that lesson. And then we looked at the present ministry of Christ. And we said, what is, and see if you all remember, see how much I'm sticking in your minds, what is the focus of Christ in the world today?

George. The church. You're right. That's the answer. I was just looking for the church. The establishment of the church, which was established through His blood, the new covenant is established through His blood, and building His church.

He says, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. We've looked at in this part of this lesson, we've said, He forms His church, directs His church, nurtures His church, cleanses His church, and He gives gifts to His church.

We saw that when we looked at Christ building the church. Then last time we talked about Christ interceding for the church. Christ is currently assuring the security of our salvation. I want to mention my son, because he just smiled.

Most of you know that I just did a debate recently with Brother Rob. We debated the subject of the Sabbath. Well, I teach, on Friday mornings I teach a speech class to high schoolers. And they have to do debate as part of the speech class.

And so my son is debating one of the other students on the subject of, can a Christian lose his salvation? But the other boy wanted to take the no, Christian can't lose their salvation, which means in a debate you have to be able to take either side.

And so Cody is having to argue that Christians can lose their salvation, even though neither he or I believe it. So it's been fun for him to have to engage that subject from the other side, to try to see how someone would argue if they were to say that a person can lose their salvation.

What arguments would they use? What scriptures would they use? Why would they want to make such an argument and upon what basis? But I would say, as I said two weeks ago when we were here, I said I believe that salvation is secure primarily because the Bible talks about Christ's perfect sacrifice as one that I can't add to and I can't detract from.

Again, this is how I end up going off and not finishing my lesson. I'll get on this. Let me simply say Christ assures our salvation by His work. He saves to the uttermost those who draw nigh unto God through Him.

He also intercedes for us when our fellowship with God is broken by sin. The Bible says we, these things are written that we not sin, but if we do sin we have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is advocating for us.

And that's the blessing of having a constant mediator between us and God. Because since you have been a believer, have you sinned? Since you woke up this morning. And I shouldn't make it flippant. It's not funny, but it's true.

We all fail. And so we deal with those failures. And then last that we looked at in our last study was that Christ's intercession shuts the mouth of the devil. Revelation 12 .10 says the devil is the accuser of the brethren.

He is constantly accusing us before the Father and yet Christ's work shuts His mouth by simply, it's covered. It's covered in His blood and thus the accusations fall upon nothing. Because those accusations are against those who have been covered by the blood of Christ.

Christ Preparing a Place in the Father's House

So now today we're going to look at the future work of Christ. Three things that Christ is doing in the future. And we're going to look at because what we were looking at before was present. Now by saying that I have to say the first letter A under the future work of Christ is sort of a little bit of a, I don't want to say it's dishonest, but from my perspective we could say that's present work.

So I could have put it under the heading of present work. But I look at it as a present future work. He's doing something presently that we won't get to enjoy until the future. Yes sir, George. Yeah, the already and the not yet.

He's already doing the work, but it's for something that we're going to enjoy later. And so that's why I put it under the heading of the future work of Christ. And so I want to invite you to open your Bibles to one of my favorite passages.

John chapter 14, beginning at verse 1. Now if many of you have heard me preach funerals and I preach a lot of funerals for a few of the funeral homes in town. Anytime a person doesn't have a minister, a lot of times they'll call me to come in and preach.

A lot of those people are unbelievers. And so I have to think about what I want to preach to unbelievers. Well, normally I preach John 14, not because I'm preaching the dead person into heaven. I wouldn't do that because I don't know what the condition that I don't even know the person.

I'm not going to preach whether or not they're in heaven, but I am going to preach to the people how they can go to heaven because they're still alive. And what I usually say before the sermon is, uh, everything I've set up until now has been on behalf of the person.

But now I want to talk to you because that person is not the focus anymore. You are. And then we focus on the text. I normally say it's something to the effect of funerals aren't for the dead. They're for the living person who's dead.

Can't hear. Don't know. It's not for them. It's for you. And so because it's for you, I want to spend a few minutes talking to you. Right. That's that's the. And like I said, I do these several times a month while I get called away.

Did three last week. But one of them, thankfully, was for a believer. So Brother Irv got to hear this text in a much different way. I preached this at his graveside and was in a much different way when I preached for Brother Irv than for the other men that I did not know.

And so the text goes like this. Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my father's house, there are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself that where I am, you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going.

How can we know the way? Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. And no one comes to the father except through me. Now, in that passage, we have a few things to consider. First, we have the call to faith.

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. That's a call to faith. And in fact, I think what Jesus is saying there is because you believe in God, believe also in me. You understand what that would be?

Because it's obvious that they believe in God, especially a first century Jew would have been a God believer. But he's saying, if you believe in God, you should also believe in me. So it's a call to faith, not only faith in the God who created all things, but in the God who sent his son.

And the son is Jesus. So Jesus gives him a call to faith in God and in himself. And he gives them the reason for faith. The reason for faith. In my father's house, there are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

Thus the reason. Why do we believe? Well, we believe because he is. But what does the Bible also say? We believe because he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. We believe because we know there is a reason for our belief.

And that's because God is a one who wants us to believe. And he rewards that faith with his promises. Promises based on faith. And let me back up for a second. I don't want you to ever think heaven is something you earn.

Sometimes people hear the word reward and they think it's something you earn like a reward for turning in something. You get a reward or you win a prize. No, the reward is purchased through Christ. And we are given faith by God.

So it's all God. So I just want to make sure I'm very clear as to my language. I don't ever want it to seem as if heaven is something we earn. It's not something that we earn. And I'd just like to be clear on that.

But it is. We have a reason for faith. And that's that God has called us to faith and he's promised us something to believe in. And then finally, we have the road to faith, the road to faith. And again, I just say this is not my normal outline.

I'm sort of doing it on the fly here. But the road to faith or the way of faith, maybe the better thing would be the object. Jennifer and I talked about this last night. Every verb has an object. So it makes a verb what it is.

So you have an object of the verb. What what does faith have to have? Faith is something we do has to have an object. Right. Have to have to believe in something. People talk about have faith. You can't have faith if it's not in something.

Right. I sit down in a chair. I have faith. It's going to hold me up. I know that sounds silly, but if that's faith. Right. I once had a guy sitting in my office telling me he could not exercise faith because it was beyond his mental capacity to believe in anything.

And I said, you sat down in that chair, you exercise faith. Well, I checked it before I sat down. I said, you drove here. You believed your brakes would stop you. Well, I put those brakes on myself. I said, eventually I'm going to get to something that you can't smart aleck your way out of because that's all he was doing, being a smart.

We all have faith in objects and things. And most people have faith in wrong things, faith in their bank account, faith in all kinds of things. Jesus said, unless you come through me, he's the way, he's the road, he's the object of faith.

No other way. I am the way, the truth, the life. I'm not a and by the way, definite article matters because when the definite article is placed in front of a word, it differentiates it from all others and makes it the only one.

If I say, if I say, James, you're a man, right? That means you're one of many because I use the indefinite article a. But if I said, James, you're the man, that means you're the one I'm looking for. You're the only one.

And that's the one look at me. I'm teasing. I'm just messing. So the man versus a man. Jesus said, I am the way versus a way. The life versus a life, the only way, right? So he differentiates himself.

And he says, I am the way, the truth, the life. And then he adds the universal negative. No one comes to the Father except through me. Thereby placing himself as the universal negative. What's a universal negative?

Or not making himself universal negative, it's using the universal negative. What's universal negative? Well, if I say no one can ride a bicycle and I walk outside and I see a child riding a bicycle, then my statement is untrue because I made a statement about no one.

As soon as I see someone doing it, it proves me false. So if anyone has ever gone to the Father outside of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is a liar. Because he said no one comes to the Father except through me.

This is why he says in John 8, 58, or John 8, not 8, 58, but in John 8, he said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad. Abraham knew Christ was coming and had faith in him. Moses knew Christ was coming and had faith in him.

Nobody even prior to Christ has gone to the Father except through the Son. You understand that is the key. No man comes to the Father. No person comes to the Father. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So, that's the whole of this text and I had to mention that because I can't not. But the focus of tonight is, this is what Christ is currently doing. He said, I go to prepare a place for you and I then give you the way to get there.

The way to get there is through him. So we know the place and we know the way. The place is wherever he is because he's the one preparing it and the way is through faith in him. Believing in him, that's the way.

Now, what is this place like? People ask all the time, Pastor, not all the time, but it's a question I've had more than not. Pastor, do you know what heaven is like? And the answer is, no. I don't. I don't even think about it a lot.

Maybe I should think about it more. I really don't. Because I think most of what we think about heaven is very humanly, very worldly. We think of streets of gold. Of course, the Bible talks about that and so people start focusing on the gold and all that and then you think, well, wait a minute, if you're walking on it, it's probably not that important.

If streets are made of gold, then gold must not be that valuable, if that's what you're walking on, you know, kind of thing. And so it becomes where it seems to me like it's really difficult. The most important thing is God's there, right?

And there's no separation. In fact, that's what I want to show you. The next passage, and I don't happen to have this one memorized, so I've got to look it up. Revelation 21, 1 -4. This is the, and again, we have to remember when we're looking at Revelation, Revelation is written to us as apocalyptic literature.

Apocalyptic literature is written differently than narrative literature. It's not meant to be taken absolutely specifically literal, but it's meant to be understood as pictures. And so when we read it, we see this as a picture of what we're going to have.

But I think there are some things here we can take very literally and I'll show you what I mean. It says, the writer here says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more.

And people say, what does that mean? There's no water in heaven because there's no sea. No, again, this is where, again, understanding apocalyptic literature, the sea there represents for the Jewish person, for the Hebrew mind, the sea would have represented chaos.

The sea was dangerous. The sea represented that which was disorderly. And so in the new kingdom, there is no more chaos. There's no more disorder. There's no more of that fear of going out on the water and not coming back.

You understand? So that's referring to, I believe, what that refers to. I don't think it's talking specifically about no water in heaven because it talks about the glassy sea and other places. And so, you know, we have to consider what this is referring to.

It's also a sense in which the sea represents Gentiles, but I don't think it means there's no Gentiles in heaven because of course we know there are. So you have to, again, you have to consider and compare apocalyptic literature with other apocalyptic literature.

What's it mean? How's it represented? And so we see that. But it goes on to say, I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. What a blessing.

That's heaven. Verse three, that is heaven. God will be with them as their God. That's that's all we need. It really is. If for the believer, that's the fulfilling of the desires of their heart is to be with God.

Right. But he goes on, he said, he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying or pain anymore for the former things have passed away.

Now, I want to address this very quickly. It says that there's no more tears or it says it'll wipe away the tears. Death shall be no more and neither shall there be mourning, crying or pain. The writer of Revelation, John, is expressing to us the best way we would be able to understand a place where we don't suffer.

And remember, he's writing at a time where Christians were suffering. Earlier in the book, he talks about the martyrs who cried day and night for justice, having had having been beheaded for the testimony of Christ.

If we don't know when Revelation was written, some people believe 80, 70, prior to 87. Some people believe after that's a debate. And we could talk about that another time. But from 80, 64 on, you have persecution in the church.

80, 64, there was a fire that began in Rome, destroyed much of the city of Rome. It was started by Emperor Nero. At least that's what history seems to indicate. Nero started the fire as a way to sort of create a new Rome in his own image.

And whenever the populace responded to that by pointing fingers at him and hating him for doing so, his response was to blame it on the Christians. And in one of the statements from that time period said, if the Tiber flooded or if the Nile didn't flood, then it was Christians to the lions.

It was no matter what. If the Tiber flooded, then Rome would flood, and that was a problem. If the Nile didn't flood, then the crops weren't irrigated, and that was a problem. And basically, no matter what, whether it was good or whether it was bad, no matter, anytime something happened, Christians to the lions.

It was always just persecution. And so it began under Nero. Nero would literally sew people into sacks of meat and feed them to dogs. He would light them on fire in his garden, and it was his way of exciting himself and to enjoy the pain of Christians.

And so when you read this and you go back and you say there's no more suffering, there's no more mourning, there's no more crying, it kind of gives you a different idea there. Oftentimes, I think we associate this with death.

We read this at funerals and we think about the death of a loved one. And that's true. That can bring mourning and crying and suffering, but the picture that they're dealing with, the ones who are reading this initially, are suffering for the faith.

And now they are with God. And the tears that they cried here have been wiped away. The suffering that they've had here has been completed, and the culmination of their suffering has been met, and they are now with God.

It's overwhelming to think about the blessing that Christ has gone to prepare for us. And so that's what Christ is doing now. He's preparing a place for us. And so we lead to our next point. If He's preparing a place for us and it's a place of joy, Christ will return for His church.

Christ Will Return for His Church

We said He's preparing a place for His church. Now we'll say He will return for His church. Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Now many of you know this passage, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, beginning at verse 13.

And it says,. But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as others do who have no hope. This is often one that I'll read at a believer's funeral.

Because this is written to people who are concerned about people who have died in the faith. I don't want you to grieve as those who have no hope. That's Paul's admonition to grieving believers. And he goes on to say, verse 14,.

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

By the way, just stop right there. You understand, I hope, that asleep in that sense is a metaphor for death. Christians don't die. They fall asleep in Christ. That's an important little, just, you'll rarely see a place where it talks about believer's death.

It's believer's sleep. That's the point. It's not teaching psychopenicia, which is the idea of soul sleep. That's not what it's saying. But the point is, is that believers are not dead in the same sense that we think of dead as just going out of existence.

Our existence, we simply change addresses. That's the idea. We've just gone from one place to another. We have not just died. And so the idea of sleep here is used in that sense. It's not meant to confuse us, it's meant to give us hope.

Until he goes on to say, verse 16, For the Lord Himself, this is a beautiful passage, For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command and with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God.

And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.

So, this is a promise of what's going to happen at the end of the age. And what I've always found interesting when reading this, is it seems as if Paul in his writings believed it could have happened even in his time.

Because he talks about those of us who are alive. Almost as if he believed it could happen any time. And that goes along with the parables which talk about always having our lamps filled with oil and being prepared for the coming of the bridegroom, right?

Always ready for the coming of Christ. And that's what we look forward to. That's the next great event on God's calendar. Is that His Son will return. Now, there are differences of opinion as to how that return will happen.

There are those who believe that Christ will return and take the church away and then refocus His attention upon Israel for seven years. Whereby Israel will go through a tribulation period. People will come...

Israel will come to know its Savior, Jesus. And through that tribulation, there will come 144 ,000 from the 12 tribes of Israel who are converted. Who are then followed by a number that no man can count, that's in Revelation.

And then Christ will return to establish a millennial kingdom on the earth for a thousand years. That is called dispensational premillennialism. And that's one of the views of the end times. Is that the church is raptured out and that God focuses His attention on Israel.

And then God institutes, or Christ institutes with His second coming, a millennium. Or a thousand years where He will reign from the earth before the end. And that's a millennial view. One of the three millennial...

Well, one of the three primary millennial views. I don't want to say it's the only. There is also the view that Christ will return and establish a millennium. But it will not be preceded by a seven year tribulation.

That it will happen essentially at the end of the age. And that's called historic premillennialism. Historic premillennialism just doesn't believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. It may believe in a version of the tribulation period.

But they don't believe in the rapture prior to the tribulation. That's called historic premillennialism. And then you have amillennialism which believes that the church age represents the millennium. And that at the end of the age, all things will culminate at the same time.

And that this picture in 1 Corinthians 4 is all things happening together at once. And then the new heaven and the new earth come. And there is no thousand years between. And I will talk about this more when we get to eschatology.

I will flush these three systems out a little bit more. Because there's a third one called postmillennialism. And then there's something called preterism. Which is a totally different view because you have the historist position and the preterist position.

And all these words are not intended to make you go, Ooh, the pastor's talking crazy. I promise I'm not trying to talk crazy. It's just there's a lot in it that has to be considered. My perspective, I don't even want to mention because I don't want to create any confusion and say, Well, that's right because the pastor thinks that.

I just want to say this. No matter the position. No matter whether you're premill, postmill, amill, or ahamill. And that's pretty much what I am. When it happens, I'll say, Aha, they were right. I understand the different positions, why they take the different positions.

And I do have a position. I just don't want to get into it right now. But the point is, if aha is always safe, we don't really know until it happens for sure. Those who say they know absolutely, I think are going a little further than we're allowed to with the text.

But here's what everybody agrees on. And this is key because this is orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is this. Christ will return. Anyone who says Christ's not going to return. Now how he returns and when and the seven years and thousand years and all that, that's not the point.

Every orthodox creed and confession that's ever been penned have all agreed that Christ will return. The first major confession, the Nicene Creed, actually you can say the Apostles Creed. Which predates the Nicene Creed most likely.

States that Christ will return in glory. And there's no reason to doubt that. And so we have in 1 Thessalonians 4 the promise that he will return. The dead in Christ will rise first. Those who are alive will be caught up together with them.

And what will happen when they're caught up? Well, that's what we're going to look at now. 1 Corinthians 15, which since I'm preaching through 1 Corinthians, I get to deal with this a little bit more on Sunday morning.

In a couple of months when I get there, 1 Corinthians 15, verse 51, talks about what happens in that moment when Christ returns. Well, actually let's begin in verse 50. I tell you this brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

And by the way, let me stop right there. What that's saying is that you're not going to go to heaven the same way you are now. Now I do believe we'll have a body in heaven, but it'll be a redeemed body, the kind that Christ has.

It will not be a perishable body like we have currently. It will be redeemed, it will be glorified. Those whom he called, he justified. Those he justified, he glorified. That's what we have to look forward to.

But it goes on. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. See, this again sounds like Paul really felt like it could possibly happen in his time. We shall not all.

Now again, you could say, well, he's talking about whatever generation is alive, and certainly he was. But he says, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

Think about how much this connects to 1 Thessalonians 4 we just read. He's talking about sleeping, he's talking about changing, he's talking about the trumpet. All this is interconnected, right? For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable.

And we, those who are alive, shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my brothers, be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Amen. He's got this promise that when we hear that trumpet on the last day, imagine you were alive. You may be. This may be the last generation. It may not be. A lot of people thought that it was. A lot of people have really counted on that.

In fact, you might not realize this when we talk about church history. If you guys come to the church history course, you'll see this. In the last 200 years, there has been a rise in eschatological thinking.

Much more so than the first 1800 years of the church. Just this huge rise in the idea that this is where you give rise to the Adventist movement and things like that, because that's the idea of the return.

Advent means coming or arrival. And so this idea of this movement towards eschatology, dispensationalism rose in the mid -1800s, Adventism rose in the mid -1800s, all these movements which are focused on end times.

Who's to say there's not another thousand years? We don't know. But we know this. It will happen eventually. Whether we're here or whether we're not, if we're not here, we're going to rise first. And you say, well, why did the dead get to rise first?

Well, they got six foot further to go. No, that's not the reason. That's not the reason, but... Yeah, I got to get everything. We don't know why. But we know that that's what's happening. And so we see here this promise.

Christ is going to return for His church. Last one on this one, Titus 2. Titus 2, verses 11 to 14. Titus 2, verse 11. I'll give you a second to get there. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.

That's what this text calls, verse 13, our blessed hope is the appearing of our Lord Christ. He came once as a babe in a manger. He will return again as King of kings and Lord of lords. And He will take us to be with Himself.

Whether we are dead, and the text earlier in 1 Thessalonians says we come with Him, in the sense of our spirits, but then we are joined back to our bodies and we're renewed, or whether we're alive and He shouts from heaven, and the archangel blows His trumpet, and we are changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye.

That's what we have to look forward to. That's the blessing that we look forward to as believers, and that's what Christ will do. We said, what is Christ doing now? He's building His church. For what reason?

Because He's coming to get them. That's the focus. It's still the church, right? The focus is still the church. Last point. Christ is also returning, and I put also in your notes, I think, didn't I? No, I said no.

I put it in my notes, but not yours. I said He's returning for His church, and I said He's also returning to judge His adversaries. He's also returning to judge His adversaries. Turn to Jude. There's a book we don't go to often.

It's only half a page in your ESV Bible, but you go to Jude. I would say to go to chapter 1, but there is only one chapter. Go to verse 14. It says verses 15 and 16, but to understand the context, it's important.

Start at verse 14. Speaking of those who are false teachers, it says, It was about these that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way.

Ungodly, ungodly, ungodly, three times. And of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful passions. They are loudmouthed boasters showing favoritism to gain advantage.

These are the enemies of Christ. And when He returns, He's going to return to welcome His sheep and to punish the goats. He is going to return to take to Himself His own and to destroy His adversaries.