When I was in seminary, my hardest professor was Doctor
Peter Gentry. I took several classes from him
on Greek and Hebrew. He was the only professor I ever
feared. One of Doctor Gentry's favored
teaching techniques was to assign us a portion, whether of
Scripture or something else, in Greek or Hebrew, and we'd have
to prepare it before class, translate it, study it, look up
words we didn't understand, analyze it, and then come into
class prepared for him to call on anyone at any time at random.
To then have to read a few sentences of Greek or Hebrew out
loud, give your own translation, and then answer any question
Doctor Gentry asked you about anything in the sentences you
just read. Many students lived in mortal
fear of Doctor Gentry. One class I had with them, some
students dropped after the first week.
You never knew when you would be called on or what you would be
called to give an account for. So your only way to show up
prepared to class was to master that text, to study and study
and study until it got inside you, to try to ask yourself
every possible question Doctor Gentry could think to ask you
before he got a chance to ask you.
What was certain is that at some point you'd be called on, and
when you were, there would be no place to hide your ignorance.
You just be naked and exposed before everybody.
What was uncertain is when you'd get called on and what you'd
have to give an account for. Today we continue our series in
Mark's Gospel with the last part of chapter 13, verses 28 to 37.
If you don't have a Bible, you can raise your hand and someone
will bring you one. If you don't have a Bible, like
at all, please take it home, read it and come back and talk
to us about it. In our passage, we're
approaching the end of Jesus earthly life and he's speaking
to four of his disciples, Peter, James, John and Andrew.
In this long speech to four of his disciples, Jesus competently
tells them what the future holds both for them and for him.
Jerusalem will be conquered and the temple will be thrown to the
ground. That happened in 70 AD, 40 years
after Jesus was teaching. But that's not all that Jesus is
talking about. He is also teaching them that He
will personally return to judge and save.
Before I read our passage, just one note on the translation in
verse 29, you will see that in the ESV it says so.
Also. When you see these things taking
place, you know that He is near. In verse 29, there's a third
person singular verb in the Greek.
I was paying attention to Doctor Gentry's classes, third person
singular. That means it could be
translated he, she, or it. It could be it is near at the
very gates. And I actually think that's a
better translation. That's how the NIV translates
it. It's how the King James
translates it. So I'm going to say it when I
get there. I don't normally do that, but I
think it makes the best sense. Now for verses 28 to 37 of Mark
13 from the fig tree, learn it's lesson.
As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves,
you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these
things taking place, you know that it is near at the very
gates. Truly I say to you, this
generation will not pass away until all these things take
place. Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away. But concerning that day or that
hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,
but only the Father. Be on guard.
Keep awake, for you do not know when the time will come.
It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and
puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands
the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake, For you do
not know when the master of the house will come in the evening,
or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the
morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.
And what I say to you, I say to all Stay awake.
Now, our passage does refer again to events that will take
place within this generation. That's what Jesus says in verse
30, and that's the focus. These events that will take
place within this generation. That's the focus of verses 28 to
31. But then the longer paragraph,
verses 32 to 37, focuses on Jesus's second coming.
Specifically. In that longer paragraph, Jesus
announces something certain and something uncertain.
What's certain is that he'll return.
What's uncertain is that none of us knows when.
So the question you need to answer is how can you be ready
for Jesus's return? Jesus is coming, is certain, and
it's time is unknown. So how can you be ready?
In our passage, Jesus shows us three ways in which we can live
so as to be always ready for his return.
Three points. The third will be the longest .1
Know what time it is. Know what time it is.
That's what Jesus reminds his disciples to do in verses 28 and
29. In verse 28, Jesus tells a short
parable from the fig tree. Learn its lesson.
As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves,
you know that summer is near. At this time, Jesus and his
disciples are sitting on the Mount of Olives, just outside
the city of Jerusalem, looking over at the Temple.
Mount Olives was known not only for its olive trees, but also
for its abundant fig trees. And figs were one of the only
deciduous plants in ancient Judea, one of the only plants
that would have new leaves every summer, every spring rather
going into the summer. So it's natural that he uses a
fig tree as an illustration. The point of the illustration is
simple. When you see new growth in the
spring, you know that summer when you will get to harvest the
fruit is right around the corner.
The new leaves give sure promise that fruit will follow.
This also jogs our memories about another fig tree we've met
in Mark's Gospel. Back in Chapter 11, Jesus saw a
fig tree in leaf that had no fruit and he cursed it.
He said may no one ever eat fruit from you again.
That was a symbolic act. It was a lived out parable of
the judgment that's going to come against the temple.
The whole religious life of Israel, Jesus was saying is
leaves without fruit show without substance and so God was
going to judge them for their false worship.
That's the reason behind Jesus prediction of the temple's
destruction. So he gave this sign in this
teaching with a fig tree to show why God was going to judge his
people and destroy their temple. Here Jesus's point about the fig
tree is simpler. It's just when you see leaves,
summer is coming. But that also echoes the note of
judgement. What is the summer that's going
to come? It's not going to be happy or
leisurely or pretty. It's going to be judgement.
Jesus parable is about the coming destruction of the
temple. That's been the main topic of
the whole chapter so far. It was Jesus's explicit
prediction of the temple's destruction back in verse 2 that
prompted these 4 disciples to ask in verse 4 tell us when will
these things be? And what will be the sign when
all these things are about to be accomplished?
And what Jesus says in verse 29 shows us that He's continuing to
answer their question. So also, when you see these
things taking place, you know that it is near at the very
gates. Now, what are these things that
are taking place? It's everything Jesus predicted
from verses 5 to 23. In the most broad sense, many
things will take place that aren't signs of the temple's
destruction. But one thing will happen that
will be a sign, namely what Jesus calls in verse 14, the
abomination of desolation. Whatever that abomination is, it
signals that Rome is about to conquer Jerusalem and they're
about to destroy the temple. And so anyone with eyes to see
what's happening should flee, should get out immediately, try
to preserve their lives. Just as leaves are a sign of
summer soon to come, so this abomination and all the events
right around it are a sign that Jerusalem's destruction is soon
to come. So here Jesus is returning to
directly answering his disciples question.
He's given them a sign. When the sign is fulfilled, the
temple's about to fall. He's telling them that in order
to be prepared for future events, they need to know what
time it is. We recently passed through the
annoyance of daylight savings time.
I think daylight savings time, on the upside, might be the most
politically unifying issue in America.
In my nearly 40 years of life, I have never heard a good argument
for it. I have heard no one give any
kind of reason for who it serves or how it helps.
I think someone could win the presidential election in a
landslide with the single campaign promise to abolish
daylight savings. It would bring our fractured
country together. What does daylight savings time
do? It just, it just arbitrarily
shifts our lives an hour back and forth.
It bears no relation to reality. It helps no one.
It just means you have to adjust your poor, tired body an hour in
some direction and your children's poor, tired bodies an
hour in some direction for no good reason.
But that's the kind of time we live in in the modern West.
We live by the clock. We have to obey the clock.
We don't live by the sun, the seasons.
We live by what the clock tells us to do.
And so if the clock tells you to get up an hour earlier or stay
up an hour later, you have to, and your body will just have to
adjust to what time it is to live well in.
Now, Eastern Standard Time, you have to fit your life to what
the clock says. To live well in light of God's
sovereignty and God's purposes for all of history, you have to
fit your life to what time God says it is.
And what time God says it is is not some kind of arbitrary thing
that bears no relation to reality.
Instead, what time God says it is defines reality.
It's important to recognize that Jesus gives his disciples
instructions about the future, not so that they or we could
study it like a code and kind of have our secret decoder ring
that we sort of keep notes on. We can go, aha, I know exactly
when Jesus is coming. Many people throughout history
have claimed that many people even today still say stuff like
that. Jesus is telling you, as we'll
see explicitly in the Third Point, never believe a word that
anyone says about that, because they do not and cannot know.
Instead, He teaches us about the times we're living in so that
we'll know how to live well in them.
What time is it, according to Jesus?
What time are we living in? Well, we live on the far side of
the fulfillment of all these prophecies about 70 AD, so these
are not directly relevant to us. But what is?
Well, here's a few ways in which theological realities about who
Jesus is and what he's done for us determine the time we're
living in. We live between Jesus
resurrection and his return. The reality of his resurrection
and the certainty of his return are the two most definitive
events that shape the time we live in.
We live after Pentecost when God poured out His Spirit on His
people to indwell us and renew us.
We live in the time when God Himself makes us His temple by
His presence with us. We live in the era of the Spirit
equipping and empowering us for His service.
We live in the time of the New Covenant as we celebrate
whenever we have the Lord's Supper.
By His death, Christ has accomplished the forgiveness of
all of our sins. He's granted every believer to
know God truly and intimately. He has brought us into an
unbreakable relationship with His Father.
We live in the overlap of the ages.
The New Age has broken into the Presence, but it has not yet
been consummated. We live in the time of the Great
Commission of the Gospels, expansion to the farthest
reaches of the earth. We live in the time when God's
salvation has come crashing into the Presence, but it's not yet
been completed. Right now, I'm living in a time
when my severely sprained ankle has begun to heal but is not yet
fully healed. Seasoned athlete Brian Miller
reminded me just this morning that after it heals, it's
probably going to give me trouble for the next couple
years. So even after I heal, I will not
likely yet be fully healed. When Christ returns, the healing
will be perfect. The healing of all of our sin,
the healing of all of our bodies, the healing of this
whole creation. There will be no lingering cause
for left ankle concern for another two years or whatever.
All that'll be gone. The time we're living in is the
time when we look forward confidently to that.
Who cares about daylight savings?
This is the time we're living in.
To live well in it, you must let these theological truths shape
your sense of what time it is more than you let anything else.
Not how the economy is doing, Not how your favorite political
party is doing. Not how your career is going.
Not the direction cultural tides are pulling or vibes are
shifting. Those things can all change in
an instant. We can read them wrongly in the
1st place. Instead, let Jesus tell you what
time it is, like God's word tell you what time it is, as Martin
Luther famously said, referring to Christ's return.
I have two days on my calendar today, and that day, how can you
know what time it is? Point #2 trust Jesus's words.
Trust Jesus's words. That's what Jesus himself
teaches us to do in verses 30 and 31.
Look at verse 30. Truly I say to you, this
generation will not pass away until all these things take
place. What does Jesus mean by this
generation? I think he means the human
beings presently alive. He's been talking about things
are going to experience that aren't signs of the temples
fall. Things they will experience that
will be signs of the temples fall.
What's going to happen when the Roman army comes near?
He's talking about people who will see those events fulfilled.
You know the times Jesus used this word in Mark's gospel.
He's talking about his contemporaries.
He's talking about those presently alive.
I don't think he's using the word generation in any kind of
metaphorical or figurative sense.
Also, when he says all these things, he means the same thing
that he meant by these things in verse 29.
He also means the same thing that he said by all things in
verse 23. He's talking about the
destruction of the temple and the signs that will let you know
it's coming. Jesus was not a failed or
mistaken apocalyptic prophet. He never claimed that he would
return or history would end within the lifetime of his
hearers. Instead, he's saying that the
generation of those people presently alive will see
Jerusalem fall. And it did.
If you've ever kind of gotten into apologetics, you know,
reading or watched more skeptical scholars talk about
can we trust the Gospels or not, they will often bring out this
very verse, Mark 1330 as the kind of champion.
Aha, Jesus got it wrong. I think those scholars are
simply failing to understand what Jesus is talking about.
When he says his generation, he means his generation.
When he says these things, he's talking about the main substance
of his whole speech up to this point.
And instead of this verse being a kind of triumphal gotcha, aha,
Jesus got it wrong and you can't trust him.
It's just the opposite. The things he said all happened
to the T 40 years later, Jesus's prophecy proved true.
One reason Mark gives a whole chapter to this discourse is
that whether Mark was written before these events or after
these events, in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, I think it's
probably before. But in the wisdom of the Holy
Spirit, here's Jesus saying all these things that were soon to
be fulfilled and would stand as a record ever after, validating
Jesus's prophetic authority. This should confirm our trust in
His words. It's exactly the point Jesus
makes in the very next verse, verse 31.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
As we read in Isaiah 40 earlier, this is what God says about His
own words. Jesus is claiming that His words
are just as eternal, just as imperishable, just as inviolable
as God's own words. That can only be true if they
are God's own words and they are.
The authority that Jesus claims for his teaching is one more of
the dozens of proofs of his divinity that we've seen
throughout Mark's gospel. In this passage, you cannot
approach Jesus as a wise teacher of morality.
He is claiming divine authority for His words.
That means the only acceptable response is total acceptance,
total submission, total trust, total obedience.
You don't get to sift. You don't get to pick and
choose. You don't get to read Jesus the
way you'd read, you know, your favorite newspaper column.
This was very insightful. But you kind of disagree with
Him sometimes. Oh, it's even provocative, what
you know, enjoyable to kind of sharpen your thinking.
Nope. Jesus is saying that the only
way to relate rightly to His teaching is the absolute
allegiance you give to the words of God.
So what should you do? Trust in all of Jesus teaching.
Submit all of His commands. Believe all of his promises
about the future, especially the great promise of his return.
Most of this chapter is about what would happen to Jerusalem
within a generation. And it all happened.
Jesus speaks truth about the future because He is sovereign
over the future, which means the only way to have an absolutely
secure future is to entrust your future to Him.
If you're not a believer in Jesus, I wonder if you're
looking for certainty. What can you trust absolutely?
Is there anyone or anything you can be confident in with no
reservation, no shadow of doubt, no backup plan you kind of have
to keep in reserve if this person kind of lets you down or
doesn't come through? Jesus offers that kind of
certainty. That quest for certainty is
understandable. It's valid, it's legitimate.
Don't let anyone tell you that because no one here among mere
mortals can offer you that kind of certainty.
That is just not on offer. Jesus offers it.
Jesus makes good on it. Jesus claims that's what you
should do with his words, treat them as utterly certain.
And he backs it up in countless ways throughout the gospels by
giving us evidence that he is God Incarnate.
Notice Jesus says his words are permanent.
They're eternally permanent. They're more permanent than this
universe which is going to last longer, the solar system or
Jesus words. Jesus says it's his words.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away
one day unless Jesus comes back first.
You will pass away. Everyone you love will pass
away. Everything good you've done will
pass away. Every trace of you from any
living person's memory or any historical record will pass
away. Eventually, the universe itself
will pass away. Jesus himself declared it.
So. Where can you find lasting
truth, certain hope, unshakeable meaning only in Jesus?
His Word is his bond. His word is the bond that holds
the universe together, and His word will outlast this universe.
If you're not a Christian, trust in Jesus today.
There's another prediction Jesus makes that should lead you to
trust him. Three times in Mark's gospel,
once a piece in chapters 8-9 and ten, he promises, he predicts
that he will die and then rise again.
He predicts it in detail. He'll be betrayed, he'll be
handed over to the authorities, he'll be beaten and mocked, and
then he'll be killed. And it happened exactly as he
said it would. But it didn't stop there.
He said after three days, he would rise again.
And he did. The purpose of all of that is to
reconcile us to God. We owe God our lives.
We owe God our obedience. We owe God our total allegiance.
And yet all of us have turned our backs against God.
All of us have rebelled against God.
All of us have lived for ourselves instead of God.
We've sinned. That's the essence of what the
Bible calls sin. We deserve to be judged.
We deserve to be condemned. We deserve to be rejected by
God, and yet with this infinite gap that there was between US
and God, God did everything necessary to cross it for us.
That's what Jesus becoming Incarnate is about.
That's what his life of teaching and healing is about.
That's what his death on the cross is about.
It's what his resurrection is about.
Reconciling us to God that we've done nothing to deserve or earn
and He's done everything to achieve.
If you believe that, if you trust yourself to Jesus, that is
what makes you a Christian. That is what makes you right
with God. That and nothing else.
If you've never believed in Jesus, turn and trust in him.
Today. Jesus declares heaven and earth
will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
One day when Jesus returns, this universe will die and be
resurrected. How can you trust that's really
going to happen? Looks like things are pretty
much going on the same. They always have.
This universe doesn't really seem a fit subject for a death
and resurrection has not happened before.
Why should I believe that's going to happen?
Because the same one who predicted the universe's death
and resurrection predicted his own death and resurrection.
Because the one who rose from the grave is the one who
promises to raise you from the grave and to raise this whole
universe from the grave. Trust Jesus's words.
And to trust in Jesus's words also requires us to trust every
word of the Bible. Why?
Because Jesus himself believed and taught that the words of
Scripture are the words of God. When he wanted to appeal to a
point about creation in Matthew 19, about God making us male and
female, he says that he who created them male and female
said and he quotes the words of the Bible.
But those words of the Bible he's quoting are just the words
of the narrator. It's not God speaking, it's just
Bible words. Jesus says those Bible words are
God's words. In John 1035, Jesus says the
Scripture cannot be broken, it must be fulfilled.
It will always be valid. That means it's all true.
So it's not that Jesus's words are extra trustworthy and the
rest of the Bible is maybe selectively helpful.
If you're with Jesus, you're good.
But Paul, I don't know, some of those Old Testament prophets
sound a little harsh. If you trust in Jesus, you must
trust all of the words of Scripture because that's what he
believed and that's what he taught.
So if you're a believer in Jesus, how can you grow in
trusting Jesus's words and all of God's words?
Memorize them. Meditate on them.
Turn God's words into prayer. Send God's words back to Him as
grounds for praise, spurs to confession, reasons for
Thanksgiving. That's why we so often link up a
Scripture reading and a prayer in our services.
We're meditating on these things together, sending them back to
God in prayer. Let Scripture rearrange your
priorities. Let Scripture rearrange your
plans. Let Scripture unveil and lead
you to kill distorted desires and to help implant new God Word
desires. Let Scripture teach you where to
place your hope. Let Scripture teach you not to
invest your whole soul in anything that will end when this
life ends. Instead, invest your whole soul
in Christ's return. That is the only absolutely
certain investment you can make because Jesus is coming back.
You just don't know when point #3 stay awake, stay awake.
It's in verses 32 to 37. In verses 32 to 37, Jesus
repeats a command to stay awake five times, using three
different words or phrases. He urges us to stay awake as we
await His return, because His return is certain and it's time
is unknown. So the only way to be ready for
it is to be always ready. Look first to verse 32.
But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the
angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
Note that here Jesus changes the topic again.
He's been talking about those days and all these things in the
plural. Now he changes it to that day in
the singular what day? The day of his return.
And his main point is clear in verse 32.
No one knows when it's coming. Not humans, not angels, not even
Jesus, only the Father. So that is clear and emphatic.
You should never, ever, ever believe anyone who claims I know
when Jesus is coming back. Jesus says that is impossible,
but this verse also presents a theological challenge to us.
If Jesus is God Incarnate and he is, and if God knows all things
and he does, then how can Jesus not know something?
Good question. Genuine difficulty.
We're going to pause and work on it for a little while.
I think we can understand this by comparing it with other
aspects of Jesus's human existence.
For instance, think of the end of Mark 4, when Jesus is asleep
in the boat in the middle of a storm and the disciples are mad
at him. Don't you care?
Can't you see we're perishing? We're all going to drown and
you're sleeping. What's going on?
Who is the one who's asleep in the boat?
It is God the sun Incarnate. If you keep that whole truth
about Jesus in mind, that he's God the Son Incarnate, you can
speak a true sentence that says God fell asleep.
What are you talking about? Jesus of Nazareth, God the Son
Incarnate, sitting there asleep in the boat right here.
If you were there, you could have seen it.
Who's the one who's sleeping there?
It's God, specifically God the Son.
But what about Jesus makes it true that he can fall asleep?
It's the fact that he's truly a human being.
To put it a bit more technically, we can say that
Jesus sleeps in and by virtue of his human nature, not his divine
nature. The divine nature does not and
cannot sleep. The divine nature is not a body.
God does not get tired, as Psalm 121 verse 4 says.
He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
So God doesn't sleep, but God the Son Incarnate does.
Is that a contradiction? No, it's a paradox.
It's true because of the incarnation, and it's only true
with reference to Christ's humanity that he assumed in the
incarnation. If you want to study this more,
I've got a whole book on it more or less called Biblical
Reasoning. So is God the Son Incarnate?
Jesus is at once all powerful and weak.
He is at once immortal and mortal.
He raises the dead and he gets tired.
He forgive sins and he can die. So what does this mean for our
passage? It means that as God, Jesus
knows all things. But as man, according to his
human nature, his knowledge is limited.
He is at once omniscient as God and ignorant as man.
Jesus isn't saying that he can't know this, only that he doesn't.
It was not part of his Incarnate mission as the Messiah, either
to know or to make known the time of his second coming.
We didn't need to know it. Jesus, as a human being,
remained ignorant of it. He's ignorant as man and
omniscient as God. If you have a tough time
imagining how that could possibly true, or what the
consciousness of God the Son Incarnate is like, well, that's
exactly the point. We can't imagine it.
It's incomprehensible. It's beyond our ability to
grasp. It is a mystery, not a
contradiction, but a mystery. Not a contradiction, but a
paradox. And again, Jesus's practical
point here is that you know he's coming and you cannot know when.
So what should you do? Verse 33 Be on guard, keep
awake, for you do not know when the time will come, because you
don't know when he's coming. You have to be always ready for
his coming because you don't know what passage Doctor Gentry
is going to ask you to translate.
You have to be ready to answer for all of the passage.
A soldier keeping a night watch over his camp with all of his
sleeping comrades. He doesn't know when an enemy
might attack, so he has to stay awake throughout his whole
shift. 10 verses 34 to 37. Jesus has a similar illustration
for this point. He says it is like a man going
on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in
charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay
awake. Therefore stay awake.
For you do not know when the master of the house will come in
the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows are in
the morning, lest he comes suddenly and find you asleep.
And what I say to you, I say to all stay awake.
In this short parable, Jesus refers to different servants who
each had different work. But his point is that every
single Christian is like the doorkeeper.
The doorkeeper's job was to stay awake, and that's each of our
job too. In verse 35, Jesus uses 4
phrases that match how the ancient Romans divided up the
watches of the night. Basically, they're counting 12
hours from sundown to sun up, basically six, 6:00 PM to 6:00
AM roughly. So the four watches of the night
are called evening, midnight, the Roosters, crow, and morning.
Or they might call it early 4 watches, 3 hours a piece.
What was the doorkeeper's job is to keep out unwanted visitors
and to let in anyone who had a right to come, including the
master of the house. How is every Christian a
doorkeeper? We are all meant to keep watch
for Jesus's return. We're all meant to stay
spiritually awake and alert. For a real doorkeeper, getting a
full 12 hour overnight shift would be absolutely brutal.
That's rough. That's Jesus's point.
There is no time when a Christian clocks out from
awaiting Jesus's return. There is no time when a
Christian can go off duty from being spiritually vigilant,
awake, alert. You can never clock out.
You should never take a break. Jesus point here is simple and
practical and profound. Throughout your whole life as a
believer, you must remain ready for His return.
Throughout your life you must live so as to greet Him with
joy. You should never do anything
that you would be ashamed to be found doing when Christ comes
back. Because this is such a rich and
important point, I'm going to spend some extended time
applying it. I've got 5 application points
that I'll walk through 1 by 1 #1 Because you don't know when your
end or the end of all things is coming.
Repent and trust in Jesus now because you don't know when your
end or the end of all things is coming.
Repent and trust in Jesus now. Don't put it off till later.
Jesus saying you don't know if there is a later.
You don't know if God will give you a later.
You don't know if this whole universe gets a later.
Whether you're a kid growing up in a Christian home or you're an
adult exploring the faith, don't simply push it off.
Don't say yeah I can, I can figure out Jesus later.
Repent and believe now. If you have questions standing
in your way, do your best to seek answers now.
If you've got issues or priorities that put you out of
sync with Jesus, address them in your heart and mind now.
If there's someone who can help you know what it means to follow
Jesus and convince you that it's worth it, talk to that person
now. Ephesians 426 says do not let
the sun go down on your anger. You should also not let the sun
go down on your unrepentance #2 Don't build your hopes on dreams
of progress or plans for fulfillment.
Don't build your hopes on dreams of progress or plans for
fulfillment. Progress is one of the central
myths that our culture lives by. We flatter ourselves to think of
the world is getting better and better and better, and it's all
thanks to us. We're making progress and
knowledge, science, technology, morality.
We're making so much progress and AI that no human being will
ever have to think a single thought ever again.
That's what I call progress. But are we making people better?
Are we making life better? Are we becoming more just, more
compassionate, more caring, more fair?
Progress on any grand scale is a myth, and so is living according
to your own personal plans for fulfillment.
It's not wrong to make plans. It's not wrong to seek to be a
good steward of your gifts, or to aim to serve the common good,
or to enjoy the good things that God gives you in your life.
But so many of us, so much of the time, load up all of our
hopes for happiness into the rickety little cart of our plans
for fulfillment. And we push that cart into the
future, and all our heart is riding on it.
Jesus teaching on the second coming means you don't know
whether any of those plans will come to pass.
Jesus might return before I finish this sermon, as CS Lewis
put it in a powerful essay called The World's Last Night.
The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not
and cannot know when the world drama will end.
The curtain may be run down at any moment.
Say before you finish reading this paragraph.
This seems to some people intolerably frustrating.
So many things would be interrupted.
Perhaps you were going to get married next month.
Perhaps you were going to get a raise the next week.
You may be on the verge of a great scientific discovery.
You may be maturing great social and political reforms.
Surely no good and wise God would be so very unreasonable to
cut all this short. Not now of all moments.
God will not evaluate your life better based on whether you
change the world. He will assess whether you were
faithful to Him. He will not hold you accountable
for what's beyond your control. He will hold you accountable for
what you have done with what he gave you.
CS Lewis again on this point, frantic administration of
panaceas to the world is certainly discouraged by the
reflection that this present might be the world's last night
sober work for the future. Within the limits of ordinary
morality and prudence is not, for what comes is judgement.
Happy are those whom it finds laboring in their vocations.
Whether they were merely going out to feed the pigs or laying
good plans to deliver humanity 100 years hence from some great
evil, the curtain has indeed now fallen.
Those pigs will never in fact be fed.
The great campaign against slavery or governmental tyranny
will never in fact proceed to victory.
No matter. You were at your post when the
inspection came. Stay at your post.
Wait for the inspection #3 Mark and avoid what causes spiritual
sleep. Mark and avoid what causes
spiritual sleep, as Jesus says in verses 35 and 36.
Therefore, stay awake, lest he come suddenly and find you
asleep. What's that a metaphor for?
That's spiritual sleep. Jesus means being spiritually
slothful, negligent in duty, disobedient, unfruitful, unfit
for his service, unprepared for his second coming.
What causes or contributes to spiritual sleep?
Here's a whole bunch of particular of potential factors,
in no particular order. Too much time with or too much
attachment to friends who pull your heart toward the world.
Working such long hours that you have no time for corporate
worship or personal devotions. The world getting its hooks into
your heart, its values, attachments, goals, priorities.
Could be through what you watch or listen to.
Could be through what other people take for granted and find
normal in your class or at the office in leisure time,
consistently defaulting to entertainment without any
thought of edification. Could be success, prosperity,
wealth, possessions, getting everything you want in this
life. Can lull you to sleep.
Could even be spiritual presumption.
Being confident in yourself rather than continually
dependent on God's grace. Taking advantage of God's grace
as if it gives you a license to sin.
Thinking I'm I'm good with God, we're fine, I'm forgiven, no big
deal. Instead of relentlessly seeking
to put sin to death. Do any of those describe you or
do others come to mind as I'm going through that list?
Are you in a state of drifting off to sleep?
Have you been spiritually sleeping for some time?
If that's you wake up. There is time right now.
There might not be time later. As Paul says in Ephesians 514,
Awake O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine
on you. Don't be too proud to wake up.
Don't be too ashamed to wake up. I don't think that because it's
been such a long season, it's too late to change.
Better late than never #4 Mark and embrace what keeps you
spiritually awake #4 Mark and embrace what keeps you
spiritually awake. Kids in the congregation, adults
can play, too. Have you ever been so excited
for what was coming the next day that it was hard to fall asleep?
Maybe Christmas Eve could be the day before your birthday, could
be the day before a vacation you're looking forward to.
What makes it hard to sleep is that you're so eager.
You're so excited for what's coming.
You don't want to sleep. You just want it to be the next
day. As a believer in Jesus, anything
that makes you more eager for Christ's return will help you
stay awake in anticipation of it.
What helps keep you spiritually awake?
Personal devotions. Time in the Word and prayer in
secret, especially meditating on heaven and the world to come.
Private prayer, especially self examination and confession.
Coming to corporate worship regularly, eagerly, expectantly.
Time spent with other believers in which you remind each other
of God's promises and Christ's return.
And any prudent practice, it helps you take a step back,
helps you get some critical distance from whatever plans
you're most fervently pursuing, whatever dreams you're most
devoted to. Anything that causes you to take
a little step back and say, I wonder if God really wants me to
pursue that as much as I want to pursue that.
Seeking counsel about it, evaluating it in light of
Scripture. Anything that lets you in any
way put God's agenda before your own agenda #5 Last point of
application. Be a good cup of coffee for
fellow church members. Be a good cup of coffee for
fellow church members. I know that not all members of
our church appreciate a good cup of coffee.
It is permitted to abstain from coffee and be a member of this
church. I am not binding anybody's
conscience. I'm really offering an
illustration. What does a good cup of coffee
do for you? It energizes you, helps you stay
awake. That is what each member of this
church should be for other members.
How can you be that good cup of coffee for another church
member? Encourage them with God's
promises. Speak truths of Scripture to
them. Help make sure that fellow
members make it to church. I love the way that so many of
you offer rides to each other. For those who don't have a car
or can't drive, use that time on the way to have a spiritual
conversation. Come to church eager in those
few minutes before, a few minutes after, not just to check
in or get to know somebody, although that's good.
Not just to have a little get to know you conversation, though
that's good, but to have deliberate spiritual
conversations. And if you're not a member of a
faithful evangelical church, I want to appeal to you, not so
much to join this church, but to join a faithful gospel preaching
church. Being a committed member of a
church is one of the most crucial antidotes to spiritually
falling asleep. When you join a church, you gain
however many dozens or hundreds of potential good cups of coffee
to help you keep from falling asleep.
When you're not a committed part of a local church, there's a
spiritually significant sense in which you're on your own.
It's not how God means us to live.
It's not how Jesus means for us to be parts of His body.
If you are a Christian, you are a member of the body of Christ,
so you should be a committed member of a local body of
Christ. If you want to learn more about
what it would look like to be a member of our church, I would
encourage you to come to our membership class next week,
right after church lunch and three hours into the afternoon.
Jesus is coming, is certain, and it's time is unknown.
How can you be ready? Know what time it is?
Trust Jesus's words and stay awake.
This is Jesus's last public teaching in the Gospel.
In the next chapter, he's going to be betrayed at night.
In the next chapter, Jesus will take a side three out of the
four disciples who are with him here, Peter, James and John, and
he will instruct them to keep watch and stay awake while he
goes off and prays. What happened?
They fell asleep. Jesus kept watch through prayer.
They fell asleep. They were sleeping and caught
sleeping by Jesus when his hour came.
What hour was that? The predicted hour to be
betrayed to his death. In our passage, Jesus predicts
the judgment that's going to fall on Israel and Jerusalem 40
years hence. In the next couple chapters of
Mark. Jesus will suffer judgment and
destruction that each of us deserves for our sin.
And then, just as He promises to return, so He returned from the
grave, bringing light and life with Him to all who trust in
Him. Just as He returned from the
grave, so one day He will return to us again, bringing the new
creation with Him. We know He will, we just don't
know when. So be ready, stay awake, let's
pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for these sobering and comforting words.
Pray that we would believe that Jesus is coming back and that
our lives would be changed as a result.
We pray in His name. Oh man.