Christmas Requires Waiting Forward
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I read about a survey that was taken recently that said that basically most people, over fifty percent, I am not sure how accurate it is, but very telling, that most people believe that the world is going to end pretty soon, maybe within their lifetime. Now, again, I am not sure how accurate that is but I think I believe it. I mean, just think about all the information we have had over the last ten years. I mean, if you just look at the films we have had. We have had asteroids hitting the earth, meteors hitting the earth. We have had information put out that if we don’t do certain things about global warming it is going to be apocalyptic. Aliens are invading and zombies are everywhere and vampires are now sympathetic creatures that fall in love— all kinds of things. I mean, it is just everywhere. And Christians add to that. If you are like me you have read all over the last forty or fifty years the idea that Jesus is going to come back and people are going to be raptured up and those who are left behind are in deep trouble.
I read that a company is now putting out billboards which will appear all over the country that says, “Jesus is coming back” this is a Christian group, I think, “May 21, 2011.” Where do they get that? It comes from some formula; I am not exactly sure what. But, you know, it would be a mistake for us to think, “Oh, they are just literalizing everything,” because Jesus is coming back, literally, bodily, really. The thing is that we just don’t know when; and the attitude in the Scripture about all this is that we are to wait expectantly. The title of my sermon today is Wait Forward and I will tell you what that means in just a minute. It is an important deal; and, in fact, one of the traditional sermons in Advent is about how Jesus is coming again. So today that is what we are going to talk about, the idea of waiting forward. Let’s read the Scripture together—one of many passages that talk about the second advent. In fact, someone did some statistics and said that one out of every thirty verses of the New Testament talks about Jesus coming again. This is Jesus talking: (Luke 12:35-40)
35 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. 37 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. 38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
Let’s pray together.
Lord God we ask for wisdom about this incredible subject. We pray that we would learn the lessons of it rather than just being nervous about it or fearful about it or confused about it. We pray that you would be with us today as we listen to your word. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
When I was a little boy I lived in Memphis, Tennessee with my parents and on Christmas day I had to wait before we could open presents. My father had to get in his car and go and pick up my Aunt Susie and my grandmother before I could even think about opening presents. Now, for a young little boy this was really hard. Big pile of presents, just like everybody else, and yet I had to wait. Of course, it wasn’t long, really; but for a young boy it was like an eternity, especially waiting for a couple of elderly ladies to kind of get out of their place and get in the car and get out of the car and come in and then talk a little bit… Well anyway, you know how it is.
I had to wait. And that kind of waiting, I think, is kind of like what I am talking about today, waiting forward. You know, there were days when I was looking out the windows kind of up on tiptoes, looking for the car, wondering when it was coming around the corner. The Scripture, the first time this idea of waiting forward appears, it appears in the story of Simeon. The Greek word is prosdechomai. Pros means “looking forward” and dechomai means “to wait,” so it means to “wait forward.” So Simeon, and by the way, that is who I am going to be on Christmas Eve; I am going to be Simeon. “Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him.” (Luke 2:25) It is the same word in the Scripture we just read for watch. Talking about how the servants have to watch for Jesus to come back, wait forward. The whole idea is not to be bored in waiting, not be scared in waiting; but to be anticipatory, to look forward to with great excitement. That is the attitude we start with, with the idea of Jesus coming back. It is the anticipation of children waiting on tiptoes for Christmas morning to begin and the presents will be opened; a sense of looking forward to when all things are made new and right and good. That is the promise we have with Jesus coming back.
Well, how do we wait forward? It is a great question. I think waiting forward begins by being ready. Remember last week I said Christmas requires courage. I think Christmas requires waiting forward and being ready. Again we are in the season of Advent, the Advent time is when we look forward to Christ coming. And another traditional sermon often preached in Advent time is one on John the Baptist. Well why is that true? …Because he told the people how to get ready for the first coming of the Messiah. He is often used with the idea of waiting again, not only for Christmas and the first coming; but we talk about him in terms of the second coming, as well, because he gives us a great idea of what we are supposed to do. And what is that? Remember what John the Baptist said, the one word? “REPENT!” (It is funny what you can do with a microphone.) He said “Repent.” REPENT that was his message and you know what? We don’t like that. We live in a time, in a time when it is conspicuous by its absence of guilt. We live in a very therapeutic time. We are not supposed to tell people who rob or steal or abuse children that they are not supposed to do it anymore, as much as we are supposed to understand them. I am not saying that we shouldn’t understand them, but we live in this society which says we are not supposed to make people feel guilty. I wish I had a nickel for every time I have heard someone say, “You shouldn’t preach a hell, fire and damnation sermon! That just makes people feel guilty and no one comes into the kingdom by being made the feel guilty.” Well that is true; but, by and large, you don’t hear anybody preach about judgment or hell very much anymore, do we? Because we don’t want to make people feel guilty. And yet this idea of waiting for Christ and being ready is there over and over and over again. Jesus says it is sudden, “like a thief,” and the theme is a time of separation.
You know, you hear a lot about this idea of rapture and it is based on a Scripture which talks about how one will be taken and the other left. The idea is that if you are left behind you are in trouble, you are going to be faced with all kinds of tribulation and trials and hardship. Well there is another way of looking at this. Yes, we will be caught up into the sky with our Lord; but the idea again is separation. The sheep will be separated from the goats. The chafe will be separated from the wheat. And one will be taken and the other left. We will be caught up in the sky with our Lord. But the idea is that Jesus is coming back not as a blue-eyed, blonde-haired guy surrounded by sheep and children, he is a warrior king, with an Army at his back, of angels. And we are caught up to meet him like people who are lining the streets, getting liberated, just like they did for the allies when Paris was liberated. Jesus is going to come back and we will be with him celebrating the end. The word judgment in Greek is “krisis,” which means “separation.”
We might be tempted to say, “Hey, wait a minute. Why should I worry about all this? After all, Jesus hasn’t come back for two thousand years; maybe another two thousand.” Well, I agree. It might be. All the talk about he is coming back in May, or in a couple of years, he might; but it might be a long time. Why should we feel such a sense of urgency? Well, on one level, you know, you are going to meet Jesus soon anyway, when our bodies wear out. He will either come get us, all of us at once, or, one at a time. We need to be ready. We need to be ready by doing what our Lord wants us to be doing. Yes, we look forward to this time as a sense of joy and anticipation and, if we are ready, it will be; but the question for all or us is are we ready?
Jesus says “It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.” (Luke 12:37)
Waiting forward means being ready. It also means that you belong to someone else. I love this Scripture and I have had it here on the screen before where Paul reminds us that we all have been bought with a price. (“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor god with your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)) We have talked about it before in this idea of stewardship, that we are stewards of our lives. You know, if you want to be ready, a good place to start is a change of mind—change of mind, meaning that your life is not your own. It belongs to somebody else. And that is the biggest problem we have. You know that is un-American, isn’t it? On one level of this secular society, we are free creatures; we do what we want to do, and that is good. But as Christians we understand that we didn’t get here by ourselves. We are not only owned by way of creation, we are owned because of what Jesus has done for us, if we can just get there. Waiting forward means our lives are not our own. The greatest purposes of our lives are not to eat when we are hungry and scratch what itches. It is not about living as long as possible as comfortable as possible. When we believe that our lives belong to God, we give up the right to be the center of our own universe.
I read a wonderful prayer by a pastor. You know sometimes we pastors have a hard time getting our sermons together. I have another friend who used to talk about the little understanding he had with God. As he got his sermons together, because he is kind of like me, he is a perfectionist, and he knew that none of his sermons were going to be as great as he wanted them to be; but he would pray to God and say, “You know, this is the best I could do Lord; here it is for today.” A long time ago I learned that when you preach it really isn’t about you. I learned it because so many people come by and say, “Great sermon, Pastor.” Then they would tell you what was great about it and you were left standing there going, “I didn’t say anything about that.” But God is sovereign and he uses whatever is going on in your heart, and whatever I say, to work whatever he is doing. And that is great. But this is a wonderful little prayer that a pastor used to pray:
“Dear Lord, This sermon of mine isn’t much but I worked honestly on it, and it is the best I can do, at least at the moment. I know that any good which comes from this sermon will be your doing and not mine. Please help me to live so that I may become an increasingly uncluttered channel of Your grace. To that end, may I think Your thoughts after You and speak Your Word. I love You and I love these people among whom I serve. That’s that, Lord, God. Amen.”
I think it is a good thing to turn this around a little bit and say:
Dear Lord, this life of mine isn’t much but I worked honestly on it, the best I can do, at least at the moment. I know that any good which comes from my life will be your doing and not mine. Please help me to live so that I may become an increasingly uncluttered channel of Your grace. And to that end, may I think Your thoughts after You and speak Your word. I love You and I love these people among whom I serve. That’s that, God. Amen.
It is a difficult prayer to pray because it takes control of our lives out of our hands and puts it in God’s; because again and again and again we need to remember, daily, that our lives do not belong to ourselves. It is the best place to start if you want to be ready.
Number four means waiting forward says you have a purpose. Waiting forward means you have a purpose, and this world has a purpose. You know I often quote Ephesians Chapter 2, verses 8 and 9: “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not of yourselves less anyone should boast, it is a gift of God.” And we are all going, “Yes, isn’t it wonderful! Salvation is a gift. God has given us this great thing.” And it is great and we should celebrate it; but there is a part two—and it is not really small print. It is in verse 10. Yes it is by grace you have been saved, but to what purpose? Well verse ten goes something like this and I have used Eugene Peterson’s “The Message” because I like the way he puts it. He says, “No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, (the NIV says “which he prepared beforehand.”) the work we had better be doing.”
My friends, that’s our purpose. It isn’t just to sit around and go, “Hallelujah! I’m saved!” “It’s great! Wonderful.” It is wonderful, by the way. But life isn’t just about having fire insurance; it is about doing the work God has called us to do. We can’t retire at that. There is no such thing as retirement in the Christian life. God has not given up on this world; he is not giving up on us.
I love this story I read this week by a man I often quote, his name is Steve Brown; and he tells about a car he saw one day while driving home. It was the ugliest car he had ever seen. He says, “This car wasn’t just ugly— it was ugly on top of ugly.” It had a large gash on its side; one of the doors was held together by bailing wire; and several other bodies parts were almost completely rusted out. The car’s muffler was so loose that every bump it hit on the street sent sparks in every direction. He couldn’t tell the original color of the car. The rust had eaten away much of the paint, and so much of the car had been painted over with so many different colors that any one of them (or none of them) could have been the first coat. The most interesting thing about the car was the bumper sticker. It said, “This is not an abandoned car.” He goes on to say, “In a manger, a baby was born. He was a sign to us: ‘This is not an abandoned world.’”
Waiting forward does not mean giving up on this world as often Christians do when they hear about, “Well we need to wait for Jesus to come back.” That isn’t the point. It is God’s business when Jesus comes back, it is not ours! He has got the plan. Our job is to work the plan (as they say in the military: “We plan to work and work to plan”). God has a plan and our purpose is to be a part of that plan until God brings everything to completion whenever that is. It means making every moment count.
One good friend I had many years ago, he and I went to school together in our counseling school. After we left, about a year later he was diagnosed with like stage four brain cancer. He lived in Raleigh, North Carolina and I happened to be down there on some business with the Army, actually, and went to see him. I asked him how he was doing and he said, “Chris, surprisingly I am doing just wonderful.” I said, “Why is that? You have brain cancer.” And he said, “I have never been closer to the Lord. I have never been so focused on what life is about and I thank God for my cancer.” I have heard that story several times along the way. People who are facing death get suddenly focused on the things that are important.
I have a friend, who said, as he got ready to go to Afghanistan, he said, “It was about coming to the place where knowing that I might not come home, and it was O.K.” Waiting forward means making every moment count. We see this sentiment in the Scripture all the time. I urge you, and if you have God’s mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices that is the work we are to do, making every moment count.
Closing with a story about a soldier named Ralph who had been sent to meet a University professor at the airport. After they introduced themselves, they headed toward the baggage claim. As they walked down the concourse, Ralph kept disappearing. Once it was to help an older woman whose suitcase had fallen open. And another time it was to give directions to someone who was lost. Again and again he would disappear and he would be helping other people. Each time Ralph would come back with a big smile on his face. The professor asked, “Where did you learn how to do that?” “Do what?” said Ralph. “To be so helpful and considerate,” said the professor. “Oh” said Ralph, “during the war, I guess. In Vietnam, it was my job to clear minefields and I watched many of my friends blown up before my eyes, one after another. I learned to live between the steps,” he said. “I never knew whether the next one would be my last, so I learned to get everything I could out of the moment between when I picked up my foot and when I put it down again. Every step I took was a whole new world, and I guess I’ve just been that way ever since.”
Jesus is coming back and I wish I could give you more details but, you know, we really don’t need them. We have it in the Scriptures that he is coming back in his good time. In the meantime our job is to wait forward, expectantly; being ready, knowing that we don’t belong to ourselves we belong to God, and that’s a good thing; and making the days and the moments and seconds count, not for ourselves, but for him, but for him.
It is the kind of life the Lord calls us to—living between the steps—living with a purpose, yielding control to God and living in anticipation of what God will do in our world—not out of fear, but faith. Like children on tiptoes waiting for Christmas, we wait for the Lord’s return.
Let’s pray.
Lord we thank you for this witness again that death is not the end of the story, that though our world does seem to be full of vampires and zombies and evil, that you are the Victor and you are the King and one day you will come back. In the meantime Lord, give us courage, give us purpose; help us to live for you and for others according to our calling, until that day, in Jesus’ name. Amen.