The Coming of the Lord

Introduction:

What an amazing week the team and I have had in Kenya.

We visited the other church plants in the area.

We spent time with the children in the school.

We went on Safari and saw the lions and elephants

And then yesterday, we went out with many of you and together we saw 4 people receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. We want to say thank you to all our translators and Pastor George for organizing the evangelism yesterday.

Together we are building the Kingdom of God in expectation of His wonderful return.

We want you to know that you have brothers and sisters in Christ that love you and care for you. You are not alone in this good fight for the Lord.

I want you to open your bibles to 2 Peter chapter 3 then I want you to open your heart to the Lord.

Jesus said the Spirit is like the wind. You don’t know from where it come or where it goes but you can see the effects thereof.

Feel the wind of the Spirit as he puts breath in your lungs. Breath Him in.

Acts 17:28 ESV

28 for “ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

If we open our bibles but our hearts are closed we will not receive what the Lord has prepared for us today.

When we open our hearts to the Lord and then open our bibles we can receive what the Spirit is saying to his people.

Parable:

Jesus told a parable in Matthew 21 about a master that made a vineyard. When the time of the harvest came he placed tenants in the vinyard to gather it’s fruit. But the tenants wanted the fruit for themselves and when the master sent his servants to check on the progress of his vineyard they killed them. Then he sent his own Son to check on the vineyard and they killed him too. What do you think the Lord of the harvest will do to those wicked tenants when he returns to his vineyard?

God is the Master, Jesus is the Son, and the tenants were the Hebrews.

But instead of working for the the fruit of the master, they wanted to take it all for themselves.

Jesus told the Jews of his day that he would turn his kingdom over to another that would yield the fruit of his kingdom. He turned it over to you and to me.

Jesus is returning soon. We can see the signs of his coming so clearly. What will the Lord of the harvest say to us when he returns to see what we have produced for him? Will he find us building his kingdom or building our own?

Holy Discontent:

“To fully appreciate the the second coming of Christ we must fully imbrace the first coming.”

Some of you need to understand the first coming of Christ and some of you need to understand the second coming of the Lord.

The First Coming (or Day of Redemption)

2 Peter 3:1–2 ESV

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles,

We should be living in full expectation of the prophecies to come.

Jesus is coming again to receive his children.

God will take out his wrath of the ungodly along with the Devil and his angels.

Jesus will subdue all other kingdoms and rule and reign for a thousand years.

God will destroy all wickedness and create a new heaven and new earth where only righteousness dwells.

2 Peter 3:3–4 ESV

3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”

Some deny the first coming of Jesus in order to deny the second coming of Jesus.

As I was out in the village yesterday, just down the street, a man was telling me that Jesus was not the son of God, but a good prophet.

If Jesus is not the Son of God as he said in the gospels then the rest of the New Testament makes no since.

Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of the world.

John 10:30 ESV

I and the Father are one.”

John 14:6 ESV

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 1:12–13 ESV

12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

If you have not yet received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, today is your day of salvation.

2 Peter 3:9 ESV

9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

If you reject the first coming you will not be looking for the second coming.

2 Peter 3:5–7 ESV

5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

The Second Coming (or The Day of the Lord)

2 Peter 3:10 ESV

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

“The day of redemption is coming to an end and the day of the Lord is about to begin.”

The Hope of the day of the Lord

1 Thessalonians 4:16–18 ESV

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, 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.

The Responsibility of the Day of the Lord

2 Peter 3:11–12 ESV

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!

We are to live holy and godly lives before the Lord.

We are to witness and bear fruit till he comes.

John 15:8 ESV

By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

We are to wait in expectation of what is to come.

2 Peter 3:13 ESV

But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

2 Peter 3:14–15 ESV

14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,

Conclusion:

Many of you hear today have believed and trusted in Jesus, but some of you are still deciding about his first coming.

Be careful that you don’t miss the second coming trying to decide about his first coming.