Joyful and Confident Expectation
Joyful and Confident Expectation • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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VBS morning and we have a membership introduction at the end also – COME AND INVITE
Bit of an odd morning, as we have the jovial youthful excitement of vbs and yet we come together for the first time after having lost another elder to the heavenly kingdom . . . appropriate
In 180 AD, Justin Martyr wrote a letter to the Roman Senate, attempting to convince them of Christianity’s truth, and if they couldn’t be convinced of that, to convince them at least that Christianity is a great GOOD, and one of the arguments he used was pointing to how well Christians die. He argued that only the best and truest kind of person can handle death like the Christians do.
D.A. Carson points out in his book How Long O Lord, that in our culture currently, death has become about the last taboo subject, about the last thing . . dinner table, the last subject that causes the air in the room to evaporate and the walls to close in when someone brings up the death of a loved one, that causes lungs to tighten and causes everyone to start searching for a way into a different topic. And yet, it is one of the few absolutely universal human experiences. ALL of us will die, ALL of us will be put face to face with death throughout our lives. The ONLY life that doesn’t include much death is the one who dies young.
C.S. Lewis said, “Great Christians of the past thought it good for us to always be aware of our mortality, I am inclined to think they were right.”
In these times, again and again, we are brought back face to face with the reality that the book of Hebrews says enslaves every human with fear. Why we avoid at all costs. Every Human, even a man as astonishing as this one, will die if the Lord tarries.
Its easier now than ever to avoid thinking about it, to distract ourselves with trivialities and our busyness from the things that are most real and profound. If our world has perfected anything it is distraction.
In Dostoevski’s Crime and Punishment, the young main character of the story has committed murder, and the next day is walking the streets, he was being obliterated by guilt and weight and the evil and the reality of the death and it says “He had a terrible longing for some distraction, but he did not know what he could do, what to attempt.” As I was reading that I couldn’t help but think, well he just needed an iphone. He could have simply pulled that out of his pocket and distracted himself to his hearts content, until another distraction became apparent or until he went to sleep.
Blaise Pascal says, “The sole cause of our unhappiness is that we don’t know how to stay quietly in our room.” He meant that we use distraction to avoid facing the ultimate questions: Meaning and Death. But most people don’t think about those most important things very often, most spend all their time thinking about things that distract from those ever-pressing realities. “No matter how miserable you are, if you’re busy enough you don’t have to think about it.”
But this man was not enslaved by that fear. THAT IS ASTONISHING! Not having that fear does not make sense to the outside . . .”
Carson said, “Christians used to see Christianity as teaching men and women how to die well.”
I am still relatively young, but part of ministry of course is talking to and dealing with a lot of people who are close to death. The experience of those who have known and loved Christ in those final days is just profoundly different than the others.
I said yesterday and I’ll say again, I will remember Mo over these past few months for the rest of my life. I will remember standing outside with him and Mrs Kay the girls at the doctors office after receiving the news they had prayed wouldn’t come, and seeing him smile anyway and remind us all that he trusted the Lord and whatever he wanted was fine. I will remember each conversation we had in the early days of the diagnosis and his giving us that continual reminder again and again, I trust Him, I am ready if he wants me to come. I will remember walking in his living room and each time being greeted with a big smile and warmth from he and Kay, loving me when I was just trying to love them. I will remember looking at Mo sitting beside Mrs Kay, at the shadow of a body that he had left, and yet laughing at his stories and his joy amidst the pain and loss. I only got a small touch of what the family has lived in the past months, but each moment was both heavy and light, both mournful and joyful, both wanting him to stay longer, and wanting him to be able to go home.
We actually get a sense of that juxtaposition here this morning as we deal with a mournful loss and yet surrounded by the joys of youthfulness.
I’m not saying Mo was perfect in these last months, I know he wasn’t, I know he has weaknesses like we all do . . . but he doesn’t anymore. He has once and for all been freed from his body of death.
But he had no doubt about what was coming. He was not enslaved by fear. Why? How?
Joyful and Confident Expectation
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. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
Hope – “elpeace” not “I sure do hope” – this is the definition of the word (joyful and confident . . on screen)
Joyful and Confident expectation of what
Eternity with our Loved Ones in Christ
Wayne has said before, “I can’t wait to see Jesus but I want to see my momma first.” That is the point of Paul’s reasoning here. Paul isn’t saying, have hope when your loved ones die because you’ll be with Jesus one day and that will make it better, he is saying have hope because your relationship with that person isn’t over yet! Really Kay’s relationship and Luanne and Estee and Brayden and Marlie’s relationship with Mo has barely begun!
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.
WE – who is the WE, us and those we love that died before us. US AND THEM! “Encourage one another” here isn’t just encourage one another because Christ is coming back, but encourage one another because when he comes back, they’re coming back with him!
A New Heavens and a New Earth
But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
We have been studying this on Wednesday nights and so it has been constantly on my head and heart about where we are heading
This is the language used in the Bible to talk about where we are heading, not to an eternal church service where we just sing for eternity, but to a New Skies and New Earth; it isn’t something entirely different than earth, it is a new earth.
If I said I was giving you a new car, you know basically what that is like, you know what a car is, you don’t have to start from a blank slate of imagination about what the new car will be like, you know basically what a car is. The same thing is true about New Earth, you have this earth as the framework of understanding what a new earth will be like.
God didn’t mess it all up when he created the world. He didn’t step back on Day 7 and say, man, well that was a rough draft, next time I’m getting rid of all of these non-white colors, and all this food and eating, and all these trees and rivers and waterfalls, and all of this laughter and play and friendships, and all this physical mumbo jumbo. He said, THIS IS GOOD! And he meant it. That’s why he’ll make all things NEW, not all new things. Creation on steroids – whatever is truly good here will be enhanced there.
The promise of God is redemption! Rom 8:19-21 – Earth itself delivered from the curse, along with our physical bodies.
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
Bodies by the way that will be like Christ’s body, the body that ate, walked, cooked, and could be touched.
In his last days Mo didn’t have to make sure he really took in the beauty of rivers and trees and animals and the peace and laughter of family gatherings, he will be enjoying the ultimate and fullest version of each of those for eternity.
Christ Paid our Wages
One of the main reasons that a parent disciplines a child is so that the child knows that what he did was significant, and the greater the discipline, the greater the significance of the sin. If we send Naomi to her room for 5 minutes, she knows the weight of her sin. If we take away all technology for a week, she learns the greater weight of that sin.
One of the great calamities and tragedies and diseases of the modern world is that we fail to see the significance of weight of our sins. We just don’t see how big of a deal sinning against a God like that is. So we are shocked by hell in a way that no culture has ever been shocked.
We have been reminded this week of the wages of sin. Rom 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That even a man like THAT ONE dies.
But the Free Gift . . . ETERNAL LIFE, THE DEFEAT OF DEATH IS THE PROMISE!
1 Jn 2:1-2 – Propitiation – PAYMENT
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 Peter 1:18-19 – RANSOMED
knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
1 Cor 6:20 – BOUGHT
for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
He wasn’t enslaved by that fear because Christ had already died for him, so that this death would be but a mirage that only appeared on this end, because Christ died for him, this death would be without the sting of finality.
Mo had no doubt about what was coming, he knew his relationships with Kay, and Luanne, and Estee, and all of the wonderful family that he led had really only just begun. He knew that he again would gather with friends and family and talk, and joke, and eat, and laugh, and reminisce, and plan for future adventures. He knew that he again would gather with the church at Ohatchee that he had helped to shepherd, as well as countless others who too shared the blood of Christ that coursed through his very soul.
He knew that he would soon be with his Lord and Creator, the Father who had sustained him through the many brutal difficulties that he faced in life, who had strengthened his every step and kept him close, and who had sustained him over these past months.