Ready for the End

Adulting 101

For most of us, at our age, we have figured it out. We have figured out how to be adults.

Do you remember your parents teaching you the basics.

Laundry, housecleaning, cooking, yard work, hygiene, budgeting.

Separate the colors from the whites. Dry on medium or high heat.

Dry clean only means that.

Push the vacuum, dust the furniture, scrub the toilets, mop the floors.

Bathe regularly. Brush your teeth twice/daily. Brush your hair occasionally.

Spend less money that you make. Pay off your credit cards monthly. Compounding interest will bury you when you have to pay it.

But, compounding interest will set you free to retire when you make it.

Early on, we couldn’t save any money. We weren’t making any money. But, we kept our heads above water. So that, when we did start making money, we could save some.

For some of us these lessons took early. For others, maybe we’re still struggling to fix our hair and get the house dusted and the toilets cleaned.

Even if we don’t do it ourselves we need to know what to hire out and what it’s supposed to look like.

My mom taught me. People ask me today if I can cook. Yes. But, why? I’ve got my things to do and Sara’s parents did a good job preparing her and together our house works.

They were preparing us to launch. The day was coming, we were going to graduate from high school, head to college or the military, and we had to be ready to function successfully when that happened.

Maybe some of us had roommates whose parents did’t do such a good job and we had to encourage it a little.

Now, we’ve done it for our children and maybe you’re working on preparing your grandchildren to launch.

Our parents wanted us to be ready, we want our kids to be ready. Life is hard. Things happen. Marriage is hard even when things are good. So, to be able to function as an adult takes pressure off and prepares us, sets us up to succeed in life.

Doing all these basic things is a sacrifice. They are hard.

Sacrificing spending to save and live w/in our means.

Sacrificing time and dignity to scrub our toilets.

Sacrificing energy and freedom to rake pine needles and pick up pine cones.

And, when you’re preparing your kids by teaching them these things, the sacrifices may well be in the battles to get them to get it done.

It’s hard. Life is is hard.

There is nothing pleasant nor easy about any of this. Especially, considering all the work there is to be done that is simply basic to adulting 101.

I’m sure my mom was looking forward to the day I moved out. Yes, she missed me.

But, there’s that saying that goes something like this. The reason God gives us teenagers is so we will be ready for them to move out and move on.

I wanted out. But, I wanted to be successful, too. I wanted to make it on my own.

Occasionally, an adult child needs to move back in. As family, we are always here for our kids. One of ours did. But we were even more ready for them to move out the second time.

We did our best to prepare our kids for the end. Our parents prepared us. We all looked forward to that day. We knew the preparation would be hard, but it would pay off in the end.

Now, as adult Christians, we are looking forward to another graduation. Another commencement ceremony. When we commence to begin to live forever in heaven.

That begins with the end here.

Just like we looked forward to the end, emptying our nest, Jesus is looking forward to the end. But He wants us to be prepared for it. In the meantime, it’s going to be hard.

We are in Luke 12. Jesus has been preparing his disciples, and us, for their future. His immediate concern has been for the establishment and leadership of the church once He’s gone. That was going to happen in the next few months.

But, He is also concerned about preparing all of us for the very end. We don’t know when that’s going to happen.

Even Jesus is looking forward to the end. He wants us to be prepared. And He warns us, in the meantime, it’s going to be hard.

Are we ready for the hard and are we ready for the end?

He began this teaching w/ an emphasis on the whole reason He came that may surprise us. We tend to focus on us, here and now. But, Jesus focus is much more than that.

Mission to Divide

Luke 12:49–53 NIV

“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Sometimes we tend to hyper focus on ourselves. Right now. Our life. Our troubles and conflicts and we gravitate toward the peace that Jesus offers us.

When He was born, the angels declared, “Peace on earth.” Obviously, not peace in the Middle East, or no more wars anywhere. But Jesus is the Prince of Peace and in Him we can experience peace even when life is dropping bombs all around us.

But what may get lost in that focus is the overall mission of Jesus. He came to divide us. Now, He will not complete His mission until the very end. One of the reasons why we focus on our peace right now.

God gave Jesus the authority and responsibility to judge all of us. That is, to know us, evaluate us. And the standard by which He will do so is faith. The judgment comes down to one thing. No actions. No behaviors. Just belief. He will do that at the very end. Every person will stand before Jesus and face His evaluation of their life.

And, fire is the symbol of judgment. The purity of something is tested with fire. When fired, the impurities burn up. What is left is only what’s good.

What will be left when your life goes thru the fire of judgment?

But Jesus came, and He includes the time he came 2000 years ago with the time when He will come again in the future, as one grand, extended coming, He came to divide the faithful from the unfaithful. Those who believe in God from those who don’t. Those who have surrendered their life to Him from those who have committed themselves to hanging onto their own life with a white-knuckled grip.

You remember your drivers’ education teacher who rode in the car w/ you? They are taught to watch the students’ hands on the steering wheel. If they are nervous or afraid they will grip the wheel so tightly they will not have control over the car.

When we grip our lives so tightly, we are afraid of losing control, but in reality we have no control b/c we cannot react to whatever is coming w/out crashing.

Jesus said here He wishes it was already the end of times when He could finish what HE came to do. Why?

B/C, it leads immediately to heaven. The kingdom. Paradise. Only those who believe. No Satan. No enemy. No demonic activity. No more tears. Nothing breaks, not our bodies nor our relationships. Blissful existence forever.

For those of us who believe and have received Jesus as Savior.;

While He wished we were already there, He knew He had work to do to get everyone ready for that time. Including, He had to go to the cross.

He spoke here of a baptism.

When we baptize ppl here, I take them thru a class and explain what baptism is. It was a common word used in the c.1. Usually, it was used by tailors and seamstresses who made clothes.

The standard cloth used, came from the wool of the sheep, it was always off-white.

If someone wanted a blue shirt, or red tunic, or purple coat; then the person making the clothes would literally baptize the cloth by immersing it in colored dye. It would come out looking different. From off-white, to a color.

Jesus must go thru the baptism of suffering, crux, and death. He will come out of his grave looking different. Being different. Not so much to the disciples. But He will look different to God in his resurrected body and wear that to heaven as His new body like we will receive when we get there ourselves.

He will be immersed into death and His grave but emerge changed.

This baptism not only accomplished what He needed to do, it provides us a way to be prepared for the end when Jesus divides everyone based on their faith.

His death on the cross atones for deficit we create between us and God b/c we sin. We are sinful. That causes a problem w/ God. Jesus solved that problem.

He redeemed us by paying for us w/ his life. When Jesus redeems us, He pays for us more that the cost of the deficit we have w/ God to more than cover our responsibility before God.

More on this in a minute.

Jesus is looking forward to the completed work and our final days afflicted by the corruption that Adam and Eve caused us.

While He is focused on the 2 different sides and the big divide will occur in the end, today we experience the hardship of the divide between family and friends who don’t believe like we do.

Many of us are experiencing the difficulty, the awkwardness, of someone chose to us who does not share the most important part of our life.

We can’t talk about our faith. We can’t talk about church. We can’t talk about what Jesus is doing in our life that day. We can’t talk about a great guest speaker who explained more about why a 2-state solution won’t work in the Middle East. We can’t talk about how his life changed when he came to faith as a young adult and it cost him everything. But how Jesus has helped him overcome the loss and given him even more now as a Xian than he ever had as a Muslim.

We can’t share those things. And, there are things about their life we can’t share either. There are parties, activities we can’t go to. Jokes we don’t laugh at. Drinks we don’t drink. Joints we don’t smoke.

Important things to them that we cannot get on board with but do our best to maintain the relationship.

Jesus understands. There were ppl back in the day He desperately wanted to be able to share His life with but they rejected Him. He didn’t reject anyone. He didn’t until they firmly and finally rejected Him. But they could have always returned and H would have accepted them then.

He warned us. We will experience pain as the ppl we care about won’t care about Jesus, our faith, or our church.

The division has already started. And it’s not going to get any easier.

Those of us who believer experience the peace of Christ w/ in us. The bombs may be bursting all around but we can sleep at night. We experience peace among fellow believers.

But, the divide leads to conflict that in many cases will never be resolved unless all parties agree and share the same faith.

Jesus is looking forward to the end. Until then, there will be painful divisions between us and some of our family and friends. And He wants us to be prepared for it.

It’s in the vein of being prepared He tells these next 2 stories. Both help us get ready for what’s coming.

Predicting the Weather

Luke 12:54–56 NIV

He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?

Wouldn’t you like to have been able to be as wrong as the weather ppl on TV and still be able to keep you job?

The problem for them is they are predicting too far into the future.

It’s monsoon season. When the dark clouds rise on the horizon, we can hear the thunder and the wind starts to blow, then we know it’s about to rain. But, it’s right there.

That’s what Jesus is saying here. When it’s obvious, the signs are clear, it’s all right there, then we know what’s about to happen. We maybe cannot tell too far into the future. But when it’s imminent we can be sure.

Likewise, when the sky is clear and wind is out of the south, it’s going to be hot.

Now, this Midwestern guy had to get used to the different weather patterns here in AZ. It wasn’t until recently I discovered the term monsoon literally means, wind shift.

In KS, TX, IN, AR, ND, and everywhere else there are civilized ppl, the weather travels from NW to SE. Occasionally you get a storm up from the gulf in the south. But that’s rare.

Here, the monsoons travel from east to west. The wind shifted. I’ve never lived anywhere where the rain came form the east.

Jesus, speaking to this agricultural society who were hugely dependent on the weather, knew how to predict what was about to happen. It was obvious.

Just like the daily weather, the signs of the time pointed directly and clearly to Jesus as God’s Messiah who had been expected and anticipated for centuries.

How could the so-called experts have missed this? How could the farmers miss predicting the rain that’s on the horizon?

Dan. 9:24-27. The Messiah will ride into Jerusalem 483 years to the day after Nehemiah was given the okay by the Persian king to return and rebuild the wall around Jerusalem.

They could do the math.

Micah 5:2. He will be born in Bethlehem

Is. 7:14. He will be conceived and born to a virgin.

Isaiah 9:6–7 NIV

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

Is. 40:3. He will be preceded into ministry by someone God sends to prepare the way, JB.

Is. 35:6. When the Messiah arrives,, the blind will see, the dumb will speak, the lame will walk. Miracles, otherwise unexplainable, will point to the Miracle-worker as the Messiah.

Isaiah 52:13–53:12 NIV

See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as there were many who were appalled at him— his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness— so he will sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand. Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

The religious leaders were experts in these passage. How did they miss what was going on right before their eyes?

No one before Jesus nor since has ever done any of these things. They all point to him as the One.

To begin w/, to be prepared for the end, recognize the signs of the times, the weather on the horizon, Jesus is the only One who could fulfill this therefore He is the One God sent to save us.

the first step in being prepared is recognize the obvious. It’s going to rain and Jesus is going reign.

There’s another important step to being prepared, though. Even the demons believe Jesus is who He says. But, they won’t end up on the right side in the end.

Not only must we recognize Him, we must accept Him and what He did for us so that the deficit between us and God is covered.

Pay What You Owe

Luke 12:57–59 NIV

“Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled on the way, or your adversary may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.”

Believe it. Believe in Him. Faith that He is Who He says He is, can do what he says He can do, and did what He did for you and why He had to.

Here Jesus uses a legal illustration.

Say you owe someone a lot of money but have been unable to repay it. So, they sue you and plan to take you to court.

Jesus said if you can make arrangements to pay what you owe before standing before the judge, then he will set you free.

If you don’t, then, at least in c.1, the judge would send you to debtors prison until you did pay it off.

In Jesus illustration, God is the judge and the one we owe.

There are only 2 ways to pay off our debt.

One way is w/ our own life. But that won’t cover the entire deficit. God will sentence you to eternity in Hell apart from Him, bound and restricted.

The other way is to pay by letting Jesus pay for you. Accept what He did for you. His life will cover. In fact, His life more than covers so God will set you free into an eternity in heaven.

Your choice. Everyone’s choice. this is the judgment that divides and the time when the separation is made, permanently.

Jesus is encouraging all of us to get our debt paid before we stand before the Judge so that He will set us free into a life of freedom and painless paradise forever.

Jesus came to divide us into 2 different sides. He demands, requires we choose. We have until the day we die to pick a side. But don’t wait. Predicting the day you die is about as accurate as predicting the weather this winter. Anybody’s guess as to how much snow we’ll get and when we’ll get it.

Jesus is looking forward to the end and all that it means for Him and us. And He is preparing us for it.

We just need to take advantage of what He’s offered so we’re ready.

We’ll be ready for the end and we’ll be ready for the difficulties we face until the end.

Applications

Painful Divide

If you have someone in your life you care about who does not share your faith so that you cannot share that part of your life with them, Jesus knows your pain.

There are many ppl who chose not to accept Him who He desperately wanted them to. He knows the pain of the rejection and separation.

Jesus not only IDs w/ your pain, He will carry your pain giving you the ability to think more clearly about how you can maintain that relationship in spite of the pain.

Let Him carry it for you. Talk to Him about it. Pray for the ppl you wish would share your faith.

Signs

Do you need any more signs than that ones I showed you?

The prophets wrote these things 400 to 600 years before Jesus showed up on the scene. If you will take the time to look honestly at the historical evidence of Christ you will come to the only possible conclusion you could.

If you need to, take the time to look at the evidence.

Even if you don’t need it, be encouraged that history supports your decision to believe Jesus to be Who He said He is.

Deficit

Is your deficit w/ God paid? It’s not enough simply to believe Jesus is the Son of God. Even the demons believe that.

To make things right w/ God we must accept Jesus’ death on the cross, His life for ours, to pay God for what we owe Him.

If we pay w/ our own life, it’s still not enough to keep us from being bound up for all eternity.

If we pay w/ Jesus’ life, He pays more than we owe thus guaranteeing our freedom forever.

Believe and receive. Finish so that you end up on the right side in the end.

Jesus has been preparing his disciples, and us, for their future. His immediate concern has been for the establishment and leadership of the church once He’s gone. That was going to happen in the next few months.

But, He is also concerned about preparing all of us for the very end. We don’t know when that’s going to happen.

These are the basics. This is adulting 101. Spend less than you make. Scrub your toilets once/week. Believe that Jesus is who He says He is and did what said He did for you and know why you need Him to do it.

Even Jesus is looking forward to the end. He wants us to be prepared. And He warns us, in the meantime, it’s going to be hard.

Are we ready for the hard and are we ready for the end?