Sermon Tone Analysis

I forget where I was the day after Halloween, but I noticed something unmistakable.

I heard it faintly and found my self singing along to it, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack frost nipping at your nose.

But I was like wait, it is not even Thanksgiving yet.

Don’t they usually wait until after thanksgiving for the Christmas music to start?

I thinkthis the first year that we started Christmas season the day after Halloween instead of after Thanksgiving?

At this pace we will soon be having Christmas season year round, January 1st begins the next Christmas season.

Well this Sunday marks the first day a new season for the Church.

Today is the first day of Advent.

You will notice that we changed the decorations, the color is purple, representing royalty, because the season of Advent is about reliving the story of God’s people as they waited for the advent or coming of the king.

So during Advent we anticipate and remember when Jesus came as a baby in a manger, but as we heard in our readings there is also a future edge to Advent as well.

A waiting and anticipating when Jesus will come again.

Traditionally it is a time Christians have used to take stock of their lives, to prepare their hearts and lives for the arrival of the king, knowing that when Jesus comes again he will come to judge the world, and more than changing the decorations, we are to seek to straighten up and raise our heads as Jesus said, or “to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light” as John prayed this morning.

So that our lives are in order and prepared for his coming.

But here is the thing most of us don’t live in light that Jesus is coming again, either we think it wont happen, because it is so far off, because that is just pie in the sky, or we think what difference does it make for me as a Christian, I am saved, how would Jesus coming as judge change how I act now.

We are

Everyone should seek to live a blameless life, but some times we don’t know

Develop the idea that we should love blameless lives

This morning what I hope we see is that because Jesus is coming again we should seek to, as Jesus said, straighten up our lives.

We need Jesus to come again as judge.

But we have problems with this idea, first if we are Christians, we think what need is there for me to be judged?

Or maybe it is not whether or not a judgement is needed, but maybe the idea of God judgement is just offensive.

How could a loving God judge people and send them to hell?

Jesus is coming again as judge we should live blameless lives.

So first,

Why Because Jesus will come again as judge

Jesus comes to bring Justice

In We read

So earlier we read Jesus talking about the last judgment and he says referring to himself

Zecharia

As we read in Acts

Zechariah was a prophet before the time of Jesus and so inspired by God he sees a vision of the future day when God will come and vanquish the enemies of God’s people.

Where he will judge the world.

Where everyone will one day have to give account to God, and their eternal fate will be assigned.

In a vision he is seeing judgment day, the day when God will put right all the wrong that is in the world.

Where everyone will one day have to give account to God, and their eternal fate will be assigned.

Now maybe you are sitting here and thinking, whew I am not sure, maybe your like most people in America and think I don’t know if a loving God would really judge people.

Matthew 25:41-

Surely a loving God cannot also be a judging God.

people sometimes object to God’s judgment, because you might think that a loving God would not be a judging God.

One of the most common objections to Christianity is that a loving God would not be a judging God

But here is the thing it is precisely because God is loving that he comes to bring justice in the world.

We know this reality, that those who love deeply will sometimes be filled with red hot anger.

Those mamma bears out there know this, if someone messes with your baby they will surly feel your wrath.

And take that feeling and make it cosmic and infinite and you have a sense of God’s love and also anger at injustice.

And God’s love is so great for humanity, for his creation, that he is angry with the evil in this world.

If he were somehow indifferent to evil, he would not be loving.

Illustration:

Miroslav Volf, a Yale professor, in his book Exclusion and Embrace writes about God’s judgment.

He was born in Croatia and saw some of the most horrific evil and injustice done to his people durring the wars in the 90’s.

And in his book talks about how the judgment of God helps us live peaceable today,

And he said this:

if God were not angry at injustice and did not make the final end to violence God would not be worthy of our worship...in a world of violence we are faced with an inescapable alternative: either God’s violence or human violence.

Most people who insist on God’s “nonviolence” cannot resist using violence themselves (or tacitly sanctioning its use by others).

Some deem the talk of God’s judgment irreverent, but think nothing of entrusting judgment into human hands, persuaded presumably that this is less dangerous and more humane than to believe in a God who judges!

That we should bring “down the powerful from their thrones” () seems responsible; that God should do the same, as the song of that revolutionary Virgin explicitly states, seems crude.

And so violence thrives, secretly nourished by belief in a God who refuses to wield the sword.

Then he paints this picture

Imagine that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone.

Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit.

The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward violence.

The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love.

Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge.

In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, that view will invariably die.

Application:

Volf Quote

Application:

Jesus is coming again, and when he does he will put an end to evil, every thing that is wrong will be put to right, and there is great comfort in knowing that all the evil that has been perpetrated against you God will deal with one day.

We don’t have to take vengeance into our own hands, we can know that the one who has slandered your reputation, or cheated, or harmed you or abused you will have to stand before the judgment seat of Jesus.

Every one of us will have to give an account to God.

There is no one who gets away with evil.

And because Jesus will come to bring justice it means we don’t have to take vengeance into our own hands we can allow God to be the judge, and we can know that he will vindicate things.

But we also know that while every one has been sinned against, we also know we are not always the innocent party.

We can live peaceable lives now because we know that things will be put to rights

And

Jesus coming to bring justice also means that everyone will have to give an account.

And if you are like me and struggle to live up to your own standards how much more do we fall short of God’s standards.

We will have to give an account for every thing thought, every action and every word.

God’s word says:

or as Jesus said:

As Jesus said:

Luke

Luke 12:2

and in another place he said:

and in another place he said:

Jesus will come again and when he does we will have to give an account to him.

Knowing that all will be revealed with Jesus returns again should cause us to as John prayed this morning to “cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

We can as we say every Sunday, all our problems, we seed to the cross of Christ.

Jesus will come again and when he does we will have to give an account to him.

Knowing that all will be revealed with Jesus returns again should cause us to as John prayed this morning to “cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

To think twice about

How will we face God in that moment when all is revealed, when we stand at his last judgment?

For every We should as we prayed this morning, “cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Well, Jesus comes not only to judge, but also

But this is a misunderstanding of what is happening.

The common notion of the last judgment is that God is tossing people into hell against their wills, and that he is like “sorry your too late,” But this is not the case.

But this is not the case, humanity was created to live in loving relationship with God, dependent on him to live, love, and find joy, but

Humanity was created to live in loving relationship with God, dependent on him to live, love, to flourish, and find joy with him, and so the further you get from his presence the more hell you experience.

Jesus describes hell as fire, something that causes burning or disintegration.

Tim Keller describes hell this way:

Even in this life we can see the kind of soul disintegration that self-centeredness creates.