Anticipation

Does anyone else here get excited easily?

Arika will tell you this but I get excited really easily

and one thing I get really excited for is Christmas

I have always been someone who gets excited for Christmas

and I remember as a child almost every night leading up to Christmas, I would always turn on family channel (Which now is freeform).

But they would have the 25 days of Christmas countdown where every night you would have a really good Christmas movies playing.

Like Elf (which you have to watch 10 times)

Santa Clause

And I remember as a kid this got me really pumped for Christmas,

they old claymation movies (which are interesting)

but every night as a kid (And probably an adult if I still had that channel) every movie that would play would get more and more excited about Santa coming and about Christmas finally being here.

I mean I was excited for Christmas.

But you know thats one of the great things about being human is we get excited about things that we are looking forward to.

You know if you remember your wedding day you were probably excited for it

Where you go lets

If you have ever had kids or grandkids the time leading up to it is exciting!

You know some of us might be excited because of a Christmas bonus that you might have coming!

Some of us are excited because we a close to retirement.

But we are people who naturally get excited when there is somthing to look forward to.

And in today we are in a passage that talks about something that we should be excited about and looking forward too!

and that is Christ coming.

and this has implications for our life on how we should be living now.

So turn with me to

And really some of you have probably heard this passage before and it kind of is one of those passages in the Bible thats a little scary

Its doesn’t sound like a very friendly passage, but this passage really does point us to the hope of Christ coming.

So once again the passage will be and it says:

Matthew 24:36–44 NIV

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

So like I said this is kind of an odd passage, but this whole passage is pointing toward Christ coming again, and that is something to be excited about,

And like I said whenever we are excited it tends to impact how we live.

But whats so odd in this passage is if you look at the passage as a whole it has this theme that the people are not focused in preparing for this event.

and so the first thing I want us to get is that we need to be focused on what we are called to do.

And what are we called to do?

If you look at the entire book of Matthew it says that we are called to share Christ love with people

In fact the entire book of Matthew ends by Jesus talking with His disciples saying (and if you know it say it with me) therefore go and make disciples of all nations.

and that word “therefore” means because of all that has been done,

Because I came as a baby

Because I died on the cross

Because I have defeated death

and now my spirit is dwelling in you,

and you have the ability to show this to the world

Because of all of this I am calling you to be a light in a dark world.

We are called to be a light to Buchanan and this world.

and we all have a different role in this but as the church as a whole we are called to bring people to Christ and help them and ourselves go deeper where our lives are being transformed for Christ

.

In fact if you know our churches mission statement it is “Transforming Lives Through Christ”

Because we believe that God is transforming our life and He wants us to be part of transforming others.

But here is the issue we get distracted and loose focus.

Look at verse 37 because it talks about the story of Noah’s Ark where the world gets flooded

and he is saying how the flood is getting ready to happen,

But everyone except Noah is out living life like nothing is going to happen.

It says the people are eating, drinking, people are getting married,

Which some of the things they were doing were not even wrong.

Getting married isn’t wrong

Eating is not to bad

But they were so caught up in the way they were living that they lost focus on who God is and how He was moving.

And can I just say it is so easy for this to happen to us.

Because we live life focused

because often times it doesn’t happen in this dramatic fashion where we renounce our faith and run away (Though sometimes it does)

But often times it happens where we are just living life and slowly slip away and loose focus on God’s calling in our life.

and this can even happen in the church because we get caught up in a lot of the church business (the finances, the events, and all of this stuff that keeps the church alive and is necasary)

But we allow it to take away from what God has called us to which is to change lives for Him.

And really I want to go a little deeper because it truthfully happens in our individual lives as well.

Because we get so caught up in just living that we loose focus and are blind to how God is moving.

You know if you have ever seen those black friday videos where someone gets trampled

a lot of times the reason it happens is because people get so into the moment that they literally are blind to the life that is being trampled underneath them.

But can I tell you that truthfully often times we get so caught up in living that we are are blind to the people around us that are drowning in their sin.

in fact look at verses 40-41 with me because it talks about how there are people working side by side

you k

It mentions how there are two men working in a field and two women working at a mill and all of the sudden only one of the men and one of the women are gone and the others are still there.

and there are a lot of different meanings that a lot of people dig into with this passage and I don’t want to get into all of that.

But what I want to point out is that there are two people that worked together probably saw each-other daily.

possibly for hours at a time.

but one person was considered righteous and the other wasn’t

and this is kind of a hard word

but we interact every day with lives that need Jesus.

and when we do not show them the light of Christ, we are doing them and ourselves a disservice.

Because there will be a day when Christ comes and we will be judged, but if we are not covered in the blood of Christ we are judged in our sin rather then the love that Christ poured out for us.

I mean we need to be focused on where God is calling us.

So how do we regain focus?

Look at verse 42 because it says “keep watch!”

So the first thing that we need to know is what is our mission is so we can stay focused on it.

and that actually doesn’t mean look for or try to figure out when this event is going to happen.

But really a good translation for that is be prepared.

And look what it says right after because it says “how if you own a home and you know that thief is going to come and rob your house you probably are not going to go to be prapared for when that robber comes.

I mean you guys have seen home alone right?

The kid in that movie is ready to take on those robbers.

But you know I think most of us would say yes if we knew a robber was coming to our house we would get ready.

But how much more should we be ready for Christ to come.

And really we have to be intentional about this.

because we have to prepare our hearts for Christ.

I once heard another pastor say He doesn’t believe people can loose there salvation, but he does believe people walk away.

and often times we walk away because we are not prepared, we are not having devotional time, we are not going deeper.

You know this series has a reading plan where it gives you different passages to read each week and its a great way to dive deeper in your walk with Christ.

We have a few small groups that meet in our church that you can get involved in.

But we need to be intentional on keeping ourselves rooted in our walk with Christ.

And you know as we start out the advent season this Sunday I want you to think about a question for me.

How can I go deeper in my walk with God this season?

How can I reduce the things that are distracting me in my walk with God

And finally how can we help others become the people God is calling them to me.

Because Advent really is a time where we prepare our hearts for the coming of Jesus Christ as a baby, but also we are looking forward to the second coming where he comes again and we get that picture we talked about last week where there is no more pain or sorrow but everyone is worshiping our God.

And today I just want us to begin this process of preparing ourselves for Christ.

And this is important because

And the way we are going to end today is a great way to start this.

Because we are going to end by receiving communion

and really communion is a great way for us to prepare our hearts for what God is doing in us.

Because when we receive communion we remember what Christ did for us when He died on the cross.

You know I mentioned in the beginning how this passage sounds a little scary when its talking about Noah and the flood sweeping everyone away,

But you know whats neat Christ coming is a little bit of a different flood.

Instead of a flood that comes and sweeps everyone away, It is the flood of His blood that is meant to save the lost.

And today We remember how Him coming changed our lives and the lives in this world forever

and so I am going to pray for us and I am going to invite us to receive communion and everyone who has accepted Christ in their life is welcome to receive communion.

So after I pray there will be people up front serving communion and I want to invite you to come forward and take the elements back to your seat and we will receive them together as the body of Christ.

Will you pray with me?

whenever we are excited about something it causes us to act differently.

You know as a kid I was excited for Christmas so I ended up watching a ton of Christmas movies,

I can guarantee that Scrooge wasn’t watching a bunch of Christmas movies leading up to Christmas because he hated Christmas

But what really interesting is you think these people