What time is it?
Notes
Transcript
Time is one of our most precious commodities. There are only 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute. We cannot add more to or subtract any from those established limits of time.
If you could peak into the future would you want to? Sometimes I think it would be great to know what the future holds for me. After thinking about it though I realized that it could be absolutely terrifying if I could see into the future. I have learned that it is not so important to try to learn what the future holds, but it is far more important to know who holds the future.
When I am doing an assessment on a client at work I always ask them what their plans or goals for the future are. I ask them what do you want to be doing 5 or 10 years down the road.
Very rarely do I have someone tell me that they don’t know. Most tell me they want to be living healthy lives with a good job, a home and a family.
Admirable goals, achievable goals. They are goals that they can witness becoming reality as they change their lives and learn how to live free from substance abuse.
Mark tells us in his Gospel:
14 After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee announcing God’s good news,
Galilee was the crossroads of southwest Asia. If you were headed to Egypt you passed through Galilee. If you were headed to the Ease, you passed through Galilee. If you were headed to Rome you passed through Galilee. Lots of wars were fought there. Great armies had passed through there.
Here is Jesus, coming into this great crossroads of Israel and Mark writes that he is announcing God’s good news.
What do you do when you hear good news? Do you keep it to yourself or do you want to tell someone else?
Our natural reaction to good news is to tell somebody about it. We don’t put it off, we want to share with others. Now there are some people who are very private people and they don’t want other people to know what is going on in their lives.
My dad was one of those people who was very private and didn’t want other people to know what he was going on in his life. From the time that I was aware, if my dad did something for the church he always told the pastor to not tell anyone or he’d never do anything again. He didn’t want the recognition and he didn’t like people to make a fuss over something that he did or purchased for the church. That was how he lived his life. If something good happened in my dad’s life he never let others know about it.
There are other people who are the exact opposite and they share everything that is happening in their lives. Some of that stuff they share falls in the category of to much information.
We have the greatest news of all time and it’s the message that is recorded in Mark’s gospel who recorded these words:
15 saying, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!”
One of my favorite contemporary authors, David Platt, a pastor and missional leader was writing how Christians are reaching Muslims in countries where it is illegal to openly evangelism Muslims. Platt wrote “Their goal is to sew threads of the gospel into the fabric of every interaction with Muslims.”
I was really impacted by that quote because that is how we should live our lives every day. We should “sew the threads of the gospel into the fabric of every interaction.” We have the opportunity to share the gospel with every interaction that we have with someone. We may not openly preach; and we probably shouldn’t, but we can by our actions share the gospel or live out the gospel.
We have the greatest news of all times and God has entrusted that news with us. What are we doing with it?
The reason that it is good news is that God has come to us. Jesus said “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!
We have to be careful that we don’t just believe part of what Jesus said there and skip a portion of it. Mark writes as if he is in a hurry to get the good news out there. We can be tempted to read through his short Gospel as fast as he is writing. We need to slow down and pay attention to what he is saying.
Jesus said two things there, the first is to repent, change your heart and lives. To repent means to change your mind about something and turn around and head in the other direction. It’s easy to skip over that part and go straight to the easy part which is to believe.
It’s easy to believe. It’s easy to say that I believe in God. Our belief in Jesus must be accompanied by action and that first action is to repent. James wrote about faith and action. He wrote in chapter 2 of his letter these words from The Message:
14 Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? 15 For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved 16 and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? 17 Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? 18 I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, “Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department.” Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove. 19 Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That’s just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them? 20 Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?
Believing the good news that Jesus spoke about means putting that belief, that faith into action. If we don’t repent, if we just believe we’re missing out and we will face the judgment of God. If all we teach and preach is to believe then we are short changing those that we are trying to bring into the Kingdom. We have to balance the two.
I am appalled by people who live in the public eye who talk about their faith in God, but then they go on and live like God has made no difference in their lives.
Politicians are very good at that. They think that if they say they are Catholic, Methodist, or Episcopalian that people are going to believe them and follow them. The really sad thing is that they will often use a Bible verse or two and use it totally out of context or they will say that they are praying for someone that people will believe that they are people of great faith.
They will talk about their faith out of one side of their mouth. They will say how important it is in their daily lives but then they will say that their faith will not impact how they vote on a particular subject or if it is a judge, how they will rule on a particular issue.
You cannot have it both ways. You either have faith that is lived out daily or you don’t have faith at all. That is what James was talking about.
We don't like to talk about judgment. I certainly don't want to go back to the days of hell-fire and damnation type of preaching. I grew up in that style of preaching as did many of you and scaring people into heaven is not the way to make true disciples of Jesus Christ.
I've become more convinced in recent years that we can't be true to our Holiness heritage, in the belief in a Holy God who loves us and extends his grace freely to us without dealing with the issue of God's judgment.
If all we hear is about the positive aspects of God but don't ever talk about and point out the consequences of not accepting what God has to offer then why would anyone want to accept what God is offering?
I read an interview recently with a very popular TV preacher and the person interviewing him said that some complained that he never spoke about the judgment of God or the consequences of sin. His reply was that people had too much negative stuff in their lives already so he didn't want to add anymore to them.
I agree partly with what he said, people do experience a lot of negative stuff in their lives. But you know that's just part of living.
What could be more caring and loving on our part, on a pastor's part to tell people that there is a God who loves them, who sent Jesus to walk among us, to die on the cross taking our sins with Him, who was raised to life again, ascended into heaven and is going to come again someday to gather His church and judge the world?
I firmly believe that it is wrong and a false gospel to only tell people that God loves them and He wants them to be healthy and wealthy and prosper. Tell that to the Apostles who all with the exception of John were killed for their faith in Jesus. Tell that to a great many of the early church leaders who were killed for their faith. Tell that to the thousands of Christians in Muslim countries today that are killed for their faith in Jesus Christ every year. Are they healthy, wealthy and prosperous? Certainly not in the definition of the world. Why should we measure God's love and grace to us based on some arbitrary western United States standard?
Now I want to be clear, I do believe that God wants the best for us, I don't believe that God is against us being healthy or earning all we can and being happy. But that is not the ultimate goal in our lives. There are too many teachers and preachers that suggest that our goal in life is to be healthy, wealthy and happy. That is missing out on God's desire for us. Our goal in life is holiness, not of our own design, but God's holiness within us as we are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. All the rest of that is just added benefits.
Remember the words of Paul
3 Bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing that comes from heaven.
God has blessed us already with every spiritual blessing that comes from heaven. We don’t get that blessing from sending seed money to someone. We get those spiritual blessings we we surrender our lives and make Jesus Lord of our lives.
We heard read for us this morning from the Old Testament book of Jonah. There are those who question whether it was a real account of actual events or whether it was a story told to make a point. We're not going to delve into that controversy, but let's talk about Jonah and the people of Nineveh that Jonah was sent to preach too.
The story of Jonah is such a well-known story that we might be quick to miss some very import truths in it. We're jumping in here in chapter 3 after the key portion of the story that most everyone knows, Jonah being swallowed by the big fish. Back in verse one of chapter one we find out how Jonah got into this situation, it says:
1 The Lord’s word came to Jonah, Amittai’s son: 2 “Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their evil has come to my attention.”
I don't think God could have told Jonah to go to any worse place in the world than Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian empire, the arch enemies of the Israelites. It was located on the Tigris river in what is modern day Iraq. One commentator wrote that "Nineveh was the epitome of everything Jonah hated in the Gentile world. It was a synonym for Godless tyranny. It was an idolatrous, sin-ridden city in Jonah’s mind, and nothing was more repulsive or repugnant than going there to preach repentance."
We know the story, Jonah heads in the opposite direction. The Bible tells us that he heads to the Israel coast, to the city of Joppa and gets on a ship bound for Tarshish. Tarshish was literally the other end of the world from Nineveh. It was located most believe on the west coast of the modern country of Spain. You couldn't go any further west than that.
I'll skip over the story about the fish, you know it well. Ultimately Jonah is in a place where God speaks to him a second time and he says in our text:
“Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
Jonah obeyed God this time and he went to Nineveh. He had some time to think about how he was going to carry this mission out. Jonah was from just near Nazareth and Nineveh was about 500 miles from his home. Jonah is somewhere on the coast so he's even further from Nineveh.
I'm pretty sure that during that journey that lasted a great many days that Jonah gave a lot of thought of how he was going to preach against that city. All the hatred that he had within him for the Assyria's was going to come out.
I can almost imagine him going like when you tell one of your kids to go clean their room or go and do their homework. They don't want to, they try every trick in the book to avoid it and you finely sternly tell them to go and they stomp off muttering "I'm going but I'm not going to like it!" as they emphasize every word and stomp off to their room.
That's what Jonah did, he stomped off muttering that he was going, that he was going to obey but he wasn't going to like it.
The Bible tells us:
3 And Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, according to the Lord’s word. (Now Nineveh was indeed an enormous city, a three days’ walk across.) 4 Jonah started into the city, walking one day, and he cried out, “Just forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on mourning clothes, from the greatest of them to the least significant. 6 When word of it reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, stripped himself of his robe, covered himself with mourning clothes, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he announced, “In Nineveh, by decree of the king and his officials: Neither human nor animal, cattle nor flock, will taste anything! No grazing and no drinking water! 8 Let humans and animals alike put on mourning clothes, and let them call upon God forcefully! And let all persons stop their evil behavior and the violence that’s under their control!” 9 He thought, Who knows? God may see this and turn from his wrath, so that we might not perish.
Can you just imagine seeing this stranger entering Washington D.C. and begins preaching? His message is short and sweet, "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown." He doesn't mince any words and gets straight to the point, you've got 40 days and your city is done for!
As we see, they believed his message, the Bible says:
5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on mourning clothes, from the greatest of them to the least significant. 6 When word of it reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, stripped himself of his robe, covered himself with mourning clothes, and sat in ashes.
What an awesome evangelistic campaign that was. We have revival services today and it's just the church people who come, a few come to the altar and after the services are over we pat ourselves on the back and say wasn't that great but there is no real change in the church and no one from the community was reached. Jonah walks into town and everyone hears the message and they turn to God. Truly an amazing experience.
I'd urge you to read the rest of this book of Jonah and see his response to what happened.
Rereading Jonah this week has really reminded me of God's grace. The Assyrian's were the enemies of God's chosen people. They deserved whatever was coming to them. God instead reached out to them with a message of repentance and grace and the people responded. How long it latest we don't know. Ultimately after their last great king died they nation was conquered by others. But for a period of time God's grace was demonstrated to the Assyrians.
I was reminded of a verse from the Hymn "This Is My Father's World". As I was writing my sermon this verse of that hymn came to my mind, it says:
This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.
Sometimes the wrong in this world seems oh so very wrong. There are times that we want to ask God to just end it all and hurl fire and brimstone down upon all the evil and just wipe it out. The hymn writer reminds us that God is still the ruler.
What would your response be if God told you to go to your worst enemy and love them and tell them about the God who loves them? Would you rush off to the other ends of the world like Noah did?
There is going to be a judgment one day. The Apostle John was given a glimpse of it in the Revelation. Listen to what he wrote:
11 Then I saw a great white throne and the one who is seated on it. Before his face both earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. Another scroll was opened too; this is the scroll of life. And the dead were judged on the basis of what was written in the scrolls about what they had done. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and the Grave gave up the dead that were in them, and people were judged by what they had done. 14 Then Death and the Grave were thrown into the fiery lake. This, the fiery lake, is the second death. 15 Then anyone whose name wasn’t found written in the scroll of life was thrown into the fiery lake.
What is the challenge for us today from the scriptures?
Jesus said in the passage from Mark that was read to us earlier:
15 saying, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!”
Paul said in the passage from his letter to the Corinthians that was read to us earlier:
29 I do want to point out, friends, that time is of the essence. There is no time to waste, so don’t complicate your lives unnecessarily. Keep it simple—in marriage,
What did God tell Jonah to do? He said: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you." I believe that God was saying Go Now, not next week, not next year, but Go, get moving.
Do you see the sense of urgency in each of the three scriptures? I don't believe that the urgency should be driven solely by the knowledge of the coming judgment. It certainly factors in there.
I believe the urgency should be driven by the fact that God has extended His grace and mercy and love to us. We are recipients of that grace and mercy and love. That should motivate us to share it with others with a sense of urgency because as Paul said "time is short".
There is a judgment coming you and I as well as everyone who has lived and who will come after us will be judged one day by God. Is our name written in that book of life or not? If it's not we will be eternally separated from God, in that lake of fire that John describes, in Hell.
Time is short, as we pray for those in our Treasure Chest here, it's ok to remind God that time is short and we want to see these people brought into the Kingdom. We want to see them repent and believe the Good News!
What is that good news? God loves his creation. He loved his creation so much that God has come to us in the person of Jesus Christ, demonstrating for us how to live a life pleasing to God. He died on the cross, taking our sins with him there, resurrected by the mighty power of God and has now ascended to heaven. He's sent his Holy Spirit to convict us and point us to God so that we can believe that Good News. Someday soon God in Jesus Christ is coming back again to claim his bride, the Church. That's the Good News! That's the Good news! That's the good news that our world so desperately needs to hear today.
The politicians keep telling us that if we only elect them then they'll fix everything and all will be well. My hope and faith is not in any one of them. My hope and faith is in Jesus Christ who died for me. There is no time to wait, time is short. There is no time to be reluctant like Jonah who ran when God called him. The time is now to Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and to teach them because Jesus is with us through the mighty power of the Holy Spirit.