Advent 2020 - 6 - The Finale

Advent 2020   •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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HBI: When Jesus left this earth, He promised to come back for those who follow Him and judge those who do not, so be prepared.

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20-12-24 The Finale
HBI: When Jesus left this earth, He promised to come back for those who follow Him and judge those who do not, so be prepared. 
The Intro
“spoiler alert”, what would you do if you knew the outcome of events that come? Most people do not like spoilers when it comes to movies and books and such. 
When you see a spoiler like that, you usually stay clear, that is unless you have seen the movie or read the book before. 
But what would you do if you knew what was going to happen in the future? Most people would bet on the outcome so they could live a life of luxury. 
This is what happened to Former ImClone CEO Samuel Waksal and Martha Stuart.  December 2001, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would not approve a new cancer drug called Erbitux from the pharmaceutical company ImClone. As a result, the company's stock dropped rapidly. While many investors experienced losses because of the drop, family and friends of the CEO were unharmed. The SEC later discovered that prior to the announcement of the FDA's decision, numerous executives had sold their stock based on the instructions of Waksal, who had also attempted to sell his own stock.
In fact, just days before the announcement was made, Martha Stewart had sold 4,000 shares of the company. Stewart made nearly $250,000 on the sale. It was revealed that her broker, tipped her off that ImClone's stock was likely going to drop. Waksal was arrested and sentenced to more than seven years in prison and fined $4.3 million in 2003. In 2004, Stewart and her broker were also found guilty of insider trading. Stewart was sentenced to a minimum of five months in prison and fined $30,000.
There are times when acting on knowledge of the future is illegal and you can get in trouble. But there are times when we are told to act on the knowledge of future events that we have. 
We are told of future events, spoiler alerts, in the bible and we are told to act on them. It is no big secret what is going to happen in the future, and we are told to do something about it. 
The last promise that I wanted to focus on in this advent series is the promise that God Gave us that Jesus is coming again for a second time and there are two different things that are going to happen that demand our attention right now. 
Considering this we are told to prepare, use the information we have been given, do something about it! So, what is this future promise that we are to act on?
The promise
There is a promise that God has given us that there is going to be a messiah and what this means for our lives. 
We have been looking into what the first coming of the first coming of the messiah meant for us, the hope and pace that it brought. 
When Jesus died and rose again, He met with His disciples and gave the promise that they He was going to come back again some day in the same way that He left. 
The main idea we are going to looking at today is that Jesus is going to come back to reign as the righteous king which means that he is going to judge those guilty of their sin from those who have trusted in Him. The finale is coming, and we know how it will end. 
This is another part of the gospel that we have, though one that not everybody likes to hear.
Psalm 110:1,5-7 ⌊This is⌋ the declaration of the LORD to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool.” 5 The Lord is at Your right hand; He will crush kings on the day of His anger. 6 He will judge the nations, heaping up corpses; He will crush leaders over the entire world. 7  He will drink from the brook by the road; therefore, He will lift up His head.
The Messiah who is sitting at the right hand of God will one day come back to judge the world and save His own people. 
This is an extraordinarily strong image that we have been given. Many people even ask How a righteous God could judge people like this. 
But God would cease to be righteous and good if He did not hold accountable those who broke the law that He created and refused to accept the forgiveness that was so freely offered to all people. 
This is where the other side comes into play in all of this. We go to the book of John to see the promise for those that trust in Jesus 
John 14:1-4 1  “Your heart must not be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also. 4 You know the way ⌊to⌋ where I am going.”
So we have two messages, one really scary and the other a joyful message. One saying the nations will be judged and the other saying to not be troubled because if You believe in God and Jesus as His sone than there is something great waiting for you. 
We start out with Psalm 110, which is a Psalm, about the coming Messiah. But how can we know this for sure, that it is about the messiah?
Well, we go to Verse 1 to see what this means. Psalm 110 is a Psalm written by King David. This is important aw we investigate what the passage is telling us. 
Verse 1 starts out by saying that This is the declaration of the Lord. David is telling us that God is telling Him something. That the following verses are directly from God. 
The word for Lord first used here is Jehovah, the proper name for God which they could never out of respect write out completely. 
So God told David, the king of Israel something. The Lord said to my Lord. The same word used twice with two different meanings. The first referring to God. 
The second translates as Adonai. Which is a word used for master or King. Many people where called Lord. But David, the king of Israel to call someone else Adonai could only refer to the messiah, the foretold king and savior. 
God told David that there was going to be a promised messiah who would one day come as King. God was revealing to David something, talking to the future messiah revealing what his reign was going to look like. 
This king that is going to come is going to be the king of kings. Also, He is going to be co-ruler with God. Sit at my right hand. Back then the right hand was a place of privilege and distinction. 
The picture that comes next is making your enemies a footstool. Not literal but a picture of conquering and subjugation of your enemies, 
The conquering King is going to rule and there will be no one left to come against Him for He will conquer them all. 
I want to jump ahead to vs 5-7. The tell us that the messiah will crush the earthly kings, it tells us that He will come to judge the nations and heap up their corpses. 
The coming messiah King is going to be a judge for the nations to all those who go against His righteous rule. Those that were enemies of the righteous messiah King are going to face judgement for what they have done. 
This was a promise of God to the Israelites and to us. But we also have the hope and peace that was promised to us as well, how does then this all line up with a loving God?
That is where we move to Jesus, the promised Messiah. We have been going through the promises of God fulfilled in Jesus and what that means for our lives. 
Now Jesus had not and has not fulfilled this yet but we look into His life to get the other side of this story. 
Jesus, we know, fulfilled the prophecies of the messiah and was who the bible said He was. So therefore, the Israelites would have known tis prophecy to be true about Him as well. 
Well, when Jesus was leaving this earth, after His death He did promise to come back in the same way He left. So, we know this promise of making His enemies into a footstool, judging people for their sin is yet to come. 
But there is another side to this promise that we read about in John 14:1-4 1  “Your heart must not be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also. 4 You know the way ⌊to⌋ where I am going.”
Though we hear of coming judgement that is promised for those who do not believe in Jesus we hear Jesus building on that saying do not let your hearts be troubled. 
How is it though through this scary message that we are to not let our hearts be troubled by what they hear? 
Well Jesus said Believe in God, Believe in Me. That is where our great hope comes from. And the main reason why is in verse 2 In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you
Now traditionally this has been interpreted as mansions, In my fathers house there are many mansions, This comes from the KJV of the bible. Now adays we have a better understanding of what this word means. 
If we look at archaeology, we can get a clue into the meaning of the word. The relationship between Jesus and the church is likened to a marriage. The bride and the bridegroom. 
Ancient Israelite houses where almost always built on two levels. The top floor was used for sleeping. The bottom had a kitchen, a spare room for sleeping, visiting, or housing guests and sometimes a room that the animals would come into at night. 
When a man would get betrothed to be married, he would tell His future bride and bridal party to get ready and then He would go to build a room onto his parent’s house for them to move into. He would not tell her when, for he did not really know. He just told her that she needed to be ready at a moments notice to get married. 
This is what this passage means, that Jesus went to go prepare a place for us, not our own mansion on a hilltop on our own. 
But like one big family, all squeezed together in one house worshipping the Lord our God for all of eternity. 
The Application
The fulfillment for this has not happened yet. But what we do know, spoiler alert, we know the future. People who knew the beforehand, had insider info on what it was going to do tried to play the odds and bet on a sure thing. 
If you knew the next winner of the Super Bowl, or the next longshot winner of the next sports event the likelihood of you betting on it is probably high. 
Well, we know how life is going to end and we are told what to do about it. What is at stake is eternity. The promise of God is that Jesus came, died for our sin, and then went to prepare a place for us that follow Him so that we could be with Him for eternity. 
It all starts with a relationship with Jesus. Jesus told His followers that He is the way, the truth and the life. That no one has any chance of entering eternity with the Father except through a relationship with Him. 
Eternity is on the line here for all people. We have a great hope and excitement that we work towards, and that is eternity with Jesus. 
Or we have the worry of eternity with Gods’ wrath. One day Jesus is going to come back, and we need to be prepared to bow down before Him.
This should calm our troubled heart if we are followers of Jesus. But how does it help? 
Dr. James M. Gray put it beautifully in a song he wrote years ago: “Who could mind the journey, when the road leads home?” The assurance of a heavenly home at the end of life’s road enables us to bear joyfully with the obstacles and battles along the way. It was this assurance that even encouraged our Lord, “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2). Paul had this truth in mind when he wrote
Romans 8:18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 
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