Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

What an incredible truth that we celebrate as Christians: Joy to the world - the Lord has come!

As we conclude our time this advent season, we’re going to look a different direction this morning.

Traditionally in advent, we celebrate the coming of Jesus and the various prophecies concerning His coming, the themes surrounding His life, and the stories of Christmas throughout Scripture.

Today, we’re going to examine the opposite end of advent.

Last Sunday evening we had a wonderful time of worship as our children and students helped lead us through the Christmas story and we saw with our own eyes the excitement of Jesus’ birth as the Savior had come.

One of the things that was stressed in our time of worship, though, was that the promise in Scripture to the church is not only that Jesus came but also that He will come again!

How many of you are familiar with Isaac Watts’ version of “Joy to the World?” Joy to the World is a beloved Christmas tune and one that is sung in nearly every church at least once in December!

Did you know that the song is not specifically in reference to Jesus’ birth, though?

Before you grab your tomatoes and pitchforks, look with me at the lyrics of the song.

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room

And heaven and nature sing”

Whenever Jesus came, as we examined last Sunday in Isaiah 53, Jesus wasn’t received as king… He was rejected.

He was despised.

People didn’t prepare Him any room - in fact there was no room for this Jesus.

The song continues in the 3rd verse with an even stronger statement.

“No more let sins and sorrows grow

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found”

No more let sins and sorrows grow… Whenever you and I look to our left and right, what do we see?

Sins and suffering!

The curse of Genesis 3 is still in full effect everywhere we go.

Verse 4 adds to the confusion

“He rules the world with truth and grace

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness

And wonders of His love”

He rules the world… Whenever Jesus came the first time, He came as the suffering servant.

What is Jesus doing presently?

He is ruling and reigning.

We know that God raises nations up and He lowers nations down to reveal His glory and sovereign power.

So what is this beloved hymn talking about?

It’s talking about the second coming of our Lord and Savior.

So why do we sing this song at Christmas?

Because you don’t have a second coming without a first coming.

You don’t have a reigning king without a suffering servant.

Christmas is almost always tied to looking backward but during Advent we look backward and forward.

We look back at what Jesus did.

We rejoice and give thanks because of His first coming… But we can’t always keep our eyes in the rearview mirror.

What would happen if you drove down I-44 to Springfield only looking in your rearview mirror?

You’d crash your car, and you probably wouldn’t make it very far before that happened.

Why?

Because your focus isn’t on what’s in front of you.

A car’s rearview mirror is relatively small compared to your windshield.

Likewise, we must look back as Christians and be reminded of God’s faithfulness and promises… But we can’t just keep our eyes in the rearview.

We press forward with our eyes focused on Jesus and we eagerly anticipate His return.

We keep our eyes on Jesus and on the mission He has called us to join Him on.

Let’s read this morning out of the book of Acts in Acts 1:4-14

Again, in this season of Advent we celebrate the coming of Jesus.

We also look ahead to His return, to His second coming!

You see in your outline that today we’re going to be looking at our response to the certainty of Jesus’ return.

While we don’t know when that will be, in the mean time we can be 3 things:

Be Certain of Your Standing (4-8)

Over the last 2 years, many things have changed.

How many of you like change?

For the majority of us, change is hard!

We don’t necessarily enjoy it and whenever you have a lot of it in a short amount of time, you can get anxious and nervous about just about everything in your life.

It is estimated that 1 in 3 American adults are displaying signs of clinical anxiety and depression today.

People have more but are less certain, happy, content, and hopeful regarding where they are at and where they are going.

This is even true of people who attend church!

We are living in uncertain times and in a season of uncertainty everywhere we look, we need an anchor to hold us firm in the storm.

We need to be certain of something.

What are some things that you are certain of?

Kids, you learn in school at a young age that 2 + 2 = 4.

You can be certain that 2 + 2 will always = 4. Couples, you can be certain that your spouse loves you.

All of us can be certain that eventually we’re going to get something called snow in the months to come because winter in the Ozarks means you get snow.

We can be certain of somethings in life - even in a season of uncertainty.

The most comforting thing that you can be certain of is that God is faithful to His promises and He is with His children.

God is good.

God cannot lie.

God is faithful, friends!

We read in Acts 1 a promise from Jesus for His followers.

He promises them that they will be filled/baptized with the Holy Spirit and that He will impart His power to them as they witness for Jesus throughout the world.

The promise from Jesus was that they would not be alone.

The command was to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come.

What’s the problem here?

As humans, we don’t like to wait.

We’re a society that’s going going going and sometimes even the microwave is too slow for our liking!

We also don’t always like to follow instructions.

Yesterday, millions of people in our country celebrated Christmas and opened presents of different shapes and sizes.

Leading up to Christmas, there can be some temptations.

We walk past the Christmas tree and we see presents wrapped below.

We walk past mom and dad’s room and see some wrapping paper and amazon packages nearby and the temptation to sneak a peak creeps into our mind.

Why is this the case?

In part, because we naturally disobey rules as humans.

We like to be our own person and we like to do things on our time, and not on others.

With Christmas, though, you know that eventually you will get to open the presents.

Eventually your waiting will come to an end.

What Jesus asks His disciples to do is difficult.

He says to stay in Jerusalem and wait.

Whenever we wait there can be two extremes that we fall into: On the one hand we might think that God has forgotten about us or we might press ahead because we’ve simply grown tired of waiting or because we think that we know best.

We think either that God doesn’t care or that we don’t need God’s help.

We either forget or we rush.

Waiting is hard!

Friends, God has a purpose in your season of waiting.

While these disciples were waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit, if you are a Christian this morning, you’ve already been filled with the Holy Spirit.

You are sealed today.