Barry Unwin venue: The Good Shepherd Church, Hook 27/11/16
Matthew 24:36 to 44
36“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39and 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. 40Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43But 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. 44So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
Revelation 20: 11 to 21:5
11Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. 14Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”
Saturday is the busiest morning of the week in our household, as we get the kids off to various sports events. Yesterday was slightly easier than usual because James – my eldest – was playing rugby for his school in Worcester – which he can do on the bus. He was only playing that because his game for Gloucester – which would have been away in Burton upon Trent – was postponed.
BUt with at least three kids heading out most Saturdays life can get pretty hectic – and people sometimes ask – how do you cope? And the answer is – we plan and we prepare. Friday night is a round of checking:
- football kit in bag – check.
- Shin pads – Check.
- Boots – Check and so on.
So that come Saturday we’re ready. We’re prepared and we can jump in the car and go.
All except one of my kids. Despite several years of encouragement to get his act together – he stubbornly refuses to be ready. Apparently the last minute rush of getting his kit together gets his adrenaline going – which I guess helps compensate for regularly missing the pre-match warm-up.
Being ready for something that is a regular, fixed date in the calendar –8:40am on a Saturday –should be easy. But what about being ready for something that’s going to happen at an unknown time? That’s a different sort of challenge.
But it’s exactly the challenge Jesus gives us –in that reading from Matthew 24 That prophecy about Jesus return. Are you ready?
“Ready for what?” you might ask? The advent of Jesus.
Advent means arrival – and with four weeks to go to Christmas – I guess that’s starting to become something of a preoccupation. Anyone brave Worcester yesterday? We have prayer available later. And yet actually Advent isn’t just about Christmas – It’s about us reminding ourselves of the need to prepare for his return in glory on judgement day.
So what I want to do today is use our various readings To explore the who, when, why and what of Advent. So let’s start with:
1)Why do we need to get ready?
For that we need to think back to our first reading – From Genesis 3. That tragic tale of the origin of our broken world. Let’s not worry about the talking snake– instead focus on the underlying idea – that our God is a Father who made a perfect home for his children – that’s [Genesis 1-2]and then in Genesis 3 we tell him to get lost.
And all of the brokenness of our world, All the sickness and disaster and violence and deceit – Is our inheritance from that first rebellion.
But did you notice how our reading from Genesis ended? With our Heavenly Father promising that one day a rescuer would come – a descendent of Adam and Eve would defeat the serpent, at terrible personal cost.
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. (Genesis 3:15)
That descendent was of course Jesus – who in dying on the cross broke down the barrier between us and God – and opened up a way for us to come home to our loving Heavenly Father. Which is wonderful.The thing is – even though we can come to know God through Jesus, we still live in a broken bruised world, and that broken bruised world still often lives in us.
So Jesus points us forward to a future day, when he’ll return in all his glory, to put the world fully to rights.
So let’s ask the question the disciples asked when Jesus talked about that future day:
2) when will it happen? When is Jesus coming back?
And the simple answer is we don’t know. Jesus said,
No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
And I don’t know about you but I find that a pretty frustrating answer. Because ever since, people have been making stuff up about the end of the world.
- Nostradamus predicted the world would end in 1999.
- Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism said 1891.
- The Jehovah’s Witnesses predicted 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1994. If they were economic forecasters they’d be working for the chancellor.
But Jesus says,
No one knows about that day or hour.
So it seems to me that the moment anyone says they do know – the first thing we should do is ignore them.
The only thing we can know with certainty is that Jesus is coming back. And it could be anytime. Like tomorrow. So that scary work meeting you’re not looking forward to – it might never happen!
But it could just as well be in 5000 years time. We simply don’t know. Jesus doesn’t tell us. He just tells us it will be a surprise!
One day when I was a kid, there was a knock at the door, and I opened it to find my great-auntie Maggie standing there with a national express bus ticket in one hand and a suitcase in the other.
“I’m here for a holiday” she announced.
“Come in and have a cup of tea.” I replied.
And then I rushed to the phone to ring my mum at work, to let her know we had a surprise visitor.
As it happened, the guest room was ready – but it’s easy to do that with a guest room. What about our hearts? If Jesus returned today – would your heart be ready? More on that later.
Let’s first think a little bit more about that day when Jesus returns.
3)How will we be judged?
You might know the story of the woman who dies and St Peter’s greets her at the Pearly Gates and tells her “To get in, all you have to do is spell the word ‘Love’”
“Easy”, says the woman, L-O-V-E and Saint Peter welcomes her into Heaven.
Six months pass, and Saint Peter asks the woman to watch the Gates of Heaven for him while he has a break, and while she’s on duty, her husband arrives.
“It’s nice to see you,” the woman says. “How have you been?”
“Oh, I’ve been doing pretty well since you died,” he says.”Do you remember that beautiful young nurse who took care of you while you were ill? I married her. And then I won the lottery, And we moved out of the flat in Upton to a mansion in Hanley Swan when we weren’t travelling the world then I drowned in a water-skiing accident, and here I am. So anyway, how do I get in?”
“You have to spell a word”, the woman told him: “Myxomatosis”
So how will we really be judged? Let me read again from Revelation 20:12:
…books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. (Revelation 20:12)
God keeps a book on each of us – a record of our deeds. If yours is anything like mine I’m sure there’s some good things there: kindness; love; achievement. But there’s also bits of the book that we’d be deeply ashamed of. And that’s where it becomes a problem, because how is God assessing our deeds? What’s the passmark for Heaven? What is the judge looking for?
Well Jesus tells us back in Matthew 5:48. He says,
Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)
That’s God’s standard. Absolute perfection. Any perfect people here? No. That’s bad news isn’t it? Because it means we’re all heading for the Lake of Fire. Left to our own devices we have no hope.
Except our reading mentioned a second book. The Book of Life – It’s a list of names of people who will be spared: So v15 says
If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown in to the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15)
So if your name is in the book of life– then no matter what is written in the book of deeds, God spares you punishment and welcomes you into his new creation – our new home.
So how do you get your name into the book of life? What do you have to do? Well the answer’s really simple. You ask. All you have to do is ask.
You see a lot of people imagine God is like an employer, who pays you for your good deeds. Heaven becomes a sort of payback for a life of good works. But God’s not an employer. He doesn’t work on a contract and exchange basis, instead he’s a loving father trying to put his broken family back together. And for him to do that – all we have to do is come home, and say sorry to our Heavenly father for our part in the mess of the world. It’s as simple as that. And that’s how we meet God’s standard on judgement day.
So the most important “Are you ready?” question Jesus has for us today is are you sure your name is in the book of life? Have you come home to the Father, through Jesus? Because if you aren’t sure – nothing is more important in life.
I’d love to talk more with you about that there’s also a course I’m hoping to run in the new year which is a great chance to dig deeper into the Bible and discuss these big ideas Jesus is getting across. Let me know if you’d want more details.
Okay – time for one final question:
4)How do we stay ready for Jesus return?
Well this is all about pursuing a deeper relationship with God.
Someone has likened becoming a Christian to being an explorer landing on a new continent. You’ve arrived because you’ve landed on the beach – but how can you really be an explorer if you’ve never left the beach?
And the way we leave the beach and start to explore God in depth is by courageously putting what we read in God’s word the Bible into practice. You see The gospels are not just Historically useful records of Jesus’ life, they’re manuals for how to live the Christian life. That’s why – for example – Matthew puts so much time into recording things like the sermon on the Mount. He wants us to know what it means to be faithful- and to be ready.
So if you want a manual on going deeper into God – take time to read the rest of Matthew’s gospel and put it into practice in your life. Matthew has 28 chapters – take on a day and you’ll finish it for Christmas.
And as you read it you’ll discover things about yourself. Issues. Challenges. Problems that have become barriers between you and God.
You know as I’ve been travelling around these parishes meeting you all, I’ve been noticing some of the barriers we’ve erected between us and God.
Here are three of them:all of which are there in Matthew’s gospel
The first one is the barrier we put up between us and God when we love our church buildings and traditions more than God himself. That’s actually the issue behind the whole of our gospel reading today. The people loved the Temple and its traditions more than they loved God. And the best way to spot if you’re at risk of this is to go to a service totally outside your tradition and see if you can still encounter God there. If you can’t you may well have a problem.
Money is a second barrier. We love money and the things we can do with it, more than God himself. How do you know if you have that problem? Well if you get angry whenever the preacher mentions money – that’s a pretty good sign. We will never know God better, until we learn to manage our money his way.
And here’s a third barrier. Unforgiveness. Earlier we prayed the Lord’s Prayer:
forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, unless they live within 5 miles of Upton.
As I’ve been travelling around these churches I’ve come across some painful stories of Christians falling out and that sort of bitterness often hinders our journey with God. If we want to go deeper into God, then you need to forgive, as God has forgiven you. Friends – Jesus promised us life in all its fullness, but we’ll never know that, if we aren’t prepared to tackle the hard issues. If we aren’t willing to get off the beach, and explore.
The good news is – if you will step out in faith – and try to tackle the barriers between you and God – he promises to come alongside you by his Holy Spirit, and help us do in his strength, the things that seem impossible in our own.
And that’s how we get ready for Jesus return. Would you pray with me?