Who Will Be Faithful In Preparation For The End Of The Age?
Good Morning Friends,
Today we look at the Church of God in port city of Corinth considering part of the Olivet Discourse from the lips of Jesus to give us guidance not only to events that were about to take place in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, but also to those stretching far into the future including those now shaking their fists at God for the state of the world as Hurricane Laura sets the stage for an environmental disaster along the Gulf Coast. Three momentous occurrences are intertwined in today’s scripture, the coming judgement upon Jerusalem, the challenge of the saints in the church of God and the final judgement at the close of the world’s history when Jesus returns. Friends, I have read but not counted myself that are over 2,000 references to the second coming of Jesus in the Bible. For every prophecy concerning the first coming of Christ, that means that there are about eight that look forward to His second. It is that important. And it is presented as a certainty that Jesus will come back and when this happens the final judgment at the close of the world’s history will occur. There is much to be done in advance to build up the called-out assembly of God. There is much to be revealed. But I wonder, Who Will Be Faithful In Preparation For The End Of The Age?
Scripture: Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind— just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you— so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
1 Corinthians:1-9 (NRSV)
Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour. “Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. But if that wicked slave says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and he begins to beat his fellow slaves, and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know. He will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 24:42-51 (NRSV)
Message: The Corinthian church was unique in the usage of all the spiritual gifts, especially the more dramatic ones like praying in tongues and healing. It is disconcerting that even with all these gifts, the church ultimately failed. Something was missing. The problem is our Lord is not satisfied with half-measures. Something more was needed for this den of iniquity. We get a sense of it in the letters Paul sends them. They needed saintly love. The Holy Spirit gives gifts to take care of human problems and attract the unchurched to Our Lord. But it appears that the people in Corinth considered them to be something like entertainment. They prayed in tongues but, for instance, ignored the case of one of their members living in incest with a relative. But Paul does not launch into a condemnation. Instead he commends them on their exercise of these gifts, and then reorders them toward the eventual return of Our Lord. In other words, the gifts are not for personal glory or entertainment, but to build up the Church and prepare her for the return of Her Lord. Then, in our Gospel, Jesus reminds us that what is important as we wait for Christ’s return is to be faithful. As usual, anything less than full commitment to God not enough. The power of love must be linked inextricably to the mystery and purpose of the Father manifested in the Son in our experience and God’s gift to us of growth and life in the Holy Spirit. For the early church, they felt that they were living in the last days and the time was short. But victory was not doubted. Indeed, it was eagerly and imminently expected. The tense expectation of the imminent end is how people in the early church lived. But it did not come as soon as many of the Christians expected it. Indeed, it is still postponed as the years turned into decades and the decades turned into centuries. The church has been the hope of Israel from the beginning and sometimes a great disappointment. It has come and has yet to come to completion. Maybe Paul was writing about the gift of the Holy Spirit coming and going. For what we are discussing is something that means both presence and coming. If we look at it that way, then the coming of Lord Jesus can be something past, present and future. This way Jesus can help us in preparation for the end of the age.
And So, some say that we are coming to the end of the age in the United States and indeed in the world. Having been around for 250 years we here in the United States may indeed be coming to the end of our life cycle, but maybe we are about to begin a new one even better. Regardless, the fate of the Kingdom of God and that of the United States or even a section of it facing devastation from a hurricane are not the same thing. The connection is the tension in the waiting. Each generation takes on a new revolution wherever they live and whatever challenges that they face. It is all part of the ongoing and sometimes severe tension that calls us to have patience. The beauty for Christians is that we have the Lord’s promise that He will never forsake us in this world, no matter what happens. Many have read the Book of Revelation in the hopes of finding a key to this future. There are various millennial interpretations that I will not discuss this morning. Suffice to say that the Bible tells of the drama of the end which needs considerable decoding, but it is not our business to know what Christ did not know. This topic of future events needs to be a powerful summons to Christians to stand firm in the faith with confidence that God’s purpose is sure. The New Testament Church, as we today, must live in the tension between a confidence in the victory already made in Christ and the expectation of the victory which no one has yet to see. For this we must prepare.
Pray we do not give up hope. Pray our faith is not in vain. Pray we go about our work with eager expectation and joy. Pray we believe that God has prepared a place for us through the work of Christ and engineered in our experience of sanctification the preparation to enter the presence of the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of life. Pray in this process that we can be holy and wholly useful to our Lord in building up the Kingdom of God. Pray we realize that we have a purpose before the end comes in sharing the Gospel of the Kingdom to both our neighbors and the nations. Pray we are prepared to do that to the glory of God.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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