For His Return

Today, as we mentioned before, is the beginning of Advent. So we began a new sermon series for the season of Advent. And the series is called the Season of Expectation.

We all have things we are expecting this time of year. We’re expecting some things to happen. We all have family traditions.

Why don’t we take just a moment and somebody outside your own household, tell them some of the things you’re expecting. What do you expect? What are some of your traditions? Or what do you expect to see happen sometime in this month of December? Turn to someone outside of the one you’re sharing with. You want to go share with Rick? Rick in the back.

Rick in the back. You want to go share with him? All right. Just keep talking.

This is the whole sermon, by the way. You guys are just talking to each other. I didn’t really plan anything.

We’ll give everybody another minute. OK, if you’re still sharing, we’re probably moving into too much information territory. I don’t know, ask Holly.

For the Season of Expectation, we are looking at the revised common lectionary, actually. And I was pretty excited because it all comes out of the Book of Luke this year and walks through some different things that we can be expecting. During this season of expectation, we have an expectation for his return, which we’re going to talk about today.

We have an expectation for our salvation. We have an expectation for the Messiah. There’s even expectation from the womb.

And finally, on Christmas Eve, there is an expectation from the manger. As we go through this series, I invite you to spend time during this season thinking about what you really expect, not just from one another, not just within your own family, but what you expect as a disciple of Jesus Christ. We spent a whole month talking about being a disciple.

What are your expectations that go beyond family traditions, that go beyond gifts, that go beyond food, that go beyond getting together with others? What are your expectations? And the biggest one, one that I missed out on, or there’s a chance I just didn’t pay that much attention, that could have happened in church when I was younger. I don’t remember ever talking about, during the season of Advent, the return of Christ. But as we think about the first Advent, the first coming of Jesus, it also reminds us to think about the second Advent of Jesus, the second arrival, the second coming of Jesus.

Will you stand as you are able? Our text for today comes from Luke 29. It’s a sermon by Jesus, which is close to the end of Luke, on the coming of the Son of Man. And there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars and on the earth, distress of nations, in perplexity because of the roaring of the seas and the waves, people feigning with fear and foreboding of what is coming on the world.

For the powers of heavens will be shaken, and then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now, when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near. And he told this parable, look at the fig tree and all the trees.

As soon as they come out in leaf, see for yourself and know that the summer is already near. So also when you see these things taking place, you will know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all this has taken place.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life. And that day come upon you suddenly like a trap, for it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth.

But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man. And every day he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went out and lodged on the mount called Olivet. And early in the morning, all the people came to him in the temple to hear him.

The word of God inspired by God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

You may be seated. Luke frames Jesus’ sermon in three very distinct parts. The first part is a part with power.

One of the main points I want you to garner from the first part is power. The Son of Man is coming with power. And that power provides an opportunity for us to have a final freedom.

This final freedom means that the power gives us this final freedom. He says, when you see the Son of Man coming on the clouds, that means it’s time for your redemption. He says, raise your heads up.

When you raise your heads up, it’s a sign of not being afraid. It’s a sign of being confident of what is coming, that when the Son of Man comes, he’s going to come and take us to the mall. Home.

He’s going to come and he’s going to take us home. So when we see that, we hold our heads up because our final freedom is there. We’re set free when we receive Christ, but we’re still got to wade through all these cares of the world and all these difficulties and our imperfections and the imperfections of the world.

But when we see him coming on the clouds, it’s going to be different. Now, as we read about in the Advent liturgy, Daniel first prophesied about this. And in Daniel 7, 13 and 14, he said, I saw in the night visions and behold the clouds of heaven.

There came a one like the Son of Man. He came and presented to the ancient of days and was presented before him and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom. What is dominion? Dominion is authority.

Glory is when you are glorified, you are lifted up. He stands before the Father and he is glorified. When he comes in his full glory, he’s not coming as a baby in a manger.

He’s coming as the one we see in the book of Revelation whose eyes were white like fire, his hair white as wool. And it says in the book of Revelation, in Revelation 14, Then I looked and behold on a white cloud and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a golden crown on his head. The golden crown letting us know that he is the king and not just a king, but the king of kings.

And a sharp sickle in his hand separating the wheat and the chaff. A sharp sickle and another angel came out of the temple calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud. Put your sickle in and reap for the hour to reap has come.

The harvest of the earth is fully ripe. And one other place where Luke says this at is in the book of Acts. Where in Acts 1, the Jesus in his ascension, he was taken up into heaven and all the disciples were staring up in the heaven, which would be a natural reaction and an angel came up and stood beside him and said, why are you staring up in the heavens? Don’t you know that when he comes again, he’ll come again in the same way that he went up in a cloud of heaven.

And so that is the final sign that we need to see in our lives. It’s not like it’s going to be, huh, did it happen? Because there’s rumors. I mean there are religions out there that say Christ has already come or he’s come at these different times or he’s coming and there are also guys on TV who say this is the day he’s going to come.

This is the time. This is the hour. This is when it’s going to happen.

And apparently they didn’t see that Jesus said that no one’s going to know. So Jesus tells us about it. So we know that it is coming.

And that part one is just to tell us and remind us the Son of Man is coming on the clouds. If you didn’t hear that from Daniel or from Revelation or from Luke or from Acts or from Matthew or Mark or many of the other places where it’s at, the Son of Man will come on the clouds. And it’s not going to be like a special group season.

It’s the entire world. It takes place for the entire world. And Jesus said, and when you see all these things taking place, talking about the distress of nations, talking about the distress of seas, talking about the heavens having trouble, which in every generation they see those signs, but they haven’t seen the Son of Man come back.

But he said, when you see those, it’s like the seasons. Yesterday, we picked the worst possible time of day to go pick up the boys. You probably didn’t even notice, but they aren’t here this morning.

They’re with their grandparents in Wichita and we left about 1030 to go pick them up. We meet in Emporia. We pick up the boys and we bring them home.

And as we were walking out the door, Holly said the words that ring in my ears, oh, there’s some big flakes starting to come down. By the time we worked our way to 199th and over to I-35, it was hard to see. We were crossing the bridge to go south on 35 and coming north on 35.

There were lights from a police car. The cars were backed up for about a half a mile. There was a car driving down the ditch.

And I’m assuming it slid off. It wasn’t just trying to drive through the ditch to get around them. And it was horrible.

And the radio was saying the interstates are closed at all these different areas around Kansas City. It started in the Northland and it’s moving south. And we turned around and we went home.

And we called and they said, the skies are clear here. Nothing is going on. But we’re like, let’s just deal with this tomorrow when the roads are clear and it’s a nicer day.

Well, we had Thanksgiving. So you think we would have been expecting bad weather. You think we would have known the season was coming.

And Jesus is saying it’s like that. When you see all these things, it’s like the season coming. There’s something you have to do to prepare for each season, especially for winter.

And when summer is coming, you see the spring. In the spring, the leaves start coming on all the trees. Now we just start to see it.

We saw the leaves fall off the trees. And now we see them underneath the snow at our house. And each season, we prepare for something.

In the spring, we might plant, garden stuff. In the summer, we prepare and water and get ready throughout the season. In the fall, of course, it starts getting colder.

The leaves start falling and then the snow comes. And each of those seasons, Jesus is saying, you’ll see signs like that when I am coming. You’ll see for yourself and know that the time is here.

And he says this interesting thing. This generation will not pass away until all of this has taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

I mean, it sounds so short when it says heaven and earth will pass away. Now, normally when we say someone has passed away, what are we really saying happened? They died. Expired.

That’s a good way to say it. Heavens and earth will expire. They will pass away.

Truly, I say to you this generation, heaven and earth will pass away. So those things will pass away. In Revelation, it puts it like this.

And we tend to forget this part of it. It says a new heaven and a new earth will come down and a new Jerusalem. And we’ll have all this new stuff.

In Romans, Paul talks about how creation is groaning for that new birth. That it’s not just our new birth, it’s the new birth of all creation. Because remember, when Adam and Eve fell, not tripped, but fell from sin in the garden, that they weren’t just corrupted by sin, but the whole world became corrupt.

And the whole world was in need of redemption. And Jesus earlier said, your redemption is coming near. So here he says, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

My words are right, my words are true, my words are sustaining. Just like Paul told us that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Not death, nor lives, nor angels, nor principalities.

Nothing on heaven, on the earth, or under the earth will ever be able to separate us from the love of God. My word will stand. That’s what won’t pass away.

So if you know that, what should we be hanging on to? The words of Jesus, the words of God, the words of the Bible. And that’s where we should be digging into day after day after day. So what is on our hearts and in our minds isn’t just a funny one-liner from a Christmas movie.

But it’s the words of God, because they aren’t going to pass away. Part 3, Advent is a time to reprioritize our lives and refocus on the coming kingdom. Advent is a time to reprioritize our lives and refocus on the coming kingdom.

Jesus says, stay awake and pray, pray, pray. Always, everywhere, in all situations, stay alert, pray, be ready. How would you know that Jesus is coming if you’re not praying, if you’re not intimate with the Son of Man, if you are not spending time with Jesus? Wendy Murray Zoba tells the story about her middle son, Ben, who had heard so many different sermons about the importance of surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ.

Ben seemed well attuned in his heart. He exhibited selflessness and kindness that would take so many, including his mother, a lifetime of sanctification to grow closer to Christ and learn about. But he seemed to have it.

So she says, it disturbed my husband and me when we’d asked him if he was ready to accept Christ, and he kept saying, no, I’m not ready yet. He wouldn’t offer any explanations. He would simply tell us in his preschool English that he wasn’t ready.

And he resisted for several months. Then one morning as we sat around the kitchen table eating our Cheerios, little Ben announced that he was ready to give his life to Christ. He then got up and went from the table and went upstairs.

And so my husband and I got up and we went to his room expecting to find him on his knees praying. We didn’t find him praying. We found him folding his Star Wars pajamas and packing them into his Sesame Street suitcase.

We said, Ben, what are you doing? He answered, packing, like duh. Why, we asked, to go to heaven, he said. We then understood that this child hesitated to give his life to Christ.

He thought that in doing so he would have to leave us and take up residence literally with Christ in heaven. Wendy says, we should all possess the faith of Benjamin. We should have in our hearts so fixed on Christ’s appearance that the attachments of our earthly life pale in comparison.

For we are aliens and strangers on earth longing for a better country, a heavenly one, as it says in Hebrews 11. This Advent, expect the Christ to return. Expect the Son of Man to come on the clouds.

And in that expectation, spend time with the Prince of Peace and the King of Kings during this season of expectation. Spend time, pray, offer yourselves up before God. Give Him that time.

Trust that He is going to return. Let’s turn in this to a season of expectation for Jesus. Not just on Christmas Eve, but all through Advent.

Let’s pray. Holy God, we come to you in prayer as we will over and over and over during this season. Help us to recognize when it is the season of Christ to return.

Help us to pray, to be alert, to stay awake, to be ready and to ready ourselves because our redemption is near. Help us to hold our heads up when you return with the excitement and the trust and the pure faith that you will take us home. This season, we are in eager expectation of the return of Jesus, of the Son of Man coming on the clouds just as He ascended.

Going home with you is so much more than anything we have here. May our lives, may our homes, may our families, may our focus be on you. Let us renew that joy and amazement of you during this season.

We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus who will come again.