Matt Francisco: Listen carefully, from the gospel of Mark chapter 13. This is this is the gospel of Christ. Verse 1, and as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, look, teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings. And Jesus said to him, do you see all these great buildings? There will not be left one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.
And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished? And Jesus began to say to them, see that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name saying, I am he, and they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed.
This must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places. There will be famines. These are but the beginning of birth pains.
And then picking up again in verse 24. But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in heavens will be shaken, and they will see the son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the 4 winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. And then in verse 32, but concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the father. Be on guard, keep awake, for you know not when the time will come.
This is the gospel of Christ.
Collin Hansen: If you would, pray with me. Father, by the power of your spirit through Mark, these words were written down for us. And yet, we confess that there is a whole lot in this passage that is troubling or confusing. So we ask you, trusting that all of your word has been breathed out by you and is profitable for teaching, for, reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that this passage is meant for our good. We need your spirit's help to understand it.
And so we come before you asking that you would speak. These people do not need to hear from me. They need to hear from you. For your name and your renown, those are the desires of our hearts. We know that the grass may wither and the flower may fade, but your word abides forever.
So by the power of your spirit, speak to us according to your word, words of life and truth. We pray these things in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. So it was just a couple weeks before Christmas in 1963 when my grandma received the kind of phone call that all of us hope and pray we never get. A few days earlier, her husband Harold had been in a car wreck, and he had been in the hospital for a few days, but he was expected to recover.
When she picked up the phone, she received shocking and terrible news. Her husband, my grand father, the father of my 10 year old mom and her 2 little brothers, had fallen out of his hospital bed, cracked his ribs, and pierced his lungs, and he died right there on a hospital floor. It was Advent, but all of a sudden the world had gone cold and dark. My grandma was faced to look at a future that suddenly looked nothing like she expected it to look like. For all, what do you do when the person you counted on, the person that was always with you is suddenly no longer there?
When the whole world around you seems to be falling apart and to have gone dark. How do you prepare when it feels like the end of the world? The disciples are going to be wrestling with these very same questions in just a few moments. And in our passage today, Jesus is trying to prepare them for when that day comes. You see, Jesus has just finished this long day of teaching in the temple, and that he and the disciples, they are headed back to the Mount of Olives when one of the disciples looks back at the temple and he says, look, teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings.
And then Jesus says these shocking words. There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. And you can just imagine the disciples' jaws hitting the floor. It's almost like this is the first time that it registers for them that Jesus' kingdom, it may not look like what they expected Jesus' kingdom to look like. I mean, after all, the temple was the center of Jewish faith and worship.
It had been for generation after generation. It was the very house of God. It was the place where people went to sacrifice. It was the place where God Himself had promised to dwell and to radiate His glory to the nations. And now Jesus is saying in verse 30 that it's going to be destroyed within a generation.
If the temple is gone, what would that mean for God and His people? Where would they go to meet with God? The disciples had to be asking themselves, if the temple is destroyed, doesn't that mean that the whole world is falling apart? I mean, doesn't that mean that nothing had gone according to plan? If the temple is gone, hadn't God lost?
In Peter, James, and John, and Andrew, they they summon up the courage to ask Jesus privately in verse 4, tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all of these things are about to be accomplished? The gospel writer Matthew asks, or adds that they asked, what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? Because to the disciples, the destruction of the temple could only mean one thing, the end of the whole world. And while Jesus's response to his disciples reveals that the destruction of the temple will not may mean the end of the world, its destruction will mean the end of their world, the end of life and worship as the disciples and all of their forefathers had ever known it. It would mean that in Mark 11, when Jesus ran out the money changers from the temple, He wasn't merely cleansing it.
He was shutting it down for good. It was the end of everything that they had ever known, but it was the beginning of something infinitely more beautiful and precious than they could have imagined. So these 4 disciples, they asked Jesus, when will these things happen? And Jesus doesn't answer their question, at least not directly, but instead, he gives them something more important. He answers the questions that they should have been asking.
However, because Jesus is using apocalyptic language, because he is borrowing from Daniel and Isaiah and Joel, and because Jesus is speaking prophetically about some events that will happen in the near future and some that will take place in the much, much more distant future. Believers throughout generations have been confused and troubled by what Jesus is saying and doing here. But passages like this are ultimately not meant to confuse us. No. Jesus' words, they are meant to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
And in passages like this, we must remember that the main things are the plain things. And what are the main things in this passage? That in the end, Jesus wins. And there is one day when Jesus will come again. Passages like this are not meant to lead Jesus' followers to anxiously check the news and then check out their calendars and their calculators.
We are not meant from this passage to try to figure out the day when Jesus is coming back. Jesus' desire is to practically and pastorally prepare His disciples and all of us to know what it means to follow him in the dark, to follow him in this time of second advent in a world that looks nothing like we would have expected when the person that the disciples would have counted upon is no longer there, when the world around seems to be falling apart. So how do we prepare for the end of the world? Jesus says to his disciples and to all of us, stay awake, keep watch. And as we make our way through this passage this morning, we're gonna see 3 primary ways where Jesus calls his followers to stay awake and to keep watch.
1st, we watch and we do not worry. 2nd, we watch and we witness. And 3rd and finally, we watch and we stay awake. Because in the end, Jesus wins and he is surely coming again. Amen?
So first, we watch and we do not worry. Let's look back at verse 5. And Jesus began to say to them, see that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name saying, I am he, and they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed.
This must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places. There will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.
Verse 14. But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be, let the reader understand, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the house top not go down nor enter his house to take anything out. And let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas, for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days, pray that it may not happen in winter.
For in those days, there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now and will never be. You see, in less than a generation, about 40 years after Jesus says these words, and about 15 years after Mark writes them down, tensions between the Jewish people and the Romans would reach a boiling point. And in 80 70, the Roman general Titus, he begins to lay siege to Jerusalem. And while Titus orders his troops to leave the temple alone, they ignore him. They go in, and then they burn it, and all of Jerusalem to the ground.
But Jesus' followers, they remembered these words, and those that were on the housetops, they did not go down to enter their house or take anything out. Nursing mothers, they fled to the hills and the church was spared. The historian Josephus records that 90,000 Jews were captured during the siege, and 1,100,000 were killed by the sword or from the starvation that followed. See, this was a tragedy of apocalyptic proportions to the Jewish people, the likes of which they had never seen before, one that would have rocked their faiths and their understanding of who God is and what He had promised. But Jesus tells His followers these things beforehand, so that when those days of unimaginable tragedy and suffering come upon them, they may not be alarmed, thinking that God was no longer in control or perhaps not even there, but instead that they might rest securely in God and in God's word in an insecure world.
Jesus says these things must take place. These are the beginning of the birth pains. So when we too hear of earthquakes and famines, wars and rumors of wars in Gaza or in Ukraine or when hurricanes come. Let us remember that our God remains on his throne and he is in absolute control. When you hear politicians promising salvation if their side wins and damnation if the other party wins, watch and do not worry brothers and sisters.
We can rest securely in God and in His word in an insecure world. Malcolm Muggeridge, a 20th century British journalist and coincidentally, Jeff Hyner's favorite Harry Potter character, wrote in 1980, we look back upon history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling, revolutions and counter revolutions, wealth accumulating and then dispersed, one nation dominant and then another. In one lifetime, I've heard a crazed cracked Austrian proclaim to the world the establishment of a German Reich that would last for a 1000 years. An Italian clown announced that he would restart the calendar to begin with his own assumption of power.
A murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin acclaimed by the intellectual elite as wiser than Solomon, more humane than Marcus Aurelius, all in one lifetime, all gone with the wind. Hitler and Mussolini dead and remembered only in infamy, Stalin a forbidden name, and the regime he helped to found and dominate for some 3 decades, all in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone, gone with the wind. Every politician will fade. Every company or every country will have its sunset. But our God reigns uncontested upon his throne.
Therefore, our hope, our joy, and our security must never be found in a political leader or a political party, but in the one who was and is and is to come. While the kings of the earth take their stand, Psalm 2 tells us, he who sits in heaven laughs. Because no matter what seems to be happening in this world, our God reigns uncontested and his purposes will come to pass. This does not mean that you should not vote your conscience You should or that you should not labor for the flourishing of every person and created created in God's image. You should.
Does not mean that you should not have your political convictions. You should. Christians must fight for the unborn and fight against the neglecting of the poor. We must fight for justice and for moral order. But if we are willing to break the unity of fellowship amongst us because we disagree about how these things ought to come about, let us beware that our political ideologies have not become political idolatries.
Let us follow Jesus being non anxious presences in this anxious world. So let us watch and not worry, resting securely in God and in His word in an insecure world. And let us pray for our leaders and whoever our president may be, pray for those across the political aisle, praying that God would bring all to faith and repentance. And pray for the kingdom of God to come on earth as it is in heaven. Let us watch and not worry.
And second, let us watch and witness. Verse 9, But be on your guard, for they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake to bear witness before them. And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations. And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you were to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the holy spirit. And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father's child and children will rise against parents and have them put to death.
And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Now looking at verses 9 through 13, it almost reads like an outline of the book of Acts. Right? Like, some of these very men that hear these words, they're going to be delivered over to councils.
They're going to be beaten in synagogues. They're going to stand before governors and kings, and Jesus wants to warn His followers that persecution is certain. You will be hated by all for my name's sake. He doesn't want us or His disciples to be overly discouraged when it comes. Brother is going to deliver brother over to death, but that doesn't mean that God's good purposes have failed.
No, when persecution strikes in Acts chapter 8, the church scatters. In ordinary men and women, they begin proclaiming the gospel to all nations. This is how the gospel starts to go forth. And some of them, as the book of Hebrews tells us, some of them are gonna be used to shut the mouths of lions. Isn't that awesome?
In the very same verse, he tells us that some of them, they're gonna be sawn in 2, all under God's good purposes that the nations might see and fear and put their trust in Him. And Jesus offers His followers this word as a caution. Following Jesus is not necessarily a recipe for a happy, healthy, long life. Following Jesus will make your life better in an infinite number of ways, but it will not always make your life easier. It does not mean that your life will go according to plan.
Just look at the disciples for a minute. I mean, James, he gets killed by a sword. Matthew is beheaded. Thomas is thrust through with spears and then he's burned alive. Philip, Bartholomew, Andrew and Peter, all crucified.
All of them embodying the Apostle Paul's words in Acts 20, I do not count my life of any value nor as precious to myself. If only I may finish my course in the ministry that I have received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And may we say the same with our words and with our lives. There are some of you here this morning who may be called to go to the nations to tell the good news of what our Lord Jesus has done. There are some of you who may even be called to give your lives for his name's sake.
But all of us are called to proclaim the good news of the gospel in word and in deed wherever God calls us to be. I was having lunch with a redeemer member earlier this week. He was asking for some advice about how to love a handful of his gay coworkers, and this verse from 1st Peter 2 came to mind. It says, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. The late preacher, Tim Keller, has pointed to this verse as a sort of litmus test for the faithfulness of our witness.
That if we're living the kind of life that the new testament calls us to live, we're going to be both accused of doing wrong, and people will glorify God because of us. That we're meant to be incredibly offensive and extraordinarily attractive at the very same time. If we are attractive but not offensive, it may be because we are giving into cowardice. However, if we are only offensive and never attractive, it may just be that we're jerks. Right?
We are to be offensive and attractive because we are to embody truth and grace just like Jesus did. See, in Luke chapter 7, Jesus, He's accused of being a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. And this means at the very least that Jesus had to have been close enough to gluttons, drunkards, tax collectors, and sinners to warrant the accusation. But He remained perfectly righteous in everything that He did. He was perfect truth and grace.
He was unlike anyone that they ever met, and so His love and His message were as compelling as they must have been convicting. And so as we would engage our LGBTQ neighbors, coworkers, and friends, let us seek and strive to do the same following after Jesus. Let our love be as confusing to those who only see the world in black and white as Jesus' love for the drunkards was for the Pharisees. May we see the image of God in them, marking them in every single human being on earth from the womb to the tomb as infinitely precious in our God's eyes and worth dying for. Let us as the church with our hospitality, our care in our presence, live out Jesus' love and let us be unafraid to speak the truth in love.
And what is the most important truth? That Jesus stands ready with open arms to welcome any and every sinner, and that Jesus commands every single sinner to lay down their lives, take up their cross and follow after him, submitting their entire lives to his lordship. Whether it be our time, our attention, our finances, our marriage, our singleness, or our sexuality, all of these come under his rule and reign. So let us watch and not worry. Let us watch and bear witness in word and in deed, in truth and in grace.
And finally, let us watch and stay awake. Verse 32, but concerning that day or hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the son, but only the father. Be on guard. Keep awake for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake.
Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you, I say to all, stay awake. The new testament writers, they write with such passion and longing for Jesus' return. I read one writer described it basically like they're all looking out the window, looking to see if Jesus is coming around the corner. And I think that that is meant to be our heartbeat as well.
But Jesus knows that he's gonna be gone for far longer than any of them would desire or even imagine. And so he offers these words of caution. He says, be on guard, stay awake because he knows how in danger we are of being lulled to sleep. He says that many will come saying that I am he And it's true that there have been false Christs that have arisen century after century. He also says that there will be many who come in His name, but that will declare untrue things about Him, His word, or His promises.
Remember, following Jesus doesn't mean that your life will be easier or that it will go according to plan. But he offers you something far more than either of those things. We must watch and stay awake because we are in danger of being lulled to sleep. But if we remember that the world has an end and that it could be soon, it starts to rearrange all of our priorities, where we spend our time, our attention, and our money. Let us not be so consumed by our vacations, our relationships, our hobbies, or possessions, or our bucket list that our actions begin to tell the world that the end is not soon or that the mission is not urgent.
I'm not saying in any way that God never wants us to have or enjoy nice things or to never be comfortable. But I think that there is a degree to which the church should never ultimately be comfortable. Right? We are living in Advent. The world is meant to feel cold and dark to us because we are meant to recognize that we are an exile here, that our ultimate home lies elsewhere, that we're we are awaiting an inheritance that is imperishable and unfading, kept in heaven for us.
And in the meantime, while our master is away, He has told us to stay awake and to keep watch for His return. He has left us in charge of His house and entrusted us with His mission. For however long, He may be gone. And for Him, a 1000 years is like a day. But Peter tells us that He is not slow as some count slowness.
Why has Jesus delayed? Well, Peter tells us because He does not delight in the death of the wicked but desires that all would come to faith and repentance. He is slow because He longs for more to know Him, to place their faith and trust in Him. That is why our God is delayed. So let us, as we anxiously await His return, watch and not worry.
Watch and witness. Watch and stay awake. For a few days after this moment in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus began to become greatly distressed and troubled. And He asked His disciples to stay awake and to keep watch, to pray that they might not fall into temptation. And then he went off by himself, went before his father and he said, father, if it be your will, let this cup, this cup of your just wrath against sin pass from my hands, but not as I will, but as you will.
And He returned and He found His disciples were sleeping. And He urged them again, keep watch, stay awake, pray that you might not fall into temptation and he went away again and when he came back, he found that they could not even stay awake and keep watch for an hour. In the end, Jesus was the only one who stayed awake. And then the son of man was betrayed into the hands of sinners. But the disciples' failure did not stop Jesus from setting His affections upon them or laying down His life as a ransom for theirs and for bringing them into His kingdom.
And if the disciples failures didn't stop Jesus from loving Him, neither do yours. See Jesus, He took our place and He endured the cross scorning its shame. He accomplished absolutely everything necessary for our salvation from start to finish so that we are not welcomed into the kingdom of God based on our ability to not worry or to witness or to stay awake, but on Jesus', and he perfectly fulfilled his calling. Yeah. I still got time.
Alright. Does anybody know who Keith Booth or Rusty LaRue are? Perfect. I want you to picture a scene for me, okay? It is the 1998 NBA finals.
The Chicago Bulls, greatest team that has ever lived versus the Utah Jazz. Sorry, John Stockton and Karl Malone. The unthinkable is happening. The Bulls are down 3 with 40 seconds left. MJ, he scores 2 and then Karl Malone, it looks like he's about to put up a basket and then MJ just picks his pocket.
It's heartbreaking, right? Jordan, he starts dribbling down the court and I'm 13 years old, but I didn't need to be Phil Jackson to know exactly what was gonna happen in the next couple of minutes. Jordan was gonna dribble the ball for as long as he felt like dribbling the ball, and then he was gonna shoot whenever he felt like shooting. And that ball was gonna go in and it was gonna break the hearts of every resident of Utah and the whole world was gonna rejoice at MJ's greatness. Right?
And that is exactly what happened. That's what's so wild about Jordan and why I think he's the greatest basketball player who ever lived, not sorry, LeBron. His opponents knew what was coming. They knew exactly what was coming. They knew what he was gonna do and yet they couldn't stop it.
He's saying here is how I'm going to defeat you and you can try whatever you want, but you will not stop me. Brothers and sisters, do you have any idea how little power Satan has before God? Like the Bible, it tells the entire plan from start to finish. In the end, remember Jesus wins. Satan, sin and death are defeated.
Why can God feel the freedom to tell Satan what's exactly going to happen? Because it will have no bearing on the end result. There's this amazing moment in Revelation 12 where the armies of Satan are going up against the armies of God and Satan is leading his army, but do you know who's leading the armies of God? It's an angel. It's an angel named Michael.
The name Michael, in case you didn't know, means who is like our God? And the implication is perfectly clear, not you, Satan. The armies of Satan are routed and our god wins because Satan cannot even temporarily inconvenience god. So who are Keith Booth and Rusty Larew? I'm glad you asked.
They're sitting on the bench of the 98 Chicago Bulls. They're watching Jordan do what only Jordan can do, But when Jordan wins the game, it doesn't matter that they have not played a single minute in the entire finals. They get a championship ring. They get to share in all of the glory that Michael's victory has won for them, And so it is for you and for me. Jesus, he's in the garden alone.
The disciples can't stay awake and neither can we, but Jesus accomplished everything on our behalf so that when He comes into His kingdom, when the Son of Man comes in clouds with great power and glory, we share in His inheritance alongside Him. Praise the Lord. In our future, it may look nothing like what we expected. But if we have lens, a lens long enough to see into eternity, we will see that our future is glorious beyond all compare. That the disciples, they were following the person that they had longed for, that they had faithfully trusted Him for 3 years, and then He would be gone and they were following Him into the dark.
And we've been following him without his bodily presence now for 2000 years. But one day we will see him face to face and know him even as we are known. One day the world will no longer feel like it is falling apart, but all things will be made new as the new heavens and the new earth come and heaven and earth are joined together as 1. And when Jesus comes on clouds, He will bring the glory of God with Him and there will be no more sorrow or sin or shame or suffering anymore. And that temple that was destroyed, there will be no more need for it.
For the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb will be the temple. The very dwelling place of God will be with man forever and ever and ever. And church, our Jesus is coming. And how do we prepare and wait that day? We watch and we do not worry.
We watch and we witness. We watch and we stay awake. We pray and we patiently endure. And with our lives and with our words, we say, come quickly, Lord Jesus, for we need you. Let's go to him now in prayer.
Jesus, I pray that you would make us those who do not tremble in fear no matter what is happening in the world. And when we hear of wars or of rumors of wars or when there are earthquakes or famines or floods or hurricanes, that we would be quick to pray, that we would be quick to serve, that we would be quick to love, and that we'd be quick to hold out the hope of the gospel. I pray that you would give us eyes to see from the lens of eternity. That one day, all things will be made new. And in the meantime, until you come back, help us.
Help us to trust in you and your word. Help us to bear witness with our words and with our lives. Help us to keep watch on our own souls first and and our brothers and sisters. We may not lose sight of the hope held out for us in the gospel that one day we will be with you forever and you will wipe away every single tear from our eyes. We pray these things in your holy and precious name, Jesus.
Amen.