Watch & Wait (Mark 13:28-37)

When I was in seminary, my hardest professor was Doctor

Peter Gentry. I took several classes from him

on Greek and Hebrew. He was the only professor I ever

feared. One of Doctor Gentry's favored

teaching techniques was to assign us a portion, whether of

Scripture or something else, in Greek or Hebrew, and we'd have

to prepare it before class, translate it, study it, look up

words we didn't understand, analyze it, and then come into

class prepared for him to call on anyone at any time at random.

To then have to read a few sentences of Greek or Hebrew out

loud, give your own translation, and then answer any question

Doctor Gentry asked you about anything in the sentences you

just read. Many students lived in mortal

fear of Doctor Gentry. One class I had with them, some

students dropped after the first week.

You never knew when you would be called on or what you would be

called to give an account for. So your only way to show up

prepared to class was to master that text, to study and study

and study until it got inside you, to try to ask yourself

every possible question Doctor Gentry could think to ask you

before he got a chance to ask you.

What was certain is that at some point you'd be called on, and

when you were, there would be no place to hide your ignorance.

You just be naked and exposed before everybody.

What was uncertain is when you'd get called on and what you'd

have to give an account for. Today we continue our series in

Mark's Gospel with the last part of chapter 13, verses 28 to 37.

If you don't have a Bible, you can raise your hand and someone

will bring you one. If you don't have a Bible, like

at all, please take it home, read it and come back and talk

to us about it. In our passage, we're

approaching the end of Jesus earthly life and he's speaking

to four of his disciples, Peter, James, John and Andrew.

In this long speech to four of his disciples, Jesus competently

tells them what the future holds both for them and for him.

Jerusalem will be conquered and the temple will be thrown to the

ground. That happened in 70 AD, 40 years

after Jesus was teaching. But that's not all that Jesus is

talking about. He is also teaching them that He

will personally return to judge and save.

Before I read our passage, just one note on the translation in

verse 29, you will see that in the ESV it says so.

Also. When you see these things taking

place, you know that He is near. In verse 29, there's a third

person singular verb in the Greek.

I was paying attention to Doctor Gentry's classes, third person

singular. That means it could be

translated he, she, or it. It could be it is near at the

very gates. And I actually think that's a

better translation. That's how the NIV translates

it. It's how the King James

translates it. So I'm going to say it when I

get there. I don't normally do that, but I

think it makes the best sense. Now for verses 28 to 37 of Mark

13 from the fig tree, learn it's lesson.

As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves,

you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these

things taking place, you know that it is near at the very

gates. Truly I say to you, this

generation will not pass away until all these things take

place. Heaven and earth will pass away,

but my words will not pass away. 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 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.

Now, our passage does refer again to events that will take

place within this generation. That's what Jesus says in verse

30, and that's the focus. These events that will take

place within this generation. That's the focus of verses 28 to

31. But then the longer paragraph,

verses 32 to 37, focuses on Jesus's second coming.

Specifically. In that longer paragraph, Jesus

announces something certain and something uncertain.

What's certain is that he'll return.

What's uncertain is that none of us knows when.

So the question you need to answer is how can you be ready

for Jesus's return? Jesus is coming, is certain, and

it's time is unknown. So how can you be ready?

In our passage, Jesus shows us three ways in which we can live

so as to be always ready for his return.

Three points. The third will be the longest .1

Know what time it is. Know what time it is.

That's what Jesus reminds his disciples to do in verses 28 and

29. In verse 28, Jesus tells a short

parable from the fig tree. Learn its lesson.

As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves,

you know that summer is near. At this time, Jesus and his

disciples are sitting on the Mount of Olives, just outside

the city of Jerusalem, looking over at the Temple.

Mount Olives was known not only for its olive trees, but also

for its abundant fig trees. And figs were one of the only

deciduous plants in ancient Judea, one of the only plants

that would have new leaves every summer, every spring rather

going into the summer. So it's natural that he uses a

fig tree as an illustration. The point of the illustration is

simple. When you see new growth in the

spring, you know that summer when you will get to harvest the

fruit is right around the corner.

The new leaves give sure promise that fruit will follow.

This also jogs our memories about another fig tree we've met

in Mark's Gospel. Back in Chapter 11, Jesus saw a

fig tree in leaf that had no fruit and he cursed it.

He said may no one ever eat fruit from you again.

That was a symbolic act. It was a lived out parable of

the judgment that's going to come against the temple.

The whole religious life of Israel, Jesus was saying is

leaves without fruit show without substance and so God was

going to judge them for their false worship.

That's the reason behind Jesus prediction of the temple's

destruction. So he gave this sign in this

teaching with a fig tree to show why God was going to judge his

people and destroy their temple. Here Jesus's point about the fig

tree is simpler. It's just when you see leaves,

summer is coming. But that also echoes the note of

judgement. What is the summer that's going

to come? It's not going to be happy or

leisurely or pretty. It's going to be judgement.

Jesus parable is about the coming destruction of the

temple. That's been the main topic of

the whole chapter so far. It was Jesus's explicit

prediction of the temple's destruction back in verse 2 that

prompted these 4 disciples to ask in verse 4 tell us when will

these things be? And what will be the sign when

all these things are about to be accomplished?

And what Jesus says in verse 29 shows us that He's continuing to

answer their question. So also, when you see these

things taking place, you know that it is near at the very

gates. Now, what are these things that

are taking place? It's everything Jesus predicted

from verses 5 to 23. In the most broad sense, many

things will take place that aren't signs of the temple's

destruction. But one thing will happen that

will be a sign, namely what Jesus calls in verse 14, the

abomination of desolation. Whatever that abomination is, it

signals that Rome is about to conquer Jerusalem and they're

about to destroy the temple. And so anyone with eyes to see

what's happening should flee, should get out immediately, try

to preserve their lives. Just as leaves are a sign of

summer soon to come, so this abomination and all the events

right around it are a sign that Jerusalem's destruction is soon

to come. So here Jesus is returning to

directly answering his disciples question.

He's given them a sign. When the sign is fulfilled, the

temple's about to fall. He's telling them that in order

to be prepared for future events, they need to know what

time it is. We recently passed through the

annoyance of daylight savings time.

I think daylight savings time, on the upside, might be the most

politically unifying issue in America.

In my nearly 40 years of life, I have never heard a good argument

for it. I have heard no one give any

kind of reason for who it serves or how it helps.

I think someone could win the presidential election in a

landslide with the single campaign promise to abolish

daylight savings. It would bring our fractured

country together. What does daylight savings time

do? It just, it just arbitrarily

shifts our lives an hour back and forth.

It bears no relation to reality. It helps no one.

It just means you have to adjust your poor, tired body an hour in

some direction and your children's poor, tired bodies an

hour in some direction for no good reason.

But that's the kind of time we live in in the modern West.

We live by the clock. We have to obey the clock.

We don't live by the sun, the seasons.

We live by what the clock tells us to do.

And so if the clock tells you to get up an hour earlier or stay

up an hour later, you have to, and your body will just have to

adjust to what time it is to live well in.

Now, Eastern Standard Time, you have to fit your life to what

the clock says. To live well in light of God's

sovereignty and God's purposes for all of history, you have to

fit your life to what time God says it is.

And what time God says it is is not some kind of arbitrary thing

that bears no relation to reality.

Instead, what time God says it is defines reality.

It's important to recognize that Jesus gives his disciples

instructions about the future, not so that they or we could

study it like a code and kind of have our secret decoder ring

that we sort of keep notes on. We can go, aha, I know exactly

when Jesus is coming. Many people throughout history

have claimed that many people even today still say stuff like

that. Jesus is telling you, as we'll

see explicitly in the Third Point, never believe a word that

anyone says about that, because they do not and cannot know.

Instead, He teaches us about the times we're living in so that

we'll know how to live well in them.

What time is it, according to Jesus?

What time are we living in? Well, we live on the far side of

the fulfillment of all these prophecies about 70 AD, so these

are not directly relevant to us. But what is?

Well, here's a few ways in which theological realities about who

Jesus is and what he's done for us determine the time we're

living in. We live between Jesus

resurrection and his return. The reality of his resurrection

and the certainty of his return are the two most definitive

events that shape the time we live in.

We live after Pentecost when God poured out His Spirit on His

people to indwell us and renew us.

We live in the time when God Himself makes us His temple by

His presence with us. We live in the era of the Spirit

equipping and empowering us for His service.

We live in the time of the New Covenant as we celebrate

whenever we have the Lord's Supper.

By His death, Christ has accomplished the forgiveness of

all of our sins. He's granted every believer to

know God truly and intimately. He has brought us into an

unbreakable relationship with His Father.

We live in the overlap of the ages.

The New Age has broken into the Presence, but it has not yet

been consummated. We live in the time of the Great

Commission of the Gospels, expansion to the farthest

reaches of the earth. We live in the time when God's

salvation has come crashing into the Presence, but it's not yet

been completed. Right now, I'm living in a time

when my severely sprained ankle has begun to heal but is not yet

fully healed. Seasoned athlete Brian Miller

reminded me just this morning that after it heals, it's

probably going to give me trouble for the next couple

years. So even after I heal, I will not

likely yet be fully healed. When Christ returns, the healing

will be perfect. The healing of all of our sin,

the healing of all of our bodies, the healing of this

whole creation. There will be no lingering cause

for left ankle concern for another two years or whatever.

All that'll be gone. The time we're living in is the

time when we look forward confidently to that.

Who cares about daylight savings?

This is the time we're living in.

To live well in it, you must let these theological truths shape

your sense of what time it is more than you let anything else.

Not how the economy is doing, Not how your favorite political

party is doing. Not how your career is going.

Not the direction cultural tides are pulling or vibes are

shifting. Those things can all change in

an instant. We can read them wrongly in the

1st place. Instead, let Jesus tell you what

time it is, like God's word tell you what time it is, as Martin

Luther famously said, referring to Christ's return.

I have two days on my calendar today, and that day, how can you

know what time it is? Point #2 trust Jesus's words.

Trust Jesus's words. That's what Jesus himself

teaches us to do in verses 30 and 31.

Look at verse 30. Truly I say to you, this

generation will not pass away until all these things take

place. What does Jesus mean by this

generation? I think he means the human

beings presently alive. He's been talking about things

are going to experience that aren't signs of the temples

fall. Things they will experience that

will be signs of the temples fall.

What's going to happen when the Roman army comes near?

He's talking about people who will see those events fulfilled.

You know the times Jesus used this word in Mark's gospel.

He's talking about his contemporaries.

He's talking about those presently alive.

I don't think he's using the word generation in any kind of

metaphorical or figurative sense.

Also, when he says all these things, he means the same thing

that he meant by these things in verse 29.

He also means the same thing that he said by all things in

verse 23. He's talking about the

destruction of the temple and the signs that will let you know

it's coming. Jesus was not a failed or

mistaken apocalyptic prophet. He never claimed that he would

return or history would end within the lifetime of his

hearers. Instead, he's saying that the

generation of those people presently alive will see

Jerusalem fall. And it did.

If you've ever kind of gotten into apologetics, you know,

reading or watched more skeptical scholars talk about

can we trust the Gospels or not, they will often bring out this

very verse, Mark 1330 as the kind of champion.

Aha, Jesus got it wrong. I think those scholars are

simply failing to understand what Jesus is talking about.

When he says his generation, he means his generation.

When he says these things, he's talking about the main substance

of his whole speech up to this point.

And instead of this verse being a kind of triumphal gotcha, aha,

Jesus got it wrong and you can't trust him.

It's just the opposite. The things he said all happened

to the T 40 years later, Jesus's prophecy proved true.

One reason Mark gives a whole chapter to this discourse is

that whether Mark was written before these events or after

these events, in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, I think it's

probably before. But in the wisdom of the Holy

Spirit, here's Jesus saying all these things that were soon to

be fulfilled and would stand as a record ever after, validating

Jesus's prophetic authority. This should confirm our trust in

His words. It's exactly the point Jesus

makes in the very next verse, verse 31.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

As we read in Isaiah 40 earlier, this is what God says about His

own words. Jesus is claiming that His words

are just as eternal, just as imperishable, just as inviolable

as God's own words. That can only be true if they

are God's own words and they are.

The authority that Jesus claims for his teaching is one more of

the dozens of proofs of his divinity that we've seen

throughout Mark's gospel. In this passage, you cannot

approach Jesus as a wise teacher of morality.

He is claiming divine authority for His words.

That means the only acceptable response is total acceptance,

total submission, total trust, total obedience.

You don't get to sift. You don't get to pick and

choose. You don't get to read Jesus the

way you'd read, you know, your favorite newspaper column.

This was very insightful. But you kind of disagree with

Him sometimes. Oh, it's even provocative, what

you know, enjoyable to kind of sharpen your thinking.

Nope. Jesus is saying that the only

way to relate rightly to His teaching is the absolute

allegiance you give to the words of God.

So what should you do? Trust in all of Jesus teaching.

Submit all of His commands. Believe all of his promises

about the future, especially the great promise of his return.

Most of this chapter is about what would happen to Jerusalem

within a generation. And it all happened.

Jesus speaks truth about the future because He is sovereign

over the future, which means the only way to have an absolutely

secure future is to entrust your future to Him.

If you're not a believer in Jesus, I wonder if you're

looking for certainty. What can you trust absolutely?

Is there anyone or anything you can be confident in with no

reservation, no shadow of doubt, no backup plan you kind of have

to keep in reserve if this person kind of lets you down or

doesn't come through? Jesus offers that kind of

certainty. That quest for certainty is

understandable. It's valid, it's legitimate.

Don't let anyone tell you that because no one here among mere

mortals can offer you that kind of certainty.

That is just not on offer. Jesus offers it.

Jesus makes good on it. Jesus claims that's what you

should do with his words, treat them as utterly certain.

And he backs it up in countless ways throughout the gospels by

giving us evidence that he is God Incarnate.

Notice Jesus says his words are permanent.

They're eternally permanent. They're more permanent than this

universe which is going to last longer, the solar system or

Jesus words. Jesus says it's his words.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away

one day unless Jesus comes back first.

You will pass away. Everyone you love will pass

away. Everything good you've done will

pass away. Every trace of you from any

living person's memory or any historical record will pass

away. Eventually, the universe itself

will pass away. Jesus himself declared it.

So. Where can you find lasting

truth, certain hope, unshakeable meaning only in Jesus?

His Word is his bond. His word is the bond that holds

the universe together, and His word will outlast this universe.

If you're not a Christian, trust in Jesus today.

There's another prediction Jesus makes that should lead you to

trust him. Three times in Mark's gospel,

once a piece in chapters 8-9 and ten, he promises, he predicts

that he will die and then rise again.

He predicts it in detail. He'll be betrayed, he'll be

handed over to the authorities, he'll be beaten and mocked, and

then he'll be killed. And it happened exactly as he

said it would. But it didn't stop there.

He said after three days, he would rise again.

And he did. The purpose of all of that is to

reconcile us to God. We owe God our lives.

We owe God our obedience. We owe God our total allegiance.

And yet all of us have turned our backs against God.

All of us have rebelled against God.

All of us have lived for ourselves instead of God.

We've sinned. That's the essence of what the

Bible calls sin. We deserve to be judged.

We deserve to be condemned. We deserve to be rejected by

God, and yet with this infinite gap that there was between US

and God, God did everything necessary to cross it for us.

That's what Jesus becoming Incarnate is about.

That's what his life of teaching and healing is about.

That's what his death on the cross is about.

It's what his resurrection is about.

Reconciling us to God that we've done nothing to deserve or earn

and He's done everything to achieve.

If you believe that, if you trust yourself to Jesus, that is

what makes you a Christian. That is what makes you right

with God. That and nothing else.

If you've never believed in Jesus, turn and trust in him.

Today. Jesus declares heaven and earth

will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

One day when Jesus returns, this universe will die and be

resurrected. How can you trust that's really

going to happen? Looks like things are pretty

much going on the same. They always have.

This universe doesn't really seem a fit subject for a death

and resurrection has not happened before.

Why should I believe that's going to happen?

Because the same one who predicted the universe's death

and resurrection predicted his own death and resurrection.

Because the one who rose from the grave is the one who

promises to raise you from the grave and to raise this whole

universe from the grave. Trust Jesus's words.

And to trust in Jesus's words also requires us to trust every

word of the Bible. Why?

Because Jesus himself believed and taught that the words of

Scripture are the words of God. When he wanted to appeal to a

point about creation in Matthew 19, about God making us male and

female, he says that he who created them male and female

said and he quotes the words of the Bible.

But those words of the Bible he's quoting are just the words

of the narrator. It's not God speaking, it's just

Bible words. Jesus says those Bible words are

God's words. In John 1035, Jesus says the

Scripture cannot be broken, it must be fulfilled.

It will always be valid. That means it's all true.

So it's not that Jesus's words are extra trustworthy and the

rest of the Bible is maybe selectively helpful.

If you're with Jesus, you're good.

But Paul, I don't know, some of those Old Testament prophets

sound a little harsh. If you trust in Jesus, you must

trust all of the words of Scripture because that's what he

believed and that's what he taught.

So if you're a believer in Jesus, how can you grow in

trusting Jesus's words and all of God's words?

Memorize them. Meditate on them.

Turn God's words into prayer. Send God's words back to Him as

grounds for praise, spurs to confession, reasons for

Thanksgiving. That's why we so often link up a

Scripture reading and a prayer in our services.

We're meditating on these things together, sending them back to

God in prayer. Let Scripture rearrange your

priorities. Let Scripture rearrange your

plans. Let Scripture unveil and lead

you to kill distorted desires and to help implant new God Word

desires. Let Scripture teach you where to

place your hope. Let Scripture teach you not to

invest your whole soul in anything that will end when this

life ends. Instead, invest your whole soul

in Christ's return. That is the only absolutely

certain investment you can make because Jesus is coming back.

You just don't know when point #3 stay awake, stay awake.

It's in verses 32 to 37. In verses 32 to 37, Jesus

repeats a command to stay awake five times, using three

different words or phrases. He urges us to stay awake as we

await His return, because His return is certain and it's time

is unknown. So the only way to be ready for

it is to be always ready. Look first to 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.

Note that here Jesus changes the topic again.

He's been talking about those days and all these things in the

plural. Now he changes it to that day in

the singular what day? The day of his return.

And his main point is clear in verse 32.

No one knows when it's coming. Not humans, not angels, not even

Jesus, only the Father. So that is clear and emphatic.

You should never, ever, ever believe anyone who claims I know

when Jesus is coming back. Jesus says that is impossible,

but this verse also presents a theological challenge to us.

If Jesus is God Incarnate and he is, and if God knows all things

and he does, then how can Jesus not know something?

Good question. Genuine difficulty.

We're going to pause and work on it for a little while.

I think we can understand this by comparing it with other

aspects of Jesus's human existence.

For instance, think of the end of Mark 4, when Jesus is asleep

in the boat in the middle of a storm and the disciples are mad

at him. Don't you care?

Can't you see we're perishing? We're all going to drown and

you're sleeping. What's going on?

Who is the one who's asleep in the boat?

It is God the sun Incarnate. If you keep that whole truth

about Jesus in mind, that he's God the Son Incarnate, you can

speak a true sentence that says God fell asleep.

What are you talking about? Jesus of Nazareth, God the Son

Incarnate, sitting there asleep in the boat right here.

If you were there, you could have seen it.

Who's the one who's sleeping there?

It's God, specifically God the Son.

But what about Jesus makes it true that he can fall asleep?

It's the fact that he's truly a human being.

To put it a bit more technically, we can say that

Jesus sleeps in and by virtue of his human nature, not his divine

nature. The divine nature does not and

cannot sleep. The divine nature is not a body.

God does not get tired, as Psalm 121 verse 4 says.

Psalms 121:4

He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

So God doesn't sleep, but God the Son Incarnate does.

Is that a contradiction? No, it's a paradox.

It's true because of the incarnation, and it's only true

with reference to Christ's humanity that he assumed in the

incarnation. If you want to study this more,

I've got a whole book on it more or less called Biblical

Reasoning. So is God the Son Incarnate?

Jesus is at once all powerful and weak.

He is at once immortal and mortal.

He raises the dead and he gets tired.

He forgive sins and he can die. So what does this mean for our

passage? It means that as God, Jesus

knows all things. But as man, according to his

human nature, his knowledge is limited.

He is at once omniscient as God and ignorant as man.

Jesus isn't saying that he can't know this, only that he doesn't.

It was not part of his Incarnate mission as the Messiah, either

to know or to make known the time of his second coming.

We didn't need to know it. Jesus, as a human being,

remained ignorant of it. He's ignorant as man and

omniscient as God. If you have a tough time

imagining how that could possibly true, or what the

consciousness of God the Son Incarnate is like, well, that's

exactly the point. We can't imagine it.

It's incomprehensible. It's beyond our ability to

grasp. It is a mystery, not a

contradiction, but a mystery. Not a contradiction, but a

paradox. And again, Jesus's practical

point here is that you know he's coming and you cannot know when.

So what should you do? Verse 33 Be on guard, keep

awake, for you do not know when the time will come, because you

don't know when he's coming. You have to be always ready for

his coming because you don't know what passage Doctor Gentry

is going to ask you to translate.

You have to be ready to answer for all of the passage.

A soldier keeping a night watch over his camp with all of his

sleeping comrades. He doesn't know when an enemy

might attack, so he has to stay awake throughout his whole

shift. 10 verses 34 to 37. Jesus has a similar illustration

for this point. He says 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 are in

the morning, lest he comes suddenly and find you asleep.

And what I say to you, I say to all stay awake.

In this short parable, Jesus refers to different servants who

each had different work. But his point is that every

single Christian is like the doorkeeper.

The doorkeeper's job was to stay awake, and that's each of our

job too. In verse 35, Jesus uses 4

phrases that match how the ancient Romans divided up the

watches of the night. Basically, they're counting 12

hours from sundown to sun up, basically six, 6:00 PM to 6:00

AM roughly. So the four watches of the night

are called evening, midnight, the Roosters, crow, and morning.

Or they might call it early 4 watches, 3 hours a piece.

What was the doorkeeper's job is to keep out unwanted visitors

and to let in anyone who had a right to come, including the

master of the house. How is every Christian a

doorkeeper? We are all meant to keep watch

for Jesus's return. We're all meant to stay

spiritually awake and alert. For a real doorkeeper, getting a

full 12 hour overnight shift would be absolutely brutal.

That's rough. That's Jesus's point.

There is no time when a Christian clocks out from

awaiting Jesus's return. There is no time when a

Christian can go off duty from being spiritually vigilant,

awake, alert. You can never clock out.

You should never take a break. Jesus point here is simple and

practical and profound. Throughout your whole life as a

believer, you must remain ready for His return.

Throughout your life you must live so as to greet Him with

joy. You should never do anything

that you would be ashamed to be found doing when Christ comes

back. Because this is such a rich and

important point, I'm going to spend some extended time

applying it. I've got 5 application points

that I'll walk through 1 by 1 #1 Because you don't know when your

end or the end of all things is coming.

Repent and trust in Jesus now because you don't know when your

end or the end of all things is coming.

Repent and trust in Jesus now. Don't put it off till later.

Jesus saying you don't know if there is a later.

You don't know if God will give you a later.

You don't know if this whole universe gets a later.

Whether you're a kid growing up in a Christian home or you're an

adult exploring the faith, don't simply push it off.

Don't say yeah I can, I can figure out Jesus later.

Repent and believe now. If you have questions standing

in your way, do your best to seek answers now.

If you've got issues or priorities that put you out of

sync with Jesus, address them in your heart and mind now.

If there's someone who can help you know what it means to follow

Jesus and convince you that it's worth it, talk to that person

now. Ephesians 426 says do not let

the sun go down on your anger. You should also not let the sun

go down on your unrepentance #2 Don't build your hopes on dreams

of progress or plans for fulfillment.

Don't build your hopes on dreams of progress or plans for

fulfillment. Progress is one of the central

myths that our culture lives by. We flatter ourselves to think of

the world is getting better and better and better, and it's all

thanks to us. We're making progress and

knowledge, science, technology, morality.

We're making so much progress and AI that no human being will

ever have to think a single thought ever again.

That's what I call progress. But are we making people better?

Are we making life better? Are we becoming more just, more

compassionate, more caring, more fair?

Progress on any grand scale is a myth, and so is living according

to your own personal plans for fulfillment.

It's not wrong to make plans. It's not wrong to seek to be a

good steward of your gifts, or to aim to serve the common good,

or to enjoy the good things that God gives you in your life.

But so many of us, so much of the time, load up all of our

hopes for happiness into the rickety little cart of our plans

for fulfillment. And we push that cart into the

future, and all our heart is riding on it.

Jesus teaching on the second coming means you don't know

whether any of those plans will come to pass.

Jesus might return before I finish this sermon, as CS Lewis

put it in a powerful essay called The World's Last Night.

The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not

and cannot know when the world drama will end.

The curtain may be run down at any moment.

Say before you finish reading this paragraph.

This seems to some people intolerably frustrating.

So many things would be interrupted.

Perhaps you were going to get married next month.

Perhaps you were going to get a raise the next week.

You may be on the verge of a great scientific discovery.

You may be maturing great social and political reforms.

Surely no good and wise God would be so very unreasonable to

cut all this short. Not now of all moments.

God will not evaluate your life better based on whether you

change the world. He will assess whether you were

faithful to Him. He will not hold you accountable

for what's beyond your control. He will hold you accountable for

what you have done with what he gave you.

CS Lewis again on this point, frantic administration of

panaceas to the world is certainly discouraged by the

reflection that this present might be the world's last night

sober work for the future. Within the limits of ordinary

morality and prudence is not, for what comes is judgement.

Happy are those whom it finds laboring in their vocations.

Whether they were merely going out to feed the pigs or laying

good plans to deliver humanity 100 years hence from some great

evil, the curtain has indeed now fallen.

Those pigs will never in fact be fed.

The great campaign against slavery or governmental tyranny

will never in fact proceed to victory.

No matter. You were at your post when the

inspection came. Stay at your post.

Wait for the inspection #3 Mark and avoid what causes spiritual

sleep. Mark and avoid what causes

spiritual sleep, as Jesus says in verses 35 and 36.

Therefore, stay awake, lest he come suddenly and find you

asleep. What's that a metaphor for?

That's spiritual sleep. Jesus means being spiritually

slothful, negligent in duty, disobedient, unfruitful, unfit

for his service, unprepared for his second coming.

What causes or contributes to spiritual sleep?

Here's a whole bunch of particular of potential factors,

in no particular order. Too much time with or too much

attachment to friends who pull your heart toward the world.

Working such long hours that you have no time for corporate

worship or personal devotions. The world getting its hooks into

your heart, its values, attachments, goals, priorities.

Could be through what you watch or listen to.

Could be through what other people take for granted and find

normal in your class or at the office in leisure time,

consistently defaulting to entertainment without any

thought of edification. Could be success, prosperity,

wealth, possessions, getting everything you want in this

life. Can lull you to sleep.

Could even be spiritual presumption.

Being confident in yourself rather than continually

dependent on God's grace. Taking advantage of God's grace

as if it gives you a license to sin.

Thinking I'm I'm good with God, we're fine, I'm forgiven, no big

deal. Instead of relentlessly seeking

to put sin to death. Do any of those describe you or

do others come to mind as I'm going through that list?

Are you in a state of drifting off to sleep?

Have you been spiritually sleeping for some time?

If that's you wake up. There is time right now.

There might not be time later. As Paul says in Ephesians 514,

Awake O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine

on you. Don't be too proud to wake up.

Don't be too ashamed to wake up. I don't think that because it's

been such a long season, it's too late to change.

Better late than never #4 Mark and embrace what keeps you

spiritually awake #4 Mark and embrace what keeps you

spiritually awake. Kids in the congregation, adults

can play, too. Have you ever been so excited

for what was coming the next day that it was hard to fall asleep?

Maybe Christmas Eve could be the day before your birthday, could

be the day before a vacation you're looking forward to.

What makes it hard to sleep is that you're so eager.

You're so excited for what's coming.

You don't want to sleep. You just want it to be the next

day. As a believer in Jesus, anything

that makes you more eager for Christ's return will help you

stay awake in anticipation of it.

What helps keep you spiritually awake?

Personal devotions. Time in the Word and prayer in

secret, especially meditating on heaven and the world to come.

Private prayer, especially self examination and confession.

Coming to corporate worship regularly, eagerly, expectantly.

Time spent with other believers in which you remind each other

of God's promises and Christ's return.

And any prudent practice, it helps you take a step back,

helps you get some critical distance from whatever plans

you're most fervently pursuing, whatever dreams you're most

devoted to. Anything that causes you to take

a little step back and say, I wonder if God really wants me to

pursue that as much as I want to pursue that.

Seeking counsel about it, evaluating it in light of

Scripture. Anything that lets you in any

way put God's agenda before your own agenda #5 Last point of

application. Be a good cup of coffee for

fellow church members. Be a good cup of coffee for

fellow church members. I know that not all members of

our church appreciate a good cup of coffee.

It is permitted to abstain from coffee and be a member of this

church. I am not binding anybody's

conscience. I'm really offering an

illustration. What does a good cup of coffee

do for you? It energizes you, helps you stay

awake. That is what each member of this

church should be for other members.

How can you be that good cup of coffee for another church

member? Encourage them with God's

promises. Speak truths of Scripture to

them. Help make sure that fellow

members make it to church. I love the way that so many of

you offer rides to each other. For those who don't have a car

or can't drive, use that time on the way to have a spiritual

conversation. Come to church eager in those

few minutes before, a few minutes after, not just to check

in or get to know somebody, although that's good.

Not just to have a little get to know you conversation, though

that's good, but to have deliberate spiritual

conversations. And if you're not a member of a

faithful evangelical church, I want to appeal to you, not so

much to join this church, but to join a faithful gospel preaching

church. Being a committed member of a

church is one of the most crucial antidotes to spiritually

falling asleep. When you join a church, you gain

however many dozens or hundreds of potential good cups of coffee

to help you keep from falling asleep.

When you're not a committed part of a local church, there's a

spiritually significant sense in which you're on your own.

It's not how God means us to live.

It's not how Jesus means for us to be parts of His body.

If you are a Christian, you are a member of the body of Christ,

so you should be a committed member of a local body of

Christ. If you want to learn more about

what it would look like to be a member of our church, I would

encourage you to come to our membership class next week,

right after church lunch and three hours into the afternoon.

Jesus is coming, is certain, and it's time is unknown.

How can you be ready? Know what time it is?

Trust Jesus's words and stay awake.

This is Jesus's last public teaching in the Gospel.

In the next chapter, he's going to be betrayed at night.

In the next chapter, Jesus will take a side three out of the

four disciples who are with him here, Peter, James and John, and

he will instruct them to keep watch and stay awake while he

goes off and prays. What happened?

They fell asleep. Jesus kept watch through prayer.

They fell asleep. They were sleeping and caught

sleeping by Jesus when his hour came.

What hour was that? The predicted hour to be

betrayed to his death. In our passage, Jesus predicts

the judgment that's going to fall on Israel and Jerusalem 40

years hence. In the next couple chapters of

Mark. Jesus will suffer judgment and

destruction that each of us deserves for our sin.

And then, just as He promises to return, so He returned from the

grave, bringing light and life with Him to all who trust in

Him. Just as He returned from the

grave, so one day He will return to us again, bringing the new

creation with Him. We know He will, we just don't

know when. So be ready, stay awake, let's

pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you

for these sobering and comforting words.

Pray that we would believe that Jesus is coming back and that

our lives would be changed as a result.

We pray in His name. Oh man.