Mark Sermon 18: Be On Guard!

Of Mark, we're almost done. I don't know if that is cheer worthy or what are we gonna do next worthy, I don't know, but I've certainly enjoyed going through the gospel. It's it's a quick it's a quick thing. I don't know if it's felt quick to you, but Mark is certainly a quick thing. We're already to chapter 13, and we're gonna start with verses one through nine this morning.

This is kind of an odd reading, and we're not actually gonna cover all of this chapter because it it goes into some interesting things where things you've heard before. Out of this chapter come a lot of speculations about end times, and what does it mean when you see all of these things, and you've heard people do that, I'm sure. And of course, what we're gonna cover as well is even the son of man does not know. The son does not know when he's going to return. So over anything else, keep that with you this morning.

So we begin in verse one, and as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, look, teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings. Jesus said to him, do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. What a buzzkill. Right?

You like these things. We went to on a little school trip down to see Minute Maid now what is it now called? Diken thank you, Diken Park, whatever, that's not gonna stick. I'll just say that right now. They wasted their money.

Minute Maid. But there are beautiful buildings down there, the old train station and all of that, and so I can I can see that? I've actually been, right, where Jesus was probably having this conversation. You look at all of this fantastic stuff around you, beautiful things, and Jesus really does the Debbie Downer thing, and like, oh, by the way, there's not gonna be one stone upon another left here. And so, had to draw their attention, didn't it?

What do you mean? What do you mean there's not gonna be one? This is beautiful, look what we've created. We we still do that today. Right?

We create something, and then we marvel at it. I would just warn you, don't do that with a ship. They did that with a Titanic, we know how that ended up. Never be sunk. Right?

Well, okay. Well, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down, and actually, you can go see Jerusalem right now and you can see those stones that were thrown down. Spoiler alert if you didn't know. 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? A question that we would all really like to know.

Right? Just tell me when. Now, don't know if we want to actually know some of those hard questions of life. If if Jesus came to you and he said, oh, by the way, you're gonna die in a week. Like, thanks for telling me.

I'm gonna live great for this week. Well, no, but we all wanna know. We always all have that curiosity, and I love that the Bible kind of pulls that out. We want to know what are the signs, what's the warning sign that these things are about to happen, they're 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 the birth pains, but beyond your guard. Now, you probably heard in the last couple of verses some of the things that get thrown out there. Well, this must mean the Lord's about to come back. Right?

Well, throughout history, think back, those of you historians in here, have we ever had famines and wars and rumors of wars? Can you point out a time? Can you point out a time where we haven't had those things? What Jesus is saying is, okay, life is going to go on. Right?

Things are gonna continue to happen, and he says, you know, I don't have a time for you. He says in verse nine, but be on your guard. Be ready. That's a theme throughout scripture. You understand that?

Be on your guard. Be ready. And he'll say it again here in just a second. We skip down 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.

Be on guard, keep awake. Now, when you come across something in scripture that keeps being repeated, your ears ought to perk up. Be on guard, keep awake. Now, what he has just talked about, the reason we didn't go through all of this, because some of what he's talking about is very specifically the temple. No stone left upon another, we know in AD seventy that this was done.

The Romans came in, right, everything was happening. It talks about the abomination of desolation. That's a weird term. Right? You probably didn't use that this week on Snapchat, did you?

The abomination of desolation, they actually come in and they they they have these these sacrifices, they they kinda destroy the temple in in a non sacrificial type of way. We're gonna make it non holy. Right? So they they destroyed it in every way imaginable. But there's also this element not only of the temple, but also of the son of man coming back.

And that's what Jesus is is saying. No one knows the day or the hour, but only the father. Be on guard. Keep awake, for you do not know when the time will come. It 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. You hear this repeating? 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, in the morning, lest he comes suddenly and find you asleep, and what I say to you, I say to all what does he say, church? Again.

Right? Be on guard. Be on guard. Stay awake. Stay awake.

Stay awake. Be ready. So sitting here this morning, would you count yourself as ready? As being awake and ready for the son of man to return? Is that how you see yourself?

Because I think, as as much as we have questions about when is the day or when is the hour, it's not so much about preparation as far as doing other things. What would I like to do? What would I like to have fun with? Anybody ever made a list? I've got my bucket list.

Right? I wanna do these things before I get done. I have a list on Instagram, I've got a saved folder of Houston places to eat. In just the places I have saved, I'll probably never finish all of that. Right?

Because unfortunately, I'm scrolling at night, I'm hungry, and then the best the top 10 burger places come up, well, I've got to save that. Right? But we have things we want to get done, and I don't think a lot of times our question is about, man, I just genuinely want to prepare my heart for Jesus to return. I think it's more about, what can I do? What can I get done here to have fun, or whatever?

I think God wants you to have fun. I think God created this place for us to enjoy and have fun. But the biggest point he's making, again, is while you're doing that, while you're enjoying this creation he's given you, be on guard. Stay awake. You don't know when he's coming back, even if you did know.

Right? It would be it would be a weird situation, oh, I know the day I'm going to die. What a messed up thing. Now, I live my life differently. Right?

Well, he doesn't ask us to do things out of compulsion, but we we should be awake and stand guard. And so that means preparation, doesn't it? That means something changes about the way I go about life, the way I live, how I talk to the server in a few minutes when she doesn't fill up your tea on time. Right? Yes?

I think I've told you before, I've worked in a restaurant when I was in college, and one of the things the server said was one of the things they hate to see at a table was that family prayed before they ate. And as a Christian, that shocked me, and I said, Why? He said, They don't tip. Let's turn that around, shall we? Now, we're in a tipping culture and I just added some more fuel to the fire.

Now, you're really going to feel bad when you go to do that tip today, aren't you? But it changes the way you live your life, it changes the way you interact with people. If I'm on guard, if I'm being prepared, if for just a second I tell you guys, I know something you don't know. Well, first of all, you want to know that, don't you? Jesus is gonna walk through that door in just a minute.

Does that change what you're thinking about right now? Does that change something about do you immediately repent? Do you confess in your mind, like, I'm praying right now? Like, I wanna get this right. Because I don't think we live like that.

Right? We we live as if we're never really gonna see the day. Now, that's different from the way Paul wrote. Paul wrote as if he thought Jesus was coming back at any time, like it's going to be soon, and here we are almost two thousand years after the fact. But I think Paul does this in a way that he is preparing himself that at any time, Jesus could come back, and I want to be ready.

I wanna be ready to meet him, sang that song before, but I wanna be prepared. And so we ought to ask ourselves, are we prepared? We talked about this, and you missed out on Wednesday night. We talked about this chapter of second Peter in chapter three. I want you to notice kind of the overlapping themes here from what Mark has said in his gospel.

And again, we understand or we believe that Peter was using Mark, like Mark was using Peter's stories because Peter was one of those disciples close to Jesus. Right? And so Peter, as you see this, this is now the second letter I'm writing you, beloved. In both of them, I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and savior through your through your apostles, knowing this first of all that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, where is the promise of his coming?

For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. Because nothing changes day in and day out, we think, well, nothing will ever change. Right? Things that well, Jesus died, but yeah, what has changed since then? We haven't seen his return, we don't know when that's gonna happen, and there's a way to just go about life where I'm not really concerned with that.

And what he's saying is people will actually come up and and speak against that, like, are you you've been told this? Why do you live that way? Or why won't you do this? This thing they want you to join in with. Right?

Well, I am different. I am preparing myself for a different kind of life, that I desire to be ready for Jesus when he he returned. In verse eight, it says, but do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as is one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises, some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Now, don't know that Peter knew that people would be reading this verse two thousand years after, one year or one day is like a thousand years.

So so far, it's been about two days for God. You got that? And so don't count slowness as we count slowness, like two thousand years. Can you wrap your mind around it? When I was in Israel, we were walking and seeing all of these ancient sites, we walked by this old building, and we're like, what's that?

Like, it's new. It's from the fifteen hundreds. Fifteen hundreds? Like, that's in America, we don't we don't have those things. Okay?

I don't walk by a 1,500 year old building. And the crazy thing was it looked kinda modern compared to everything else, didn't it? But, okay, well, be ready. Right? Don't overlook the fact that the Lord is not slow in this way, but his desire did you catch this in verse nine?

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Now, I have days, and you probably do too, where things are so rough that it's like, come Lord Jesus, I want out of this. Right? You have those days or it's just me? Y'all looking like, nah, it's just you.

Yeah. Well, okay. Well, God's plan and God's purpose is to bring everyone to repentance, to give you the time you need. And we sit and debate all these things about, you know, can a person be saved on their deathbed? We've got to make a stance on that.

You all may have not had those classes growing up, I did. And I thought, okay, well, we've to figure this out, I guess. Well, God's desire should be our desire that everyone has the time to come to repentance, to get their themselves prepared for God to prepare them so that they can, again, be with him. In verse 10, says, but the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. It says, all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of coming of the day of God, because of which because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn.

But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. So I love the question here in verse 11. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness? So if we were to talk about it individually, right here in public, introverts hiding under their seats, would you say that your life is one of holiness and godliness? I think we don't want that mirror held up in front of us a lot of times, do we?

Because we kinda like to do things the way we want to and get ourselves right on Sunday. Well, your entire life should be, again, to be on guard, to be prepared, to stay awake, to live a life. If you know Peter is saying, if you know these things are coming, if you know this, then what sort of life ought you to live? One of holiness and godliness. And man, I'm a work in progress.

Amen? I'm working on it all the time. I'm asking God to help to help me with things. Y'all, this in the form of a brag, just give me this grace, okay? I grew up on a baseball team that didn't lose.

I remember one time, one of my classmates said she asked one of my teammates, Did y'all win last night? And he said, We played, didn't we? And that caught me off guard, I thought, You know what? We do win all the time, don't we? And Evan's on the soccer team there right now that's not winning much at all.

He hasn't won any, thank you. I wasn't going to say that, but okay. I have one tie. I struggle with that. I am competitive, I want to beat you at bowling, I want to beat you at anything we want to do.

I was the right fit to coach Logan and all these little kids because I'm gonna do the work, I'm gonna prepare, I'm gonna get these kids ready. They don't listen to anything I say, but I'm prepared. Alright? But I know when I go to Evan's game, I'm gonna struggle. Right?

I I I've got that. That's out there. It's a confession from John this morning. And so, I am a constant work in progress, and that's okay because we are being prepared. We are preparing, and part of being on guard and staying awake is to recognize those things in yourself.

That God, I still need your grace and your mercy to be better about this. And we all have our things, don't we? And so, part of this, again, I wanna live a holy life, I wanna be a godly person. And and again, that affects everything I do and the way I speak to you, right? The interactions we have and the relationships that we have.

Okay? It matters in how I am with my family, and how I lead my family, how I raise my boys, all of those things. That I want to be a godly husband, that I want to be a godly father, that when you see me in H E B and call me call me out as your preacher, which I know you'll do, Valentin, that you see me as yeah, John's a work in progress, but he is trying to live a godly life. What more can you say about someone? Right?

When I was a kid, my parents, and maybe you've done this too, would talk to me a lot about reputation. Have you done that? Have you had that discussion? And that how people see you. Now, I think we can use that kind of to distort the truth, right?

Again, we have our box that we hide things in, and then we present a different person to the world, But I I think that's one of the best lessons my parents ever taught me was one of reputation, that I desire and I hope to be someone that you you look at and you're like, he's trying to live a godly life. He is a good person. And so when I go back to my hometown today, people that have known me since I was a kid, they they know who I am, they know my family, they know the reputation we have because of how we lived our lives. Right? It's not about us, it's about showing the love of Jesus through us to everyone else.

Right? And that's a very important thing as we're being prepared, as we're staying awake. Says, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, again, of which heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, we don't talk about that a whole lot, do we? And the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn, but according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Just a side point, we often talk about flying away to heaven, and then scripture tells us we're getting a new heaven and a new earth.

Right? The Jerusalem new Jerusalem is coming down. We don't think about that much. In verse 14, it says, therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent, gets that word, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at peace, and count the patience of our Lord as salvation. One more time.

Since you are waiting since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at peace. And the only way that we can do that is through God. Right? It's through our Lord and savior, walking in the light as he is in the light, living a life that is constantly cleansed by him. And I said recently, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, as first John tells us, we are continually cleansed.

Well, why do you need cleansed if you are perfect? You don't, do you? But we are made perfect. We live imperfect lives, but we are made perfect by his sacrifice, and count the patience of our Lord as salvation. Again, waiting for the right time for you to come to repentance.

You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, to be to him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. And so, a challenge for us is as Peter ends this, verse 18, but grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Now, I'll be honest with you, I've been in church a long time.

I've been a Christian since 09/18/1994, and I wish what we had was rooms full of people who desired this, to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior. So this is I see this as two parts. Right? That we we come to an understanding, a better understanding. We're praying all the time that we're growing closer to God and closer to each other.

Right? And that's a part of this, that we grow as far as we understand God better, we have a desire to learn. Now, I get, as a as a preacher, I get way more conversations with people about how they don't know enough, or are intimidated intimidated to talk to other people, I get a lot of that, but I get very few requests on how do I learn more about God. And it seems like we're just okay living a life where we are intimidated or we feel like we don't know enough, and there's not enough desire to, okay, what are you gonna do with that? Actually, I got a request this week and I loved it.

I was able to kinda help help someone. Alright. Maybe you ought to check out this. Right? But that is our desire.

It should be our desire to grow in the grace and the knowledge. So we're growing as we understand God, but also to understand his grace and to give it, I believe. Now, how can you be gracious to someone today? How can you give grace? Now, some of you are gonna get on I 10 in just a little bit, you'll be tested quickly.

You'll get that very quickly. Look around the room here, I know some of you teach, you're gonna get that at least tomorrow, if not today. Right? But I am I am having chances like praying for patience. Don't wanna God, don't don't give me opportunities for patience, just give me the patience.

Right? But part of this is learning more about God, understanding him, understanding his will, and being able to use that to shine the light of God, giving his grace and mercy that he gave to you, we give that to others. And so we've got to think about that because often, the only thing in our mind is they've wronged me. It's been two minutes and my tea is still empty. Right?

I've seen some fits thrown about tea, that's why I'm using that this morning. If you're one of those people, I don't know that story yet, so tell me later and we'll pick on you about it. But grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord. So be on guard, be awake, be ready for his return, that God is waiting for you. Now, let me just say this because we've we've had to say it before and I get it all the time, if you're waiting for your life to be perfected before you come to him, that day will not come.

What you need to do is come to him as a broken person as we all are and allow him to put all the pieces back together. Because if you follow his lead, that is perfection. That is preparation. That is being on guard and being awake. And I'm going to let him handle it.

And that sounds so hands off. We're we're from the South. We fix everything. Right? I I feel it.

I'm gonna put my pants on, put my belt on, and go to work. You know, we come to him and allow him to fix these things. And so, our prayer this morning again is that we grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and savior. I've got an invitation song picked out this morning. We love to encourage you again on that walk with him.

If you haven't begun that walk, let's do that today. Let's be baptized into his name, calling on the name of the Lord, professing allegiance to Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, that I'm gonna put him up and above everything else. Give your life to him. And if you've already done that and you've strayed from him or need the prayers of this church, we love you.