How to Make It | Luke 21:25-28

If you have your Bibles this morning, would you turn with me to Luke chapter 21?

Luke 21 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 21 as we continue our series, getting closer and closer to the end of it.

Luke 21 · chapter mention

An introduction to Jesus the Son of God.

We're gonna be in Luke 21.

We're gonna just read verses 25 through 28, but it'll be it'll be plenty enough for us to talk about for sure.

Luke chapter 21, beginning in verse 25.

Luke 21 · chapter mention

God's word says, And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth the stress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world.

For the powers of heaven of the heavens will be shaken, and then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

Now, when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

Let's pray the Lord together.

Heavenly Father, Lord, this life is so hard, it's so painful, it's filled with groaning, it's filled with crying and with tears.

Lord, were it not for your son, how would we take a step?

Were it not for your son, how would we have the smallest joy?

But Lord, because of your son, our redemption is drawing near.

And so we, as your people, lift up our heads and lift up our voices and declare that you are good and worthy and sovereign over it all.

We live with joy in light of the circumstances because of who our King really is.

I pray this morning that through your word, you would only strengthen that conviction in the hearts of your people.

Lord, draw people to yourself, comfort those that already know you.

Do a great work among us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Several years ago, I was mentoring a group of young pastors.

And in our first meeting together, I asked them all the same question: what is your greatest fear in ministry?

And what fascinated me was that each one of them shared the same fear.

That the great fear that all of them had in their ministry was that they wouldn't make it to the end.

Some feared moral failure.

Some feared ministry ineffectiveness.

Some feared spiritual burnout.

But they all feared that they wouldn't make it to the finish line of the race.

You know, I think that's a common experience, a common concern that we have as we begin to follow after Jesus.

That's the nervousness that I sense when I'm doing premarital counseling with a young couple that are worried if they're gonna make it to the end.

It's the same concern that I hear on the lips of parents when they inevitably pull me aside at the wedding to express to me all the worries that they have about the young couple.

It's the fear of moms and dads to be as they prepare to bring a new baby into this world, unsure if they have the resources or the wisdom or all of the necessities to be able to make it through this culture.

It's the concern that grandparents have, as they wonder how on earth you raise a little one in this world.

It's it's the concern, it's the concern that I remember having as a young teenager when I decided that I wanted to take my faith seriously.

It's the concern that I still hear on the lips of teenagers today as they aim to take their faith seriously.

Will I make it?

Will I make it to the end?

Will I make it to the end of my life with my life intact and my faith intact and my peace intact?

Well, actually, in Luke 21, Jesus is literally days away from the cross.

And he recognizes that when he goes to the cross, that the tension and the tumult that the disciples are facing is going to reach fever pitch, that life is going to get really, really hard for them.

And his concern for his disciples, as he heads to the cross, as persecution begins to bear down on them, his concern is that he would equip them with the right expectation to be able to make it all the way until the end.

And I think, I think, by us listening in to what Jesus has to say to his disciples, that he's giving us a roadmap on how it is that we can make it in light of the world that we live in.

At first, I think what Jesus would have us to see is that if we're going to make it, we need to expect more stress.

Now, you probably didn't come to church here this morning hoping that I could tell you that you're gonna be more stressed out in your life.

But here's what I know.

Here's what I know is that if you don't express expect the stress that's to come, if you don't have the right expectations for what your life is going to look like, you're not gonna make it.

I tell this to families in crisis all the time.

That if you think that after the affair, that trust can be rehabilitated in six months, when the seventh month comes and marriage is still hard and trust is still hard, you're gonna feel like it's over.

You're gonna fall into despair.

If if you lose a spouse or a child, and you think that time is gonna heal all wounds and your healing is always gonna be up and to the right, two years later, when all of a sudden depression just sets in and and fits of crying come out of nowhere in what has otherwise been a perfectly fine day, you're gonna think, you're gonna think that you are broken beyond repair.

You're gonna think that you have no hope.

But if you have the right expectation, if you have the expectation that the rehabilitation of trust takes years, not months.

If you have the expectation that that grief is fickle and spontaneous and lingering and can ambush you, it doesn't make life easy.

That would be an overstatement.

But it enables you to face the difficulties of life without freaking out.

It enables you to face the difficulties of life and the trials of life with the recognition that this is hard, but my life is still on schedule because this is the expectation of what is to come.

You see, the right expectations give you the right perspective.

And the right perspective enables you to persevere and to endure.

The right expectations gives you the right perspective, and the right perspective enables you to begin to persevere and to endure.

This is what I believe that Jesus has in mind as he teaches his disciples here in Luke chapter 21.

Luke 21 · chapter mention

That he wants them to know what's coming in the future so that they won't be freaked out by it.

So he tells them just before what we've read that Jerusalem is gonna, they're gonna lay siege to Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is gonna be laid in ruins.

In fact, it's a prophecy that'll be fulfilled within 40 years of Jesus speaking it.

But then Jesus, in verses 25 and 26, our verses, he begins to zoom out so that we can see even a bigger picture.

That he wants his disciples to say, not only will Jerusalem be left in ruins during your lifetime, but actually the world is gonna get worse before it gets better, even in the generations to come.

That life is gonna get harder before it gets easier.

Life is gonna become more stressful before it becomes more restful.

That this is the expectation as the generations of the church grow, as the movement of the way moves forward, that they need to recognize that as their redemption draws near, there's going to be some times of hardship and difficulty.

And brothers and sisters, he's talking about us.

He's talking about our generation, he's talking about the things that we're facing.

In fact, I think this is the actual purpose of end times prophecies in our Bibles.

The purpose of end times prophecies is not that we would begin to develop charts and think about dragons and create movies.

The purpose is that we would have the right expectation so that we wouldn't panic and we wouldn't freak out, and we would know that the world is on schedule in the way that Jesus has said that it's on schedule.

In fact, Daniel chapter 7 is the backdrop of what Jesus is talking about here, and it helps us begin to understand some of the cosmological language.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

Daniel chapter 7 is the prophecy that's given to us that a son of man is going to come, a son of man is going to be sent by the ancient of days, and the son of man is going to ultimately deliver the people of God into the kingdom of God that will be everlasting.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

And it uses this cosmological language, right?

So here you'll notice that Jesus talks about the sun, he talks about the moon, he talks about the stars, he talks about the earth, distress of nations in perplexity, he talks about the roaring, this is especially pertinent, of the sea and the waves.

In Daniel chapter 7, the prophet prophesies that the four winds of the earth will sweep across the earth, and it will cause the seas to begin to churn.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

And it's a metaphor.

It's a metaphor for how the nations will rage.

That the nations will declare war on one another, and the nations will bomb one another, and the nations will terrorize one another, and the nations will try to conquer one another, that this is the churning of the seas, the expectation of what's happening.

Does this sound familiar?

Right?

And he gives us there at the end when he says, For the powers of the heavens will be shaken, he's giving us an explanation of the why.

In fact, this is a direct quote from Isaiah chapter 34, verse 4.

Isaiah 34:4

I would invite you maybe this week to go and study this.

And you'll, if you interpret this in light of what's happening in Isaiah chapter 34, the point of Isaiah 34 is that, yes, the nations rage, and the nations rage because they believe that their gods give them a leg up on all the other nations.

Isaiah 34 · chapter mention

But guess what?

This is what Isaiah 34's point is all of their gods are made out of wood.

And do you know what wood does?

Wood rots.

And so here are these nations, and they're raging, and they believe that they have the advantage because they have their gods.

But then they begin to notice the deterioration of their gods.

And when they see the deterioration of their gods, insecurity begins to creep in.

And you know what insecure people do?

They huff and they puff and they throw out their chests and they flex their arms and they bark louder and yell louder and try to convince you that they're mightier and stronger and more able than they're able because they're compensating.

But here's the reality: the reality is that the people will be fainting with fear, foreboding of what is coming on the world.

I don't know that there is a verse in the entire Bible that better summarizes the current climate that we live in than verse 26.

That people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world.

In fact, this is reminiscent of what Paul says.

I have it there at the bottom of your screen in Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

And it's important to point this out because Paul includes believers in this.

He's talking to believers in Romans chapter 8, isn't he?

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Listen to what Paul says.

He says, For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

And not only the creation, but who?

We ourselves.

This is Christians, this is this is us in the church who have the first fruits of the Spirit.

We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

So Paul says that this is what's going to feel like that that life is going to feel stressful, that life is going to feel like groaning.

It's going to feel like the pains of childbirth, that you're going to live a life, and your life is not going to be smooth.

Even if you are awaiting your adoption finally as sons, even if you already have the first fruits of the Spirit, even if you are born again, you are going to live in a land of fear and foreboding that is going to be difficult and it's going to feel as though all of it is out of control.

In fact, the word fainting that we see there in verse 26, it's the only time in the entire New Testament that this word comes up.

And it's a word that means to not be able to breathe.

It's to not be able to catch your breath.

It means gasping for air.

It's that fight or flight moment when you are so filled with fear you can't even fight, and you can't even flight.

You just freeze, right?

Like you just don't know what to do.

It's the deer caught in the headlights because you're gasping for air.

You don't know what to do.

The idea of foreboding, it is a terrible anticipation.

It is to live your life with dread and fear of what's always lurking around the corner.

You know what they call our generation?

They call our generation the anxious generation.

The anxious generation.

If we were to put this in Jesus' language, we could, we are the generation of fainting with fear and foreboding of what is coming into the world, right?

And sociologists are all over the place.

I'll tell you where I think it starts.

We bring these bad news machines with us everywhere we go, don't we?

Yesterday morning, I caught myself.

I woke up and I was laying in the bed, and what did I do?

I reached and I grabbed my phone.

Before I got out of my bed, I read about a child that had been violated by someone they trusted.

Before I got out of my bed, I read about a young pastor that was on his bicycle and was ran over by a hit and run person that killed him and took him away from his kids.

Before I got out of my bed, I read about the divisions in Congress.

That's a lot of bad news first thing in the morning.

And we carry it everywhere we go, don't we?

We carry it to bed, we wake up to it, we carry it to the bathroom with us, we take it on vacation with us, we we read it on the plane, we we try not to read it while we drive, but most of us are guilty of doing that, some too.

Everywhere we go, there is bad news, isn't there?

Everywhere we go, there is more and more reason to be stressed out about what we're facing, about what's happening in the world, about what your kids are.

It's creating in us a spirit in which we're gasping for air, in which we are dreading what is to come, which we are living with this horrible anticipation of what might happen to our kids in our family, in our lives, in our economy.

Jesus is here and he's saying you ought to expect this bad news.

You ought to expect it.

But if you expect it, you recognize that it doesn't mean that it's beyond his control.

It's actually taking place according to his word.

That when we see the bad news, as those who have confidence in Christ, we know that it doesn't mean that this is out of control.

It actually means that it's on schedule.

That we are to recognize and expect more stress, and that that stress presents us with the opportunity to now live by faith.

The stress presents to us the opportunity to live by faith.

If you think about it, if there was no stress in the world, there would be no opportunity for faith in our lives.

We live by faith because it feels like it's beyond us.

We live by faith because it feels like it's out of control, doesn't it?

In fact, in fact, if you think about the stress in your life, the stress in your life actually reveals the object of your faith.

Where you turn and to whom you turn when you're stressed out reveals who it is and what it is that you trust.

I wonder where you turn when you're stressed out.

I wonder if the picture could be the mom who goes and she's stressed out about everything that's happening in your life.

So she sits down and she's like, All right, I'm standing up late tonight, I got my notebook back out.

I'm gonna think of a new way to keep our house organized.

I'm gonna write out a new schedule that's gonna help everybody get to everywhere they're supposed to be.

I'm gonna create a new meal plan so that all of us can finally eat healthy, and she's writing it out.

And even as she's writing it out, she's overcome with guilt because she knows it's impossible.

She's trying and she's trying and she's doing everything that she's done.

And she's gotten up earlier and she's stayed up later, and she's done everything that she can do.

But she still, she still feels like she's gasping for air.

Maybe it's it's the dad.

He's like, man, I'll take on another side hustle.

We'll acquire another business.

We'll take the promotion, relocate our family again, we'll do whatever we have to do.

I need financial freedom.

We need to be able to bring rest.

Could it be?

Could it be that when we turn to ourselves in stress, it's revealing that our confidence is in our own capacity, and our confidence is in our own wisdom, and our confidence is in our own strength.

You know, I think this is why we turn to Tinder and Pornhub.

We turn to Tinder and Pornhub because we live lives that feel like they're out of control.

And we just want to control something for a moment.

We just want to feel something for a moment.

And we know it's fleeting and we know it's not lasting, but that we're in control of, that is always waiting on us.

Could it reveal that our confidence is actually in that which is temporary?

That which doesn't last.

This is why we turn to alcohol.

This is why we turn to drugs.

This is why we lose ourselves in gaming and fantasy worlds.

It could be revealing that our hope, our hope is not that the Lord would see us through our stress, but that we would actually have an ability to escape our stress.

See, the world.

The world is filled with false hopes, offering false relief to real stress.

And here is Jesus, and the question that Jesus is asking all of us is, will you just trust me?

Will you just trust me?

See, this is the purpose of him giving us Daniel chapter 7.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

He calls himself the Son of Man, and he is meaning to import everything that's been said in Daniel chapter 7 when he calls himself the Son of Man.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

In fact, he summarizes what Daniel 7 says about the Son of Man at the end in the rest of the verse.

So look at what it says in verse 14 about the Son of Man in Daniel chapter 7.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

It says of the Son of Man that will be sent by the ancient of days, that he would be given dominion and glory, a kingdom that all peoples, all nations, all language would serve.

That his dominion is not just any dominion, it is an everlasting dominion, which what shall not pass away.

His kingdom is one that shall not be destroyed.

You know what you need in a world filled with foreboding and fainting?

You know what you need in a world that feels so insecure?

You know what you need in a world that is filled with rotting gods that are offering false hope.

What you need, what you need is one who is everlasting.

What you need is one that will not be destroyed.

What you need is to be included in a kingdom that is ruling over all peoples and all places and all nations of all generations.

What you need is to be included in the kingdom of God, adopted by the Son of Man, that you would be sustained.

That here he is calling and inviting all of us, and he's saying, No, no, no, no, look at who I am, know who I am, recognize who is in your midst.

In a generation of dread, in a generation of anxiety, find your hope in an everlasting kingdom.

But here's the hard part.

Here's the hard part.

Right now it doesn't look like it.

That's why he's having to tell his disciples.

He's having to tell them because it doesn't look like he's the Son of Man.

It looks like he was just a man, born to a man and raised as a carpenter.

He's not gonna be coronated and exalted on a throne.

He's gonna be crucified and nailed to a cross.

He's gonna be filled with groans, the pains of childbirth, fear and foreboding.

He knows that it's coming.

And so what he's inviting them to, what he's inviting them to, is to believe it by faith.

See, the reason that we turn to alcohol and the reason that we turn to porn hub and the reason that we try to lose ourselves, ourselves into fantasy worlds is because we want a hope that we can feel.

We want a hope that we can see, we want a hope that we can touch.

But here is Jesus saying, trust in the reality of my resurrection, trust in the reality of who I've presented myself to be.

Will you just trust me?

Will you trust that I'm bringing all of this together?

Will you trust that I will provide for you?

Will you trust that I am establishing an everlasting kingdom that will not be destroyed?

Will you trust that if you come in me and hide in me, in me you will be secure?

See if you're gonna make it, this is the point.

This is the application of the whole sermon.

This is the application of everything that Jesus has been saying up until this point, that you've got to expect that life is going to be stressful.

But recognize the stress of life is the opportunity for faith in Christ.

And if you recognize that the stress of life is an opportunity for faith in Christ, well now you can live without panic.

Now you can live without panic.

You can live without fear and foreboding and anxiety.

You can live without the constant and continual dread of all that's to come.

This is the culminating point that Jesus has been making in all of Luke chapter 21.

Luke 21 · chapter mention

He starts, I have Right there in the middle.

He starts in verse 9 and he says, And when you hear of wars and tumults, what?

Do not be terrified.

Or these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once.

Then he continues the thought in verses 18 and 19.

He says, listen to this what he says about his disciples in the shadows of the cross, when he knows that persecution is going to rain down on them.

He says, But not a hair of your head will perish.

By your endurance, you will gain your lives.

And so now he's culminating it in verse 28.

Listen to this.

Now, when these things begin to take place, straighten up, raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

Isn't that beautiful?

Do you hear that there is a beautiful and powerful defiance in the voice of Jesus?

That here is Jesus, and he's saying, the world is filled with chicken littles.

The world is filled with people that say, look at the election, the sky is falling.

Look at the economy, the sky is falling.

Look at the culture, the sky is falling.

Look at the church, the sky is falling.

Look at our children, the sky is falling.

You know what he says?

In a world filled with chicken littles, straighten up and hold up your head.

Do not panic, sing.

There's a defiant joy that is meant to be abiding and living in the hearts of believers that in a world filled with chaos and confusion, fainting and foreboding, that we step forward, lift up our heads with confidence in the person of Christ, and sing to the top of our lungs because we have begun the new song of an everlasting kingdom.

My favorite quote about the end times comes from a pastor by the name of TJ Timms.

And he says that the reason that we have the prophecies of the end times is not so that we would go and build bigger bomb shelters.

It's so that we would go and buy bigger dining room tables.

See, we are people in a generation of chicken littles and a generation of people who are scared of the sky falling and scared of their own shadow.

We are the people that because our redemption is drawing near, gather together around the table and party and sing and celebrate that the worst thing that can happen to us in this life is the expediting of the return of Christ when all the tears will be riped away and all the stress will be eliminated and displaced by peace, and our joy will be final and ultimate and total.

That we aren't afraid, we're singing.

Because our redemption is drawing near.

So you see, the word redemption, as it's being used right here in verse 28, is not just talking about the moment that you were born again, it's talking about your final redemption, the ultimate consummation of everything that Jesus has said.

It's talking about that moment in which your faith will be turned to sight.

When the lights will come on, and all the prophecies of Jesus will be fulfilled in front of you, and all the promises of Jesus will be kept in front of you, and all the glory of Jesus will no longer be disclosed by his incarnation, but revealed in his glory, seated upon his throne.

That is pointing us to the moment when all of this fearing and all of this foreboding goes away.

And now it's only a time of joy.

Last year I was talking with a dear lady in my church.

I mean, she's one of those women that, like, if I had to go toe-to-toe with Satan, I would want her right beside me, you know?

Her name's Eva, and she and I were talking about, we had a lot of young families in the church that I pastored previously, and we were talking about all the young families, and we were talking about the pressure that globalization and the internet has placed onto families.

The feeling that you have that you have to live up to the values of not just your immediate family, but your broader culture, and then the global culture, and that that you have to be able to achieve in all the ways that everybody says that you have to achieve, and attain all the things that everybody says that you have to attain, and be able to do and accomplish all the things that everybody says they have to do and accomplish, and how it just causes all of us to spin out of control.

And this is what Eva said to me.

She said, Cody, I wish that I could go and sit in the home of every young family and sit across the table from them and say, Look, hold on.

This is temporary.

Jesus really is coming, and you really are gonna be okay.

That's Jesus' point here.

That's Jesus' point.

That the point of Luke chapter 21 is to give every single one of us a two-word sermon that we can preach to ourselves day in and day out, a two-word sermon given in the context of Luke, of Daniel chapter 7, of Luke chapter 21, of the resurrection and of the era to come.

Luke 21 · chapter mention Daniel 7 · chapter mention Luke 21 · chapter mention

And it's a two word sermon that simply says don't panic.

Don't panic.

Hold on.

This is temporary.

Jesus really is coming, and you really are okay.

Let me pray for us.