What Are You Waiting For? (1 Corinthians 1:1-9)

Grace to you in peace from God the Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Our text this morning is our epistle reading from that first chapter of 1 Corinthians.

Most of us have picked someone up at the airport, and if you've paid attention, you've noticed how there are waiting people all scattered along the way from the gate to the curb.

Some stand just past the security exit, craning their necks down that long concourse.

Or a driver in a dark suit holds up a sign with a name on it.

Or down at baggage claim, a grandmother clutches a balloon while the baggage carousel groans to life, or a little girl in pajamas stands on her tiptoes waiting for daddy to come back from his deployment.

And outside, cars are inching along that passenger pickup lane, and somebody behind the wheel keeps checking a phone for the text that says, I'm getting off the plane now.

Some are close, some are far, but every one of them is doing the same thing.

They're waiting.

And each of them is waiting for someone.

St.

Paul says that is what a Christian is.

Writing to the church in Corinth, he thanks God for them and then sums up their whole life in one phrase, waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The word Paul uses is apocalypsis, the unveiling, the revealing of our Lord.

The Christian life from the font to the grave is watching for that face.

Which raises the question, what are we waiting for?

All of us are waiting for something.

The question is whether we're waiting for the right thing.

And there are answers floating around, some in the world, some in the church that sound good and hopeful, but we should test them against God's word.

The first answer is the oldest and the loudest.

We are waiting for a perfect world.

Mankind has carried this hope for a long time, and in the last few centuries it has grown especially loud.

People believe machines will soon render physical labor unnecessary.

We were already thinking this in the 17th century, in the days of the clock and the telescope, and we're fully convinced of it today, surrounded as we are by robots and driverless cars and delivery drones.

People believe in political perfection, that as more of the world recognizes that all people born equal have equal claims to all rights, we're just a coke away from singing in perfect harmony.

And people believe that as mankind becomes increasingly enlightened, as it becomes clear that religion is what has held people back in their pursuit of happiness, and as we put behind us the concern of our uneducated ancestors, such things as eternity and judgment and heaven and hell, and instead wreck all our energies towards this life, a golden age on either Earth or Mars lies just around the corner.

And as insane as this hope is, because sin, death, and disease remain, and imperfection, misery, and sorrow persist, this delusion is so widespread that even self-proclaimed Christians unite with the world to chase after the dream of an ultimate perfect world order.

The trouble with the world lives within the human heart.

And no invention, no political system, no spaceship fixes that.

And the more Christians feed on this hope, the colder and more indifferent they grow toward the kingdom of God.

When we wait for the world to save us, we stop waiting for the Savior.

There are other Christians who nourish themselves with a completely different yet equally vain hope.

They hope for better times for the church.

They hope Christ will return to earth before the end of the world, bind Satan, convert the nations by the millions, and set up this glorious thousand-year kingdom where at last the church is on top, where we the persecuted finally rule when even nature cooperates and brings forth its harvest without human sweat.

And here in Dallas, here in the Bible Belt, many of our neighbors have grown up on the charts and the novels, the rapture, the tribulation, the earthly rain.

And it appeals.

Because when the church looks weak, when pews thin out and faith is mocked, a hope that promises the church will finally win on earth tastes really sweet.

But this hope has no foundation in any syllable of the Word of God.

Jesus told Pilate, My kingdom is not of this world.

He told his disciples, In the world you will have tribulation.

The scriptures teach one visible return of Christ, and when he comes, it will be the end of history and the judgment of the living and the dead.

And notice what that millennial hope assumes.

It assumes the church is missing something now.

That what Christ has already done and gives us today isn't enough.

And that brings us to a third answer, one closer to home.

We are waiting for a better me.

Few of us pour over eight-column charts that lay out the scheme of the end times, but plenty of us say to ourselves, once life settles down, once the kids are older, once the job is steadier, once the diagnosis clears, once I finally get my act together, then I'll pray the way I should.

Then I'll be in the word.

Then I'll be the Christian I'm supposed to be.

And we treat faith like something put on layaway.

And we figure, well, we'll take it home once we've paid a little more.

But do you hear what all three answers share?

Each one says, not yet.

Something's missing.

The real thing is still out there.

A better world, a better church, a better me.

And each one in its own way turns our eyes away from what God has already put into our hands.

So what does Paul say?

We're waiting for?

Only one thing: the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ on the last day.

To put it plainly, Christians have nothing further to wait for on this earth.

And Paul gives us two reasons why.

First, we wait for nothing else because we already have everything.

Listen again to Paul.

I give thanks to my God always for you, because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift.

That he says this is all the more remarkable because of whom he's writing to.

This is Corinth, quarreling, divided, proud, immoral, confused even about the Lord's Supper and the resurrection.

And still, Paul says it, you are enriched right now in everything, lacking no gift.

How can he say that?

Because the gift is Christ Himself.

The Son of God took on our flesh, carried our sin to the cross, and rose again on the third day.

Everything he won there, he hands out here.

You have the gospel, the forgiveness of sins spoken into your ears.

You have the Holy Spirit who has made you his temple.

You were washed in baptism and marked with God's own name.

You come to this altar and receive the very body and blood of our Lord.

You have the office of the keys, so that when your pastor says, I forgive you your sins, heaven itself says, Amen.

And there's more.

God's given you his holy angels as his guard, your guard.

And even the crosses you bear, even the devil's worst assaults must finally serve your eternal good.

So what's left to hope for in this world?

The saints of the Old Testament, they waited for the Christ to come.

And as long as it could still be said, Christ has not yet come in the flesh, believers had to wait for the better time of the New Testament.

But Christ has come.

The shadows are gone.

Nothing better is coming down the road than what you already hold.

And second, we wait with confidence, because God is faithful.

Paul continues, He will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

If our standing on the last day depended on our own grip, we would be lost.

Our faith is weak, our love runs cold, our resolve is shifting sand, and so Saint Paul points you to God's grip.

The one who called you will sustain you.

The one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Guiltless, Paul says, because Christ's blood has already covered your guilt, and his righteousness has already been put on you like a robe.

And that's why a Christian can wait without anxiety.

We're not waiting to find out whether we made it.

We're waiting to see the one who made sure of it.

So back to that airport.

Nobody at the security exit, nobody at baggage claim, nobody idling in the passenger pickup lane is waiting for a better airport.

They're waiting for a face.

And when that face finally appears, the waiting's over.

That's our waiting.

We've been given everything.

We're kept by a faithful God.

And now there is only one thing left.

He will appear, and we will see him face to face.

And until then, we have everything we need for this life and the next.

God's faithfulness will keep us unto the end.

And on the last day, he will reveal himself.

Let others hope for earthly glory.

We will wait with St.

John at the very end of the Bible and we'll watch for the bridegroom and the wedding feast of the Lamb, and we will pray with him.

Amen.

Come, Lord Jesus.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Please stand.

The peace that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.

Amen.