Always be Ready

As most of you probably know, Cheyanne and I have been working on our living room the last couple of days and our remodel inspired some of this sermon as you will see.  For those couples who are getting along really well at the moment, try a little remodeling project in which you do all of the work yourselves.  It has been a little stressful but it seems to coming together.  The progress on the church is amazing, there have gotten a lot done this past week but I wont post the pictures until the end so that way you at least have to scroll through the sermon to get to them.  Enjoy!

5 Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 6 “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”

7 “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”

8 He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. 9 When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”

10 Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.

12 “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 And so you will bear testimony to me. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life.

After the last few days, I feel like this scripture may have been referring to my living room when Jesus is speaking of no stone being left on another.  Cheyanne and I have been working our tails off in the hopes the culmination of that hard work pays off later today when we finally get our floors in and the rest of the house livable again.  In our scripture this morning we find the Jesus discussing the beauty of the Temple with some of the disciples and Jesus tells them that the day will come when this Temple is no longer standing.  We have to understand what this meant to the Jewish people.  The destruction of the Temple would mean the destruction of their faith and it caught many of them off guard when Jesus broke the news to them.  In a moment of panic, they ask Jesus when will this happen and what will be the signs or clues that will signal this event is about to take place.  Jesus goes on to tell them that there will be those that claim to be Christ and false warnings that the time is near.  Jesus goes on to tell them that there will be wars and nations will rise against nations.  Finally Jesus tells them that there will be famines, earthquakes, fearful events and other great signs from Heaven.  I often times imagine those who were around at the time of Christ waiting with baited breathe for the second coming of Christ.  I imagine them getting news of a war, an earthquake or a famine and they start thinking that Christ’s second coming is just around the corner.  That is until the fatigue of always thinking this way set in and they started to realize that this day wasn’t coming as they had imagined it would.  

In my opinion I do not think our scripture this morning is as much about the actual second coming of Christ as it is our everyday walk on this earth.  Jesus wasn’t warning them about the end times, He was warning them about everyday occurrences they may have to face after He leaves them.  Jesus is encouraging them to stand firm, regardless of what they may face.  In this moment, Jesus and some of the disciples are standing in the most magnificent structure any of them had been a part of and Jesus tells them that one day it will crumble.  This structure is what they held most dear and Jesus is telling them one day it will be gone, that there will not be one piece of it left.  That is quite a lot for them to take in but it is difficult for us to identify with how the disciples felt about the Temple so if we make it easier for us understand we may have to replace Temple with any number of things.  For example, what if Jesus was speaking of this church, your home, your farm, your career, your health or even your family?  If we replace where Jesus spoke of the Temple with any of these or any number of other things, how would we react?   Jesus was trying to gauge just how the disciples would react by telling them this?  If you were standing in front of your house with Jesus and He said that one day it could be destroyed, how would you react?  If Jesus told me this while standing in my living room, I would politely ask him to come sooner rather than later because I do not to have it completely done and then it be destroyed.  I am only kidding, kind of... But when we consider this seriously, what if Christ said that your farm that you had worked so very hard for would have to be sold or your career that you have put 20+ years into would be gone tomorrow?  That would be a tough pill to swallow.  So Jesus was not just warning us about the end times, he was warning us about any given day.  Are you going to fall apart in times of difficulty or are you going to be able to stand firm, with your feet, mind and soul planted deeply in God?  There will be times in the course of this life that will not be easy, there will be decisions that seem too difficult to make, there will be times when it seems this entire world is crashing down before you but will you allow God to lead you?  Will you take whatever this world hands you and praise God regardless?  That question seems a little more difficult to answer now that we have made it more relatable but that is question you must be constantly willing to ask yourself.  

This is exactly why we must always be ready, we must be constantly preparing our hearts and minds to handle adversity.  Think of it this way, if the weatherman forecast a tornado to hit your house next Saturday, for the sake of imagery, let’s pretend that the weatherman is accurate and we believe what he is telling us, would you start planning ahead or would you wait to see the tornado coming a mile in the distance start preparing?  Would you take that week to board up your windows and take down your valuables and move them another location?  Again, remember that we are trusting the weatherman.  Or would you scramble once you saw the tornado?  I think we all agree that if this were the case the best case scenario would be to plan ahead.  This is how we need to approach our faith.  It is always easier for us to seek God when we are in absolute need of Him in times of difficulty but how often do we seek Him when things are going well?  This means that we need to always be prepared for whatever may come our way.  If you were training a race horse, you wouldn’t just feed it well on the day of the race and feed it scraps the rest of the time.  You would be feeding it whatever is good for all the days leading up to the race and not just on the day of.  We too need to be feeding our hearts and minds with God’s Word all the days leading up to and difficult event we may encounter so that we will be able to draw from what we have been feeding our minds and hearts leading up to that day.  I always stretch and do a little light, emphasize on light, jogging the day of the Alumni football game.  It makes me feel like it helps but it doesn’t.  If I was to truly prepare my body to play in that game I would be training in the months leading up to it.  We cannot just wait for something bad to happen and then hope that our faith can get us through it if we haven’t done anything in preparation of that day.  The beauty of our relationship with God is that even though we may place Him at the back of our minds and leave Him under the dust of an old Bible, He never leaves us.  God can help us through difficult times no matter how we have prepared because of His unending love for each of us but it is much easier to find His help in the most difficult of times when we have placed Him at the forefront of our lives each and every single day.  

I am going to reread to you the last four verses of our scripture this morning and see if you can spot what seems like a contradiction: “16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life.”  Jesus says that some of you will be put to death and in two short verses later, Jesus tells them that not a hair of their head will perish.  Some of them may die but they will not perish.  At first I thought that the translation must be a little off because I could not wrap my mind around some of them dying but not perishing.  But then I got to thinking about those who I have known who have died but have not at all perished.  I think of James Calhoun and the tragedy that struck that family on that day very often because it is because of his family that I am standing in front of all of you today.  I think of my Grandma Francie who is no longer here but her impression on me is far from perished and another reason I am speaking with you today.  I am sure all of you can think of someone who is no longer here but their impression on you is far from perished.  When we stand firm in our faith, we will win life is a reminder to us which is found in verse 19 of our scripture this morning.  Because of those who have stood firm in their beliefs despite what the world has thrown at them are the very reason each of us are here this morning.  The foundation of this church was built on the backs of those who stood firm in their faith, the foundation of your relationship with Christ was built on the foundation of those who prepared themselves by diving into God’s word and placing their trust in Him.  From this day forward how will you live your life so your faith will not perish when your body does?  From this day forward will you feed your mind and heart to prepare yourself for when your “temple”, whatever your temple may be, falls?  If you have not lived a life worthy of being the foundation of another’s faith up to this point, there is good news, it is not too late.  You can make the decision right now, in this very moment to change that.  Will your faith perish when your body does?  Or have you laid a foundation so that others can continue to build up from where you have started?  Today, make the decision that your faith will never perish so that others can stand firm just as you have or just as you will have so they too can win life.  Amen.  

God Bless,

Clinton