Messiah - Gospel of Matthew - Week 31

0:00 Good morning, everybody. Really good to see you. Thanks for coming out on such a wet and cold morning. We're continuing our series in Matthew's Gospel. If you've been following the readings this week and the booklet that accompanies the series, you'll be aware that this morning we are focusing on Jesus's promise that he would return a second time to the stage of world history, not as a baby in Bethlehem, but as this world's true king. And you'll also be aware that we have the small matter of two chapters and 97 verses to cover in about 35 minutes, which in the teaching team is officially known as a hospital pass. In fact, last weekend I was on Instagram and noticed that there was a typo in one of the posts that said I would be sharing from Matthew 4 to Matthew 25. And I have to admit that the thought of Jesus's return this week to avoid me having to do that got a lot more appealing when I saw that.

1:12 But all that to say, we've got a huge amount to cover. There's going to be a lot that I will not even be able to mention in these chapters, never mind teach on. So in your own study and home groups, you're going to have to do as much, if not more work than I've had to do to really dig into it and get it. This is very much a tasting menu approach to Matthew 25. And if you don't know what a tasting menu is, invite me out for lunch and I'll happily do a practical demonstration of what it looks like. Let's read Matthew 24 to launch us out. And we'll start at verse one. Apologies, I don't have a PowerPoint with this talk.

1:53 I've been teaching all weekend and just with those responsibilities and a really busy work and week, I just haven't been able to, but we do have the text and hopefully you'll have your booklet. Jesus says this at the start of Matthew 24. Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came to him and came up to him and called his attentions to the buildings. Do you see all these things? Jesus asked, truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left upon another. Everyone will be thrown down. And as Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. Tell us, they said, when will this happen?

2:37 And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? And Jesus answered, watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name claiming that I am the Messiah and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. But see to it that you're not alarmed. Such things must happen. But the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

3:07 There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these things are the beginning of birth pains. And then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death. You will be hated by all nations because of me. And at that time, many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. And because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

3:43 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. And then we'll jump down to verse 36. But about that day or hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven or the sun, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking and marrying and giving him marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them away. This is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field.

4:27 One will be taken, the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill. One will be taken, and the other left. Therefore, keep watch. because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this, if the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you must also be ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect him. Just a light talk this morning for Mother's Day.

5:05 Matthew 25 and 24 are some of the most complex and debated chapters in the entire Bible, but at its heart is Jesus' explicit promise to his disciples that one day he will return to this world and reveal to every single person on this planet that he is its true king and that he is Lord over history itself. And in fact, next week, when Jesus is put on trial in the courtyard of a high priest, we will see that it is this very claim to the religious rulers that they would see Jesus coming on the clouds as God's king and judge, as the one Daniel talked about, as the son of man. It was this very claim that got Jesus crucified. so when we talk about the return of Jesus or the second coming of Jesus at some point in the days to come we aren't talking about some secondary controversial issue that is only of real interest to the conspiracy theorist fringe of Christianity we are talking about a promise that Jesus clearly made that is right at the core of Christian faith and is fundamental to Jesus' agenda as Messiah. The claim that one day Jesus will return visibly, undeniably to this world to demonstrate to this world that he is the only human being who is ultimately on the right side of history and is therefore qualified to be history's judge, including the judge of our own personal history. That is something that is not academic.

6:58 It's not expendable. It's a belief that is right at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. True Christianity involves the conviction that this world has not seen the last of Jesus Christ, but it will see him again, literally, as it never has before. Matthew tells us that Jesus made this promise in response to a question that was raised for the disciples following a conversation that they'd had earlier with Jesus in the temple courts. And if you've been here the last couple of weeks, you'll remember that Jesus has been in the temple contending with the established religious rulers at that time about what true faith in God actually means. And following this clash of the courts, where the very son of the God that they claim to worship and represent confronted them with the fraudulency of their religious pretense, Jesus and the disciples then leave the courts. And as they do, the disciples draw attention to the magnificence of the buildings. And of course, there was certainly a lot to admire about the temple buildings.

8:09 They were magnificent feats of architecture, engineering, interior design, aesthetics. And added to that, these courts were beautiful in the sense that they represented the house of God, the dwelling place of God on earth. And yet what Jesus says in response to their admiration about the courts and the buildings in the temple would have shaken the disciples to their very core. Jesus says in verse 2, do you see all these things that you're admiring? I tell you for certain, not one stone will remain upon another. Every single one will be thrown down. Now that kind of seems a little bit over the top. We're just admiring the buildings, and now you've gone all prophet of doom on us.

8:59 We would understand if that's what the disciples thought, but Jesus, well, he is being prophetic because 40 years later, Titus would walk into Jerusalem and sack the city and raise the temple to the ground. And that absolutely devastated the citizens of Jerusalem who survived it because they thought that God would never allow that to happen, but he did. It devastated them because the temple and its buildings represented for them something that they thought was permanent and established and stable and immovable. Psalm 48, the sons of Korah sing about the beauty of Jerusalem and the temple and how God has established it firmly forever. But what would it mean for people's confidence in God when some of them would see and hear in future days that that temple now lay in ruins? Jesus isn't telling them this to reign in their parade. He's telling them beforehand that it's going to happen so that when it does happen, it confirms their faith in God's word rather than undermine it. But in doing so, Jesus is raising the question of where true permanency and real security and true stability can actually be found.

10:25 He's telling them about the future. But one day in that future, one of the things that they assumed was permanent and stable is going to be shaken to its very core and collapsed like a house of cards. And if we're honest, isn't that what each of us are most afraid about when it comes to the future? That the things that right now seem so stable, so reliable, so secure, so permanent, could in the future collapse and be lost. Isn't that what's at the core of our concerns about climate catastrophes and emergencies? Or artificial intelligence or geopolitical tensions?

11:17 And as much as we might feel those at the macro global level, aren't those some of the concerns that we have for our own personal future? That one day in the future, our health that now looks so stable could be shaken. our business, our family, our relationships. If history teaches us anything, particularly our recent history in the pandemic, it is that it's only a matter of time before the things we often think and rely on to be most stable are badly shaken. And if that is the thing that ultimately our life is built upon, then it's not just those things that collapse, it's us who collapse with them. In making a statement, Jesus is not just making a prophecy about the future. He's challenging them about where their source of security is in the future and for the future, whatever that future might bring. And it's a message that got through to the disciples because they come to Jesus later.

12:27 They've obviously been stewing in it for a while. They come to Jesus and ask him about this future later on. They ask them privately, When will these things take place? And what's going to be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? They ask a question about timing. But it's essentially a question about where human history is ultimately going. And it is not arbitrary that the context for answering this question by Jesus is on top of a mountain. Because mountain peaks take you to a level where you see the whole panorama of your surroundings.

13:09 From what's immediately in front of you to the horizon and the hinterlands. And now Jesus, in answering this question, is going to talk to them about what lies beyond in the hinterlands of human history. And at its most basic level, he tells them this. That history has an end game. the course of history Jesus says is not random it's not at the mercy of unguided processes that neither know nor care it has an end point now almost everybody believes that human history has an end point at least with the death of our son where life on this planet is no longer viable but what Jesus is saying is so much more significant he's not just saying that history has a conclusion. He's saying it has a goal. It has a destination. It has a purpose.

14:02 It's moving towards something. And the reason why Jesus perhaps taught about the future is because all of us care about the future, whether we realize it or not. A Christianity that has nothing to say about the future is a Christianity that doesn't have very much to say to human beings at all. Because how we think about the future influences what we do in the present. As somebody once said, we have to live in the present, but we can't live for the present. From the simple level of setting the alarm on your phone to get up this morning, or studying for upcoming exams, or planning a holiday, we make choices about what to do, about what to prioritize in the present. But those choices are derived from how we see the future working out. so whatever you think about Christianity or the Bible it is inherent to being human to think about

14:59 the future and it would raise real questions about whether Jesus truly was the son of God and whether the Bible truly was revelation if it said nothing about that fundamental aspect of human life every one of us takes the future seriously at some level the reason Greta Thunberg is telling people to live a certain way here and now is because of her vision of the future. The reason why businesses invest billions of dollars in experts and consultants and think tanks that can give them a vision of the economic future is because it will tell them how to do business here and now. The reason why I was in Tesco's getting milk at 9 p.m. last night and it was full of desperate men scrambling over each other for a Mother's Day card because they knew that in the very short future it would be Mother's Day. And if you don't have a card, and if I could just speak to the guys who are part of this church who were there, and I said, no, I'm joking. The reason why we have this inherent human fascination with the future, with horoscopes, with psychics, clairvoyants, people who claim to be able to know the future, is so that we can make choices and decisions in the present. But Jesus' claim about the future in these chapters is very different. He's not doing trend analysis like a futurist might do.

16:26 He's not giving us his best guess. He is standing as the Lord of history. The one who, like Daniel's vision, stands above history and is in control of it. This is revelation. It's not interpretation. Jesus wants his disciples to know where our human story is going. And he highlights some of the major directions that it will go. And as he does, he tells them about two main challenges.

16:54 And that's where I want to focus the rest of our time this morning. Two major challenges that the followers of Jesus will face as they move along that history towards Jesus' coming. Jesus doesn't, contrary to what some Christians think, Jesus doesn't give them a perfect timetable for when all these events will play out. He instead does something different. He challenges them and us about what it is going to mean to navigate the days up to that point. The days, the weeks, the years, the decades, the centuries. Because like many Christians since, The disciples of Jesus were focused. Their interest was on timing.

17:37 They wanted to find that day, to know how they could find and identify that day. Jesus does the opposite. He turns around and says, the real thing is about how that day finds you. When it does come. And he gives them two clear warnings. And the first is a warning against deception. Repeatedly throughout chapter 24, Jesus says to disciples, don't be deceived. He says things like, watch out that no one deceives you.

18:06 Don't be led astray. Don't believe them. Because he knew that one of the huge challenges we're going to face before Jesus comes back is the challenge not to be misled or deceived. And that deception, Jesus says, comes from two sources. One, it comes from false teachers and spiritual gurus and impressive influencers who lure people in to false ideas. Jesus said, many will come in my name. They will claim, I am the Messiah, and they will deceive many. It says in verse 23 of chapter 24, he talks about those who don't necessarily claim to be Messiah, but they claim to have found him.

18:46 And in verse 24, he then goes on and he talks about false Messiahs, false prophets will appear, and they will have the ability to perform great signs and wonders. There will be a supernatural, at least a seemingly supernatural element, that will appear to give credibility to their message, but will ultimately be bogus. And of course, there are loads of examples of this down through history. The other source of deception that Jesus highlights, though, doesn't come from the outside. It comes from inside, where we see the kind of catastrophes that will occur across the world and deduce from them that Jesus is about to come back and the world is about to end. I was talking to a friend yesterday and I told him that I was speaking this morning about the return of Christ. And he said to me, you know, when you see everything that's going on in Israel and Gaza at the minute, I wouldn't be surprised if Jesus Christ's return is imminent. I've heard all that loads of times.

19:50 And do you know what? It might be. But not necessarily for the reasons we might assume. And Jesus was very realistic in these passages about the way big events in history would make us ask questions and search for explanations. That's normal. That's human. But he says you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Nations will rise against nations.

20:13 Famine and natural disasters. Catastrophes will happen. There will be an increase in wickedness. But don't be alarmed. Don't conclude that something has gone wrong. Don't let it unsettle you. Don't be led astray thinking this must be the end and then get alarmed when it's not the end and Jesus doesn't come back. And we wonder why hasn't he returned?

20:36 Why this delay? And in our disillusion, we start to reinterpret what Jesus might mean about coming back. Maybe it's not going to be literal. Maybe it's just this figurative coming back in our hearts. Jesus says these things are going to happen, but they are not the end. They're not even really the beginning of the end. They're the beginning of birth pains. And birth pains are not the birth itself.

21:02 They're only the very earliest indications that things are heading in a certain motion that will culminate in a birth. And some of you know what I'm talking about because there was perhaps days between the initial birth pain and actually having a baby in your arms. Jesus knows that these kinds of events raise questions. They pique our curiosity. It's natural. And some people are very effective and very persuasive in giving answers to people, even if they're dead wrong. And before you know it, we've got our end times charts out. We're turning our garden study into a bunker and all kinds of chaos is going on.

21:48 Jesus says, don't do it because what happens is then he He doesn't appear when we thought He would. And the only thing that does appear off the back of that is a lot of personal confusion, damaged faith, and a lot of evidence to the world that this Christian stuff is bogus. Don't be deceived, Jesus says. Don't fall for it. Test these things. As much as we might want or expect Jesus to give us a perfect timetable, Jesus doesn't do it. And he doesn't do it for very good reasons. One, because if he had told them that he was coming back six months before, or six months after his ascension, what would they do with that information?

22:37 Probably just disconnect from life altogether and just hunker down and wait for Jesus to come back. That wasn't the point. So we're gonna see towards the end this morning, the point is not to disengage. even if this is our hope. But secondly, he didn't tell them because what if he wasn't coming back for another 6,000 years? Would that change the fact that they were personally guaranteed to encounter Jesus as the Lord of history within 80 years of him sending? You've got to remember, as John Lennox says in his book, 2084, he says, we all move towards the return of Christ at two speeds. there is the speed of earth's history but there is also the speed at which we approach death

23:28 Jesus and his apostles were not cheating when they encouraged the believers to live as though Christ could return at any time as this is the only way to live that will allow our expectation of his coming to have a moral and spiritual effect that it should have on us says if I die today the time of my coming or the time of Christ's coming measured in years AD is irrelevant to me because I'll ready be with him. Jesus doesn't give us a date in the calendar for his return, but he does say a few things. He does make a few things clear about his return in these passages. He says this, the first will be that when he returns, it will be obvious to everyone. The second coming will not be like the first coming where only a handful of faithful and observant individuals had it revealed to them and knew what was going on. We're not going to need social media. We're not going to need some mystic who appears to have discovered a secret spiritual code and uncovered Jesus returned in a remote area of South America. It will be obvious.

24:36 It will be undeniable. Jesus says in verse 27, for as lightning that lights up from the east is visible even in the west, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. The second thing that Jesus says is that when he does ultimately return, it will happen suddenly, and it will happen unexpectedly. It says in verse 36 of chapter 24, but about that day in hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. And then in verse 42 of chapter 24, he says, keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. And then in verse 44 he says, so you must also be ready because the Son of Man will come at a day and an hour that you don't expect. And because of that, no matter how ready we are or how much we talk about it, the return of Jesus to world history is going to come and take everyone by surprise. Jesus says it's going to be like the days of Noah.

25:43 And what was it like in the days of Noah? He's not talking about how immoral or godless the culture was. He says this. He talks about people eating and drinking and getting married. There's nothing immoral about those things. It's basic. But the point is that they are just going about their daily lives, however legitimate, and are completely unconscious to how close they are to God breaking into history in judgment. And suddenly it comes.

26:16 without warning. Jesus says it's going to be like that. It's going to be like a thief breaking in in the night. I don't know if you've ever had the experience of being robbed. The point of the thief coming is to come when you are not expecting it to happen. That's why we're all investing in ring doorbells. People will be going about their lives, their priorities right up until one nanosecond before Jesus steps onto the stage of world history once again. And that is why Jesus encourages anyone who takes this seriously to live in a perpetual state of readiness.

27:00 It's not readiness like readiness for an exam or readiness for a marathon or something like that where you know when the date of the event is and you work towards that. It's readiness like first aid readiness. where you don't know when you're going to need it. You don't know when it's going to happen, but you live in this perpetual state of qualification and readiness so that when it does suddenly happen, you can go and do what you need to do. You're ready. The third thing that Jesus does say about his return finally then is that it won't happen immediately. When I was studying theology at university, I was told that the followers of Jesus were convinced that Jesus was returning in their lifetime. And I find that hard to believe because of what Matthew says here.

27:55 If he is recording what Jesus said accurately, it's very hard to deduce that the disciples would have thought Jesus was coming back before they died. Because time and time again in these two chapters, Jesus expresses clearly to his disciples in different ways that his second coming will not happen immediately. In fact, there will be a very real season of delay. The destruction of the temple would take 40 years to happen. But even after that, Jesus says there's going to be a whole period of history that up to this point has lasted 2,000 years, but it would continue. Events would be good, events would be bad across history, but it would take time for those events to play out. And one of the things that Jesus highlights in this in-between season is that two things are gonna happen simultaneously. One is that there will be an increase in opposition to those who are loyal to Jesus.

28:53 And yet simultaneously, he says that the gospel of the kingdom is gonna be reached and preached in the whole world. setting our expectations. Things aren't necessarily going to get better and better until eventually earth becomes heaven. Things are going to be difficult. Some of us are even going to be put to death, Jesus says. But as old Rabbi Gamaliel found out in Acts 5, despite all this, the good news is going to go and reach people and change people. The blood of the martyrs is going to be the seat of the church, things aren't clearly going to all play out in the lifetime of the disciples. Jesus is very clear there's going to be a period of delay, and it's precisely that context where the two parables in chapter 25 play out.

29:44 The bridegroom in the first parable in 25 is delayed in arriving. The master in the second parable is described as not returning for a long time. And so the second danger that Jesus warns about is not just deception, but it's also distraction. To fall into the trap, Jesus says, of allowing our sense of delay in Jesus' return, to make that return seem remote, irrelevant, and of no influence whatsoever in the choices that we make and how we are investing our lives today. That's what these two parables are all about. And what is interesting about these two parables is that those who end up at the end of the parables outside of relationship with God are not those who are necessarily hostile to God or his son. We've seen a parable about a wedding where the guests refuse to come because they don't see the value of it. This is not that parable.

30:54 These virgins, the unwise virgins, are open to the bridegroom coming. They're just not ready for it. And we've seen a parable already in Matthew about tenants who reject the master, who want to take over the vineyard for themselves. This is not the second parable in Matthew 25. These servants are open to their master. They're willing to allow him to still be the master of the vineyard. The problem with the delay in the first parable, the problem is the delay in the first parable. And it's what the delay does.

31:37 It exposes that despite their initial enthusiasm, they do not take seriously what it will mean or what it will involve to be ready to welcome the bridegroom if he is delayed. It's the challenge of waiting. This is exactly what Jesus has been talking about the whole way through. They're open to him coming, at least theoretically. But his delay exposes their inability or unwillingness to be ready if he should come later than they expect. What does it look like to be ready? Well, that's what the next parable is all about in Matthew 25. It doesn't mean we just hunker down and wait for Jesus to appear.

32:31 Daniel was given a vision of where history was going. He believed that God would send a Messiah who would be the world's savior and king and the ultimate dispenser of justice. That was his ultimate hope, but it didn't stop him. It didn't make him retreat from investing in life and work and the civil service. Even in Babylon, it fueled his engagement. And Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a master going on a journey He entrusts assets, his assets, his property to his servants. He gives them capital and gives them full responsibility, full opportunity to go and make what they can of what they are given. He has not micromanaged them.

33:19 He's not even there. He's gone off on a journey. And then eventually he comes back. They're not all given the same. and there are two servants who've been faithful they've invested it they've created a return the master doesn't judge the one who had two at the same way that he judges the one who had five but both of them receive exactly the same commendation well done good and faithful servant you've been faithful over a few things I will now on the basis of how faithful you've been give you responsibility over many things. There is a connection between how faithful we are with what Jesus has entrusted us with here and now and how he assesses that at his return with what he will ultimately give us to do and entrust us with in a new heaven and earth. God is not going to entrust people with a new heaven and earth you haven't been faithful with an old heaven and earth.

34:27 That will be ludicrous. But what the parable does suggest is that whatever God gives us, whatever scale, whatever it looks like, whatever platform or background role it takes, if we are faithful with it, he will develop us. What they give back, they essentially give back to the master, but the master realizes that even though they give the developed and the increased assets back to him. What he has as servants who've been developed over years and years of years of learning to invest in their master's work. And that can be put to use for all eternity. But there's one who doesn't take the opportunity. He buries his opportunity and he says to his master, the reason why is because I knew you to be a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not reap. Now that's ridiculous because the master has sown into them.

35:32 So he does reap where he has sown, but he blames his failure on his master's character. And as we've seen the whole way through Matthew and also through the master's character with the other servants in this parable, he doesn't know his master at all. he doesn't know him at all and how he responds to the opportunity that he is given while his master is away eventually when his master returns reveals how much he really knows his master and how seriously he really took what his master gave him to do at his return Jesus is saying that while we wait, if we truly believe that our master is going to return and could return suddenly, we have to take seriously that our master has given us capital. Real responsibility, real opportunity to invest. And whether that's in children or youth group or a business or public sector or a classroom or caring responsibilities for an elderly relative, whatever it looks like, it is real trust, real opportunity that Jesus expects a return on. And how we respond to that opportunity, what we do with those assets that we have been trusted with, the choices that we make, the way that we invest, will demonstrate what we truly believe about our master's return.

37:12 And we'll demonstrate whether we truly know him or not. I have been so encouraged for what it's worth to listen to the Glen Abbey podcast and hear about the kind of things that people across this church are investing in. I said to Chris the other week, I listen to the youth one. I listen to the one on communities and just to hear what people are doing that I have no idea of the scale about. I've been part of this church for over 15 years. I've never been more proud to be part of it than I have when I'm hearing the stories of what people are doing and what this church is doing. We have an opportunity to be part of something that will last for eternity and in doing so will shape us to be part of something that will make the greatest opportunities and the greatest responsibilities in this life look positively mediocre in the age to come. Jesus is going to return.

38:12 The challenge is who and what we will be while we wait. Let's pray. Father, thanks for an opportunity just to focus on your word. And I pray that we would dig into these two huge chapters. And Lord, there's been so much that hasn't been able to be covered. And what has been covered has been covered meagerly. But I just pray that you will take your word, not my words, your words, and just apply it to our hearts to be the kind of people who are faithful and good servants about our master's work when he comes. And that doesn't necessarily mean all the piety that the Pharisees thought it did.

39:03 But it just means we are investing in the right area, using our opportunities, skills, context, histories, to invest in your story. So that on the day when history is measured, we will stand on the right side of history with you. And you will say to us, you've been faithful with these few things. I am going to give you things that will blow your mind in terms of the opportunity and responsibility. Let us pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.