You found your place there in Luke chapter number 17. We're going to read kind of a lengthy portion of Scripture
and you shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man and shall not see it. And they shall say unto you,
See here or see there, go not after them nor follow them. For as the lightning that lighteth out one part under heaven
shineth unto the other part under heaven, so shall also the Son of Man be in his days.
But first must suffer he many things and be rejected of this generation.
As it was in the days of Noah, so it shall be in the days of the Son of Man.
They did eat and they drank and they married wives and they were given in marriage unto the day that Noah entered into the ark
and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot.
They did eat and they drank and they bought and they sold and they planted and they built it.
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.
Even thus shall it be in this day when the Son of Man is revealed.
In that day he which shall be upon the housetop, his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away.
And he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
Remember Lot's wife.
That seems kind of just random, like let's just throw that in there.
Jesus has a point and we're going to look at it here in a minute.
Verse 33,
So I want to preach a message entitled this out of our text this morning.
Kingdom come, kingdom coming.
I got some questions.
The Pharisees, hey, when's the kingdom coming?
Jesus says it's here.
But he also says it's coming.
And so how do we live because he came and he's coming again?
And that's really what he wants to show us here in the text this morning.
So let's ask him to help us and then we'll jump right in.
Father, thank you for this opportunity that we can open up your word.
Lord, we're thankful you give us these truths that point to you, that remind us that you love us,
that remind us that you came, that as we read already, that you came to suffer on the cross of Calvary.
But we're also reminded here in this text and throughout Scripture that you are coming again.
And you're not coming as a suffering Savior.
Lord, you're coming as the King of kings and Lord of lords.
And I pray that we would all be ready, that we would live today in light of your return.
Lord, I pray that you would just be with me.
You would guide my thoughts.
You would give me strength, Lord.
You would help me say the things that need to be said.
There's somebody here that doesn't know you as their Savior today.
Would today be that day?
And we'll give you all the honor and glory.
It's in Christ's name we ask these things.
Amen.
Thank you for standing.
You may be seated.
I'm sure everybody in here has had somebody tell you,
I'll be there somewhere between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
That's not an appointment.
That's a hostage situation.
We've all been there.
It could be a cable company, a repairman, a delivery that you're waiting for that you need in order for that day to move forward.
And whatever it might be, you know it's coming.
You just don't know when it's coming.
And because you don't know when it's coming, it really changes how you live the entire day.
You can't leave the house because you don't want to miss it.
You keep your phone close to you in case they text you or call you.
You keep checking the driveway.
Every time you hear a truck outside, you run up to the front window and you peek outside to see if it's them
because you just want them to show up so you can live your life.
And the reason we live that way is because when you know somebody's coming, you live differently while you wait.
You want to make sure that appointment gets taken care of because you don't want to do it again tomorrow.
You don't want to miss it and not be ready.
And really that's kind of the idea that we come to here in the Gospel of Luke and the text that we read this morning.
The Pharisees in the first couple of verses in verse 20 and 21, they want to know this.
Hey, when's the kingdom coming?
Now they're not asking questions as we've seen in our study.
They're not asking questions to really find information.
It's really kind of a, the Bible says they demanded of him.
They're saying, well, if you really are the king, if you really are who you say you are,
well, tell us this, when's the kingdom coming?
They were looking forward to that.
They wanted a timetable.
They wanted the signs.
They wanted something they could observe and calculate.
Jesus doesn't give them a date here, though.
He didn't say, all right, here's the date that I'm coming back.
Here's the date that the kingdom's going to show up.
No, instead what he does here is he turns their question about when
into a lesson of how they should live until it happens, until the kingdom comes.
Because why does he do that?
Why does Jesus turn that?
Why doesn't he just give them an answer?
It would be easier if they had an answer.
We could be ready for it.
I think he wants us to see this, that the most important question isn't,
can I figure out when Jesus is coming?
People have been trying to do that for a long time.
Every once in a while, if you see somebody that says,
hey, I know when Jesus is coming back, run the other direction.
They don't.
It's been happening.
There was a big surgence in the 80s, and maybe you read that book,
88 Reasons Why Jesus Is Coming in 1988.
Well, newsflash, he didn't come then.
But what Jesus wants us to understand, what he wanted them to understand,
and what he wants all people to know is,
am I living like I believe he's coming back?
Because I'll be honest, we sang that last verse, and y'all sounded really good.
It's a beautiful song.
But are we living like that's not just a song, and it's not just some words on a page?
Are we living like it's a truth and a reality in our life?
Because as we come to this passage, I want to give us just a little bit of context of
why they asked this question, because I think it's going to help us understand what Jesus is really saying.
For the Jewish people especially, they have been waiting for this kingdom.
They have been anticipating it.
God had made promises to Abraham.
He had made promises to David that he would set up his covenant,
and he would come, and he would rule, and he would reign on the throne.
And the prophets, when you read the Old Testament, they spoke of a king and a coming kingdom.
But here when Jesus is walking on the earth in his earthly ministry,
Israel wasn't ruling.
In fact, they were under oppression from Rome, and there was no king sitting on the throne of David.
And so they naturally wondered often, hey, when's the kingdom coming?
When's all this good thing's going to happen for Israel?
And Jesus' preaching, when they were listening to it,
it was constantly centered around the kingdom of God.
There in the Gospel of Mark, he said, I've come to preach the kingdom of God.
But the problem was is that many of these Jews, and especially the Pharisees here with their kind of snarky question,
they had a very different picture of what the kingdom actually looked like.
What they wanted and what they expected was something immediate, something political, something visible,
somebody that was going to overthrow Rome, that was going to put Israel back where they should.
They expected a Messiah to do all of these things.
That's what the kingdom looked like to them.
But when Jesus came, he didn't march into Jerusalem with an army.
He came preaching.
He came teaching.
He came healing.
He came to call sinners to repentance.
And that's kind of the tension that we see here at the beginning of our text this morning.
And Scripture teaches us something important about God's kingdom.
It teaches us this, that the kingdom has already come, but the kingdom is still coming.
It has come in the person of Jesus Christ.
And the king is standing right in front of him, and they're saying, hey, where's the kingdom?
But we're also reminded as we study this and we see other portions of Scripture,
that the kingdom has not come yet in all its future fullness.
And that's where we still live today.
Theologians call it this, that we're living between the already and the not yet.
And so if we're living there, how do we live in a way that honors Christ?
How do we live knowing that he's come, but knowing that he's coming again?
And Jesus' concern in this passage isn't primarily that we figure out all the details
and have some end-time prophecy charts that we consult all the time.
No, the big idea is this.
Because the king has come, and because he is coming again,
we should live every single day in light of that return.
That is what he wants us to see.
That is the aim of this conversation that he has.
So it begs this question, how should we live while we wait for the king?
And I think as we walk through this text, Jesus gives us five answers that are going to help us to do that.
So here's what we should do.
We should recognize, number one, we should recognize the king.
Recognize the king.
There in verse 20 and 21 again, they come and they ask him,
when's the kingdom of God coming?
And Jesus answers and says, the kingdom of God cometh not with observations.
I mean, the Pharisees come and they want details.
Anybody like details?
I want to know what's going on.
You know, I know my kids do when I say, hey, get in the car.
Once I say get in the car, it is like a laundry list of questions that I have to answer.
Where are we going?
How far are we going?
Do I need to bring a charger?
Can I bring a book?
Can I do this?
Do I need to bring a pillow?
I mean, it's like all these questions.
I'm like, we're just going to go eat dinner.
Just get in the car.
You know, they want all these details.
They want to know what's going on.
And that's kind of how the Pharisees are.
It's almost like, well, if you really are the son of God, then you should have all the details and you better give them to us.
That's kind of where they're coming from.
And in Jesus' answer, it seems different.
He says, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation.
Observation, it carries this idea of watching for something carefully, looking for all these external signs that allow you to calculate what's actually taking place.
See, the Pharisees, they were looking for something they could observe, something they could chart, something they could point to and say, yep, there it is.
That's what they were looking for.
That's what they wanted to see.
That phrase that he says in verse number 21, neither shall they say, lo here or lo there, for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
You say, well, I didn't think the Pharisees, they were really on team Jesus.
Well, that phrase within you, it means among you or in the midst of you.
And that's really the irony of this conversation that he has very quickly with them, that he is standing in front of them.
They are asking when the kingdom is coming.
And he's like, it's right here.
You're looking at it.
Because the kingdom is not necessarily, especially the kingdom of God, is not a physical place.
It's this, where God's rule is in charge.
And Jesus is in charge.
And he is ruling and he's reigning.
And yet they're completely missing it.
Every time he shows himself, they say, well, that's not what we're looking for.
We're looking for a political savior.
We're looking for somebody that can take care of some real physical problems in our life.
See, they were so focused on what they expected God to do, that they failed to recognize what he was already doing.
They missed it completely.
They wanted something dramatic.
They wanted some giant thing and there's some written in the sky or whatever it might have been.
And they just said, hey, if you would just show some real things.
And I'm thinking, have they not seen what Jesus is doing?
Have they not seen the good that he's doing and the lives that he's changing?
I mean, these men have seen miracle after miracle.
They've seen Jesus teach.
They've watched the lame walk, the demons flee.
They've watched the sick kill, the people thousands fed at a time.
But here's the problem.
It's the same problem then as it is today.
It's not that God hasn't given enough evidence.
It wasn't that they were missing the signs.
They just didn't want Jesus.
They wanted all the benefits of the kingdom without the actual king.
They didn't recognize him because it wasn't what they expected.
They had a preconceived idea and when it didn't match up, they said, well, that can't be the one we're looking for.
No, they had to recognize who it was.
And I think there's a warning here for us as well.
That it is possible to become so interested in when Jesus is coming that we lose sight of Jesus himself.
People can spend an enormous amount of time studying timelines.
I mean, you start looking at end-time prophecies, you get on YouTube, you might never come out of that rabbit hole.
And you might be so confused you don't even know your own name by the end of it.
And if you're looking for end-time prophecy, don't go to YouTube.
I just want to clarify that real quick.
You can get sideways real fast.
I mean, we look at what's going on in the Middle East.
Every time something happens in the Middle East, every time something happens in Israel, it's like, is it time?
No, I think there's signs and Jesus talks about that later.
We're going to see later in the Gospel of Luke.
But any time a world event happens, any time a sign happens, any time prophecy, everything, we're trying to connect all these headlines in the paper to a Bible verse.
Jesus says, that's not what I've called you to do.
You're looking for all the signs, but you're actually missing the most important thing, me, the king.
See, biblical prophecy wasn't given to satisfy our curiosity.
No, here's what it was given for.
It was given to shape our faithfulness today in how we live our life and how we share the Gospel and how we love our family and how we love our neighbors.
Because we know this.
Jesus is coming back.
We need to be ready, and we should share the truth with everybody else.
That's what prophecy was given for.
Because if your study of Christ and his return and his second coming doesn't make you love Christ more, if it doesn't make you more faithful,
if it doesn't make you more concerned about lost people or more serious about your own holiness, then I think you've missed something.
Because that was the Pharisee.
He said, you said, guys, you are missing it, man.
It's just going right over your head.
And he said, that's not the point of it.
The point is not simply to know what's coming.
It's to know who is coming and to know him personally.
And being ready for the kingdom begins with knowing the king and recognizing him.
But Jesus doesn't stop with the kingdom that's already standing there in front of them.
In verse number 22, he turns to his disciples now.
Because more than likely, they had the same questions.
We're going to see they're still confused too.
I mean, they think they're going into a coronation.
They think, Jesus, man, Jesus, you've got to take over soon, right?
And they were still missing it.
And so now he turns from the Pharisees to his disciples, and he moves from the kingdom come,
I mean, the kingdom come to its coming.
And so here's what he wants us to do.
Not only should we recognize the king, number two, we should expect his return.
See, here in these verses, Jesus does not sugarcoat anything for his disciples.
And I'm thankful for the truth of the word of God.
You should be thankful to God and say, hey, man, you're all champions and life's great.
You're going to have no problems.
Well, we've lived life, and that's not how it works.
And that's kind of what he tells his disciples.
He says, listen, the days will come when you shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man,
and you shall see it not.
And they shall say to you, see here or see there, go not after them, nor follow them.
For as the lightning that lighteth out one part of under heaven shineth unto another part under heaven,
so shall also the Son of Man be in his days.
He reminds his disciples, because they don't know it, but he does,
he's not always going to be with them physically.
He's heading towards the cross.
He's still marching towards Jerusalem.
We saw that at the beginning of chapter number 17.
That is the goal.
That is the aim.
That's where he is planning to head.
And he knows that when he's gone, they're going to face persecution.
They're going to endure some serious opposition.
They're going to suffer for the cause of Christ,
and they're going to remember what it was like to walk with Jesus and just long for a day like that.
And say, Lord, I just want you to come back because this life is just too hard.
And because of that longing, Jesus warns them, don't be deceived.
Don't believe every claim that you hear.
Don't run after every person that says, hey, it's happening then, and it's happening here.
I figured it all out.
This is right.
This proves he's coming now because if you read this paper and you look at this YouTube,
then you'll know Jesus is coming back.
Jesus says be careful about those things.
Don't get bogged down in your life, stuck in a book, trying to chart a timeline.
No, live your life like I'm coming again.
That's what he's reminding them.
Expect me to come back.
Why does Jesus say this?
Because when he returns, verse number 24, nobody's going to have to convince you that it happened.
That's what the idea there in verse number 24 is.
He's kind of painting this powerful picture.
I'm sure we've all been outside during a storm, or you see a storm off in the distance,
and lightning suddenly flashes.
You don't have to announce and say, I think that was lightning over there.
Everybody saw it.
It's lightning.
And that's kind of what he's saying here.
Nobody has to say, everybody, if you look real close and you look at all these things,
you're going to see some lightning over there.
No, he said you've got eyeballs.
You're going to know what happens.
It lights up the sky.
It's very clearly.
And Jesus says, that's what my coming is going to be like.
It's going to be visible.
It's going to be sudden.
It's going to be unmistakable.
The return of Christ won't be some hidden event that only a few people are going to understand.
No, he's coming again.
See, and here's the message to his disciples.
Expect me to come again.
Don't be searching all these things.
You know I'm coming.
So live like I've taught you to live.
Follow me.
Share the truth.
But then verse 25, Jesus says something that we cannot skip.
We can't move quickly past this word, must.
He says, but first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this generation.
See, before the crown, before he comes back as the king of kings, there had to be a cross.
Before he comes as the reigning king, the Lord of lords, he first came as a suffering savior.
There's times Peter says, Jesus, hey, you're not going to do that.
Over my dead body, you're going to the cross.
And Jesus says this, get thee behind me, Satan.
See, because it wasn't just the Pharisees that wanted the crown.
It was the disciples.
But Jesus reminds us, that's not how it works.
And I just want to remind us today that the cross wasn't plan B.
That the cross wasn't a bump in the road.
That Jesus didn't get caught up in the political wills of the day and become a martyr for a cause.
No, he came as a sovereign savior.
He came with this in mind, that his face was towards Jerusalem,
because he came to seek and to save that which was lost.
And Jesus knew exactly where he was going.
He came to be rejected.
He came to suffer.
He came to be crucified for our sins.
See, because before there can ever be a kingdom filled with redeemed sinners,
there had to be a cross where the king would pay for the sins of the whole world.
For God so loved the world.
That had to happen.
That's the gospel.
And Jesus is reminding his disciples, listen, stop being like the Pharisees.
Stop wondering and trying to figure all of these things out.
Just expect me coming.
And when you expect me, you know who I am.
Listen, if you know Christ is your savior, we're not waiting for somebody we've never met.
We're waiting for our redeemer.
He's promised that he's coming again.
And so as a Christian, the return of Jesus shouldn't produce fear.
I would imagine if we took a poll, maybe here, maybe not.
But in Christianity in general, I think people are scared of the book of Revelation.
Some people just don't read it because I don't like it and it scares me.
No, no.
Here's what it should do.
It should comfort you.
It should comfort you that God has saved you from those things and he's promised to come back and to receive you unto himself.
No, the return of Christ, we should expect it.
It should produce expectation.
It should produce excitement.
That's what he wants us to see.
That the end times, it can be scary.
We look around at our world and we think, man, this thing's falling apart.
It is.
But he said it would.
All the things going on shouldn't surprise any of us.
But it should not change the way that we live.
He didn't say be a hermit.
No, here's what he says later.
Occupy till I come.
Do what I've called you to do.
But Jesus knows this.
There's a danger when you're waiting for something for a long time.
You can know it's coming.
You can believe it's coming.
And yet you can start slowly living like it never will.
Because the greatest danger may not be that we deny his return.
It might become that we're so comfortable with ordinary life that we stop living like he's coming at all.
So thirdly, here's what he wants us to see in verses 26 to 30.
We need to avoid getting distracted.
Anybody here get distracted easily?
Yeah, I do.
I mean, I'm all those letters.
ADHD, whatever it might be.
I mean, sometimes I have a hard time focusing.
But what Jesus does in these verses, he takes us back to the Old Testament.
And he gives us two examples and shows us kind of what's taking place.
Verse 26 says,
As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it also be in the days of the Son of Man.
They did eat, and they drank, and they married wives, and they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark.
And the flood came and destroyed them all.
He gives another example of an Old Testament in verse number 28.
Likewise also was in the days of Lot.
And they did eat, and drank, and bought, and sold, and planted, and built.
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, and rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
See, these things that Jesus lists here, both in the days of Noah and the days of Lot, there was nothing inherently sinful about those things.
Now, we know in both of these situations there was some wicked sin.
The Bible tells us in Genesis 6 that the thoughts of man was continually wicked all the time.
We saw the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it was more than just homosexuality.
It was pride.
It was all kinds of things.
They had really kind of bowed up against God.
It was all of these things.
But these things that he's talking about, there's nothing wrong with them.
In fact, when you look at it, it's stuff that we do.
Make dinner, plan weddings, buy property, run businesses, plant crops, build homes.
They were doing the same kind of things in those days that we're doing today.
And that's the warning.
That's what he wants to remind us.
See, their problem wasn't simply wickedness.
Yes, that was there, and that was a major issue.
But a lot of the problem was just complete indifference to the things of God.
We're just going to live our life.
Hey, Lot, you don't tell us what to do.
Hey, Noah, just build your boat and leave us alone.
Hey, we're just living our life to each their own, and we're doing all of these things right here.
And they were so consumed with ordinary life, they gave no thought to what was coming.
Noah preached for 120 years, and they said, man, this guy's lost his mind.
What's rain?
They didn't know what rain was.
And he's out here building this boat in the middle of the desert.
What a weirdo.
That's kind of how they looked at it.
And Noah said, hey, the rain's coming.
Hey, God said this is going to happen.
Even Lot, when he, Lot was in a bad spot, but even when he tried to reach out and tried to convince his family,
they said, Noah, what?
Lot, you're crazy.
See, Noah was building an ark, and everybody else was just worried about building their life.
Until one day the door closed, and the rain fell.
Noah, Noah, let us in.
Noah, hey, I can't.
The door's closed.
Lot, Lot was, everybody was good in Sodom and Gomorrah until Lot left.
Everybody just continued with business, as usual, until the fire fell.
And then they realized, we're in a bad spot.
See, verse 30 reminds us that the world doesn't have to stop believing that Jesus is coming.
They just get too busy to really care.
And if we're not careful, we can even live that way as believers.
I mean, because people say, and you talk about it, you talk about the second coming, and they say,
it's been 2,000 years, where is he?
You've been saying all this time he's coming back.
Well, where is he?
I mean, if God really loved us, why did all these bad things happen?
If he really cared, why didn't he come back and do something about it?
See, the danger that we can have in our life is we allow good and ordinary things to crowd out eternal things.
And to be reminded that we're not living for the here and now.
That God's reminding us over and over again, he's coming back.
And we're not here to build our kingdom.
We're here to build his.
And his kingdom is people.
And he wants us to share the gospel with him.
And we can build a good life and forget that this life isn't all there is.
We can be so busy planning for the next week that we give very little thought about eternity.
And about that co-worker.
And about our family member.
And about our children.
And about that neighbor that never heard the gospel.
And I think that's where this passage and especially this thought right here, it becomes so incredibly practical.
Because I would imagine the majority of us are not going to wake up one morning and say,
I've decided I don't believe Jesus is ever coming back.
I think we know that to be true.
I think it happens much more quietly though.
We get busy and we get comfortable and we get distracted.
And I think somewhere along the way, the return of Christ becomes a doctrine we believe and not a reality that affects the way that we live.
And what Jesus is saying right here is, church, it's time to wake up.
Christian, it's time to start living like Jesus is coming back.
Because he is.
It's time to get real about this.
And Jesus isn't saying, hey, stop living your life.
No, no.
Here's what Jesus says.
Go to work.
Raise a family.
Build a house.
Take a vacation.
Plan for the future.
But while you're doing that, make sure that your heart is fixed on something beyond.
That we're not living for that job and that house and that vacation.
No, we're living for the king.
This world is not our home.
We're just passing through.
The king is coming back and we need to be ready for that.
Maybe one of the best questions we can ask ourselves this morning is this.
What has my attention that won't matter at all when Jesus comes back?
That's a probing question.
It may not be sinful at all.
But here's what it's doing.
It's consuming your life.
Everything in your life is focused on that one thing.
And it may not be that God wants you to get rid of it, but we need to check our priorities.
What are we living for?
And see, Jesus, what he does is he takes that warning here that he gives us here and he takes it one step further.
Because it is possible to become not only distracted by this world, but attached to this world.
So here's what we should do as believers.
We should hold this world loosely.
Verse 31.
In that day he which shall be upon the housetop.
In that day when Jesus returns is what he's referring to.
And his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away.
And he that is in the field, let him not likewise return back.
So here's what Jesus is saying.
Hey, when I come back, you're not going to have time to gather all your stuff.
You're not going to say, oh, Jesus is coming back.
Let me hook up my U-Haul real quick.
I'm going to take all this stuff with me.
That's kind of what he's saying.
You know, you've heard the joke, you've never seen a hearse pull in a U-Haul.
We know that's true, but sometimes we live like all the things we have we're going to take with us one day.
That's not how it works.
That's not what God has called us to.
And then he gives us this really weird kind of short command.
Remember Lot's wife.
Very short.
You know, when I had to learn some memory verses, they said you've got to have all these memories.
Jesus wept.
Remember Lot's wife.
You know, deep, deep ones.
They are good verses.
But like, what is he talking about here?
Why would he give this little warning?
Well, his disciples would have known the story.
You remember he's talking to them.
I would imagine we're somewhat familiar, but what's happening is God is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
And Abraham is pleading with him.
If there's 50 righteous, and if there's 40, and there's 30, there's 20.
He said, would you save the city?
And sadly, there wasn't that many there.
But what God does is he delivers Lot's family.
And when he's delivering Lot's family, he gives them a very clear command.
He says, you need to get out.
Don't stop.
Don't look back.
I'm saving you from the destruction that's coming.
But Genesis 19.26 says this.
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
So why does Jesus just throw this random, it seems at times, verse where he says, hey, by the way, remember Lot's wife.
Here's what he's showing, and it really ties into the next verse.
Yes, Lot's wife physically left Sodom.
But when she looked back, she revealed her heart was still there.
And it wasn't just the wickedness.
That was her life.
That was her home.
There was family members that were still there, and understandably so.
But she was still connected, and she was still tied in.
And she really wasn't looking at all the things.
She wasn't looking at the bigger picture.
She becomes so focused on life that she really missed what God had for her.
And because of that, Jesus says, remember Lot's wife.
And Jesus is reminding us of this truth, that when he calls us to follow him,
when we choose him and trust him as Savior,
he isn't asking us to just make him an addition to our life.
No, we are to follow him completely.
He calls for complete surrender.
Verse 33, whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it,
and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
Here's what Jesus is calling us to do.
Surrender our life completely.
We're not to hold tightly to this world.
No, we're to cling to Christ.
He said it another way in Luke 9, 24,
for whosoever shall save his life shall lose it,
but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall save it.
That's what he wants us to do.
Listen, Jesus, what he's doing, he is returning once again to the heart of discipleship.
Jesus, following Christ, is not adding him to your busy schedule.
It is surrendering everything in your life to him.
Listen, you cannot cling tightly to Christ
while simultaneously clinging tightly to everything the world offers.
Let me ask you this.
What do you consider to be too valuable to surrender to him?
At first you think, well, nothing.
No, really think about it.
There's probably something in your life that you're holding on to.
You know how I know that?
Because I am.
I'll just be honest.
And the Lord just kind of worked me over on this verse.
And it's not bad things, but I feel like it's very important.
It's my job, and it's my thing, and I've got to take care of this,
and I'm the man of the house,
and I've got all these excuses why I've got to do it.
No, here's what the Lord says.
You need to trust me.
You need to live for me.
See, Jesus does not say here,
do not misunderstand, that possessions are evil.
The issue isn't whether you have things.
The issue is whether things have you.
That's a big difference there.
Money can be a tool.
A career can be used for God's glory.
But none of those things can be the defining thing about us.
Because you know what eventually happens?
You leave it all.
It's gone.
It's not there anymore.
But your soul is eternal.
Your children's soul is eternal.
Your neighbor's soul is eternal.
You see, real faith looks back at what Christ has already done.
And because of that, looks forward to what Christ has promised to do,
and then lives accordingly.
That's what Jesus says.
That's the exact tension I think we're all living in today if we know Christ.
We know He's come.
We celebrate it.
We celebrate His birth at Christmas.
We celebrate His resurrection at Easter.
We celebrate His life and all the things He's helped us do.
And we're thankful for it.
But we also know He's coming again.
And between those two realities, here's what He's called us to do.
Walk and live by faith.
The just shall live by faith.
And how do we do that?
We hold this world loosely.
And we cling to Christ tightly.
So if Jesus came today, what would you have trouble leaving behind?
Hopefully the things you have trouble leaving behind are the things you're actually taking with you.
Your family.
Your friends.
You know, the really important things in life.
See, the Christian life is not saying about how much of this world we can hold on to while still following Jesus.
It's about realizing that we have Christ, and that's all we really needed anyways.
He's going to take care of everything else.
Sermon on the Mount, He says, hey, listen, don't worry about what you're going to eat, what you're going to wear, what you're going to do.
I'll take care of that.
Here's what I want you to do.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God.
He's not saying, looking for this, you know what the kingdom of God is?
Jesus.
Every kingdom has a ruler.
Seek ye first me.
And all these things we're worrying about, all these things we have to have, all these things will be added unto you.
So, that's the point of Jesus' message right there.
But He isn't finished.
Because His return will do more than expose what we value.
It's going to reveal something much more serious.
Here's what it's going to reveal, whether we truly belong to Him or not.
So, lastly, we see this.
We should make sure that we're ready.
I mean, we've seen this theme over and over again, especially in the last four or five chapters here in Luke's Gospel.
So, Jesus really takes this conversation He's having and He boils it down to something deeply personal.
When you read verse 34 to 36, it kind of seems weird.
Like, what's He talking about?
That two people are there in one bed and one shall be taken to the other left.
Two shall be grinding and the other taking the other.
Two men in the field.
Here's what Jesus is doing.
He's painting a picture of two people in the same place, doing the same activity, in the same moment.
But when Jesus comes, when judgment comes, they experience completely different outcomes.
That's what He's showing here.
Think about it like this.
This outward proximity does not equal inward readiness.
Because we can all look the same on the outside.
But here's what Jesus wants us to know.
In our heart, do we know Christ?
What's the inside look like?
Sometimes we're so worried and we're saying about, you know, we come to church, we want to say the right things and dress the right way.
Listen, that's not what matters to Christ.
Does He have your heart?
Do you know Him?
Have you placed your faith and trust in Him?
Because two people can be under the same roof.
They can sit on the same church pew.
They can hear the same sermons, know the same Bible verses.
They can look almost identical outwardly but have completely different relationships with God.
And He says there's coming a day where it will all be made known.
You can't hide from the Lord because ultimately God knows the heart.
And when Christ returns, there's going to be no confusion or mistakes, no hiding behind somebody else's faith.
You can't say, well, my mom and dad were Christians.
I went to church.
I got baptized.
I'm on the roll.
I've always tried to be a good person.
This is why this passage isn't primarily about satisfying our curiosity about prophecy.
No, Jesus tells us He's coming again so we can be ready.
He wants us to be ready.
He's not trying to pull the wool over our eyes and we've got to just guess.
No, He's saying, just be ready.
You know, my parents would go somewhere.
I got a little bit older and I always say, hey, when are you coming home?
Not because I cared when they were coming home so I could clean up the absolute disaster that I was about to make.
You know.
And they said, just, my dad said this, just be ready.
Just do what you're supposed to.
That's what Jesus is saying right here.
Make sure you're ready.
Because when the Son of Man is revealed, everything that's hidden right now is going to become clear.
I love the disciples, though.
He gives all this thing and they say, where, Lord?
Verse 37.
They're trying to be a little more, you know, spiritual about it.
But they're basically saying the same thing that the Pharisees are saying.
And exactly when and where is this going to happen?
We just want to make sure we're on the same page.
And Jesus' answer really seems kind of weird at the beginning.
Seems unusual.
They ask where, and he said, wheresoever the body is, thither will there be eagles be gathered together.
You ever been driving in a car?
Maybe out running on the road.
You know, weirdos like me like to run.
And you look up in the distance and you see a bunch of vultures.
You see a bunch of birds just circling.
You immediately know what that means.
There's a dead body or something out there.
There's roadkill.
Now, it's bad when I'm out running and they start circling me.
I'm like, I'm still alive.
I know I don't look like it, but I'm still here.
Here's what Jesus is saying in this verse.
The evidence is obvious.
You know, when they would look up, they would know what's happening.
In the first century, they look up and they say, man, something died over there.
Those birds are about to feast.
It's clear.
Everybody knows it.
We understand the same truth.
And what he's saying is in the same way, when the judgment Jesus describes arrives, when he comes back, you're not going to miss it.
You're going to understand what it is.
Like, oh, that's what it is.
It's obvious.
Everybody knows.
It's been said over and over and over again.
The idea is when the king comes, the world's going to know.
Now, he's going to send a strong delusion.
We're not going to get into all that.
There's going to be things.
They're going to try to explain it away.
But here's what happened.
Something happened.
We're going to know what happened.
And really, that brings us all the way back to where this conversation began.
The Pharisees said, when?
And really, verses 22 through 37 is this.
Jesus answering, saying, hey, you're asking the wrong question.
The question is not when.
The question is, are you ready?
Are you ready?
That's really the message of verses 20 through 37.
Yes, the kingdom has come.
But there's still a day coming when Jesus is going to return in glory.
He will come just like he went.
The Bible tells us that in the book of Acts.
And what he wants us to do and what he shows us here today is how to live between those two realities.
That we need to recognize him.
We need to expect him.
We need to heed these warnings.
Because here's the thought I want to leave you with today as we're done.
Because the king has come.
And he's coming again.
We need to live today like his kingdom is the most important thing.
Because it is.
That's what our life should be about.
Our life should be about Christ and making him known.
And living for what matters most.
There's nothing wrong with trying to look at some Bible prophecy.
But every time you read Bible prophecy, here's what you need to be reminded of.
I need to live better today because I know what's coming tomorrow.
That's why Jesus told us this.
That's why he gave us the book of Revelation.
It wasn't to scare us.
It was to help us to live for him like he's called us to live for him today.
Will we stand with our heads?