The Imminence of the Kingdom, Part 2

Today on Summit Life, it's time to get ready. Readiness.

You got to live with patience and you got to live with readiness. The less real to you His coming, the more obsessed you are with the here and now. The more you succumb to temptations.

The more you engage in materialism. Eminent expectation of the return of Jesus is necessary for living as a disciple. Are you ready to meet God? Are you ready to walk into eternity? It could be today. Thanks for joining us today on Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Bitovitch. I've got a question for you. Is the return of Jesus at the forefront of your mind or is this an event that you hardly think about? Today, Pastor J.D. explains that more people will miss the kingdom of God because they neglect it rather than reject it. That's an important distinction and one that we should always be considering as we live out our faith with those around us. This message is part of our teaching series called Kingdom Come.

So if you've fallen behind, you can catch up on the whole series free of charge when you visit JDCreer.com. Now, let's join Pastor J.D. as he teaches from Luke Chapter 17.

He is in the midst of them. He was the essence of the kingdom. You see, they were looking for the kingdom as something kind of out there, something coming in the clouds, a big political smackdown, cosmic smackdown, where, you know, the Messiah would ride in on a white horse with a lightsaber, slaying all the bad guys and moon turned into blood. And Jesus doesn't deny that there are going to be some spectacular elements of the Messiah's ultimate coming.

But he says, guys, you sort of missed the point. The point is, I am the kingdom. I am the essence of the kingdom. And to know me is to enter into the kingdom. The most important part of the kingdom of God is knowing Jesus. And when you know Jesus, the kingdom enters into your life. Verse 22. Then Jesus says to his disciples, the days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.

And they will say to you, look there, look here, do not go out or follow them. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. Now Jesus has begun to refer to that coming of his kingdom when he does come with all the things that people think about when they think about the end of the world.

The time when he punishes the bad guys and heals the earth. There's a couple of adjectives, actually I'm going to give you four before the day is over that will describe his coming. Number one, sudden.

Sudden, no advance warning. It's like lightning, he says. Number two, unmistakable is the second word you would use to describe Jesus coming. He says the kingdom of God is unmistakable, big, public, everybody will see it and know it.

The point, it's not a secret movement you might miss out on. Now I want you to notice something really quick about this here because if you're paying attention, then you might notice that Jesus almost seems to contradict himself. To the Pharisees, he was like, you thought the kingdom of God was going to be big and spectacular, but you missed it because it was me, right? And then now he turns and says, when the kingdom of God comes one day, it is going to be big and spectacular, nobody's going to miss it.

So why is he saying both things? Here's the point, listen, Jesus is the only movement you ever need to join. Jesus continues, verse 25, but first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Now this was the part, this was the mystery that everybody tripped over in Jesus' day because before he could bring the kingdom, he had to die.

In order to bring the peace of God on earth, he had to first bring us to peace with God. All right, verse 26, he begins again to refer to again to his coming kingdom. Verse 26, just like it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the son of man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Third adjective that describes the second coming of the kingdom is the word unexpected.

Unexpected. God had warned the people of Noah's day that he was going to send a flood, but he didn't tell them when, he just told them it was coming. He says that's how the kingdom of God is going to be.

You don't get any advance warning, it's unexpected. You don't, listen, Jesus said, you don't get to know the day or the hour. Not even the angels know the day or the hour. Verse 28, likewise, just like it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all.

Verse 30, so will it be on the day when the son of man is revealed. What strikes you is how normal life seems to be when the judgment comes and sweeps people away. The other dimension here is that they just got busy with what they thought was more pressing things in life. Eating and drinking and marriage and anything wrong with those things?

No, they're all good things. It's just that they kept people really from paying the attention, giving any weight to what God had said. I told you this a few weeks ago, but more people, listen, more people miss the kingdom of God through neglecting it than through rejecting it. Verse 31, on that day, let the one who was in the house stop with his goods in the house, not come down to take them back.

And likewise, let the one who was in the field not turn back. Jesus told his disciples to do the opposite of what the people of Noah's day and Sodom and Gomorrah did. He said, live every second of your lives focused on the coming kingdom. Live every second of your lives with the imminence of eternity in my coming, pressing in on your heart because it could break through at any moment. It might come in your death or it might come through my coming, but either one will take you away from this life and into the presence of eternity forever. So that's number four word he used to describe.

The fourth word he used to describe his kingdom, imminent, imminent. You should be ready at any moment to meet God. And then he's also saying here your life should be light and mobile and focused on eternity and not super attached to things here and now. Your life really ought to be light and mobile as the imminence of eternity presses in on it so you're not really super attached to things here now.

Can I make kind of a dramatic statement to you? But I really, really believe this. If the return of Jesus is not imminent in your mind, your attitude toward everything down here will be wrong. If the return of Jesus is not imminent to your mind, then your attitude toward everything down here will be wrong. I read a book recently on the apostle Paul, his letters, his writings. In every single one of Paul's letters, every one, he brings out the second coming of Jesus multiple times. He ties every major moral command of his writing to the imminence of Jesus coming. Let me give you an example. 1 Corinthians 7.

What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on, those who have wives should live as if they do not. Those who mourn as if they did not. Those who are happy as if they were not. Those who buy something as if it was not theirs to keep. Those who use the things of the world as if not engrossed in them, for this world in its present form is passing away. What on earth does he mean?

Let those of us who have wives live like we did not. Is that like his version of a hall pass that he's saying? No, of course not. That's not what he's saying. He's saying whatever situation you're in, you need to realize how temporary it is.

Whatever situation you're in, you need to realize how temporary it is because people, listen, tend to treat their situation in life like it is so final. You get one shot down here. You better get all you can because whatever you don't get this time around, you're never going to get a chance of again. You got one shot to be married. You got one shot to experience the beauties of this world.

So we make bucket lists. And if I don't do this now, I'm never going to get a chance to do it again. I've showed you this several times through this series. Jesus' kingdom was not an ethereal experience where you sit up on a cloud sipping a tasteless margarita strumming an out of tune harp. It was a resurrection. It was a real resurrection. So what Jesus' miracles showed you, right? He showed you the way the kingdom was going to be. And the miracles weren't showing you as a disembodied spirit. He was showing you creation at its fullest. Same thing with his resurrection. I told you when he resurrected, they could see him, they could touch him, they could recognize him. He could eat fish.

He enjoyed eating fish. He could also walk through walls. He was not less alive.

He was more alive. So what Paul is saying is that whatever you miss out on down here is insignificant because the real version of it, you'll get an eternity. That's why bucket lists don't make much sense for Christians. Some of you are really depressed because you're single. You're like, well, I had one shot to get married and I didn't get it. Or some of you are like, even you're at a point now in your life where you're like, even if I get married now, I miss the best years of my life and I'm a single and I'm a single during those. Some of you are in a bad marriage right now and you're like, the one shot I had to enjoy love on this earth, I didn't get it.

And now I'm bitter against my husband or my wife because they took that from me. Paul says, no, no, let him with a wife or her with a husband be like the one who has not, mentally speaking. And the one without one needs to think like one who does have one, he says, because the real version of that in eternity is something that all believers are going to experience. That's why when Jesus compares his second coming, he chooses a marriage feast.

It's a real marriage feast with real food where you drink real wine and you are being held by real arms and you're experiencing everything that marriage is a dull symbol of here, you get it in its fulfillment and its reality up there. And when that is real to you, you won't look wistfully at things and be bitter because you miss them. I was talking with somebody recently who told me that they were bitter because they'd had a childhood where their parents screwed it up, their parents didn't love them. I'm like, that was my one shot to know what a father's love and a mother's love was like.

And of course, when you look at it in this light, you're like, no, that was just a symbol, it was a dull symbol of what a real father was like, which you will experience in eternity. You know, I think that one of the things that keeps us from really being able to sacrifice and focus on eternity is this idea that we only get one chance in the world. And whenever we don't get this time around, we lose forever, so we got to eat, pray, love. I got to eat, pray, love.

I only get one shot at it. I got to see the Alps. I got to see the Alps before I die because if I don't see the Alps this time around, then I'm never going to get to see the Alps.

I got to see the Grand Canyon. I'm going to be up in heaven, sitting on that stupid cloud, drinking that tasteless drink, and I'm going to be strumming that attitude harp. You know, listen, if Jesus's resurrected body was recognizable, you could touch it, right?

Right? You could see it. It could taste fish, but it was supercharged so we could walk through walls. What's the resurrected version of the Alps look like?

What's the resurrected version of the Grand Canyon look like? One of our elders told me this week that on his bucket list was seeing the space shuttle launch. So last week he took a trip down to Cape Canaveral to see the space shuttle launch.

And then they canceled it because the Russians were doing it on the other side of the world. So I told them, I was like, don't worry about that. You know what I mean? We'll get to heaven. I mean, we may not even need space shuttles up there. Maybe we can fly to the moon. You come watch me take off.

That's what I told them. You watch me take off to the moon and that'll be the fulfillment of that. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. We'll get back to our teaching in just a moment. But first, did you know our current featured resource goes hand and hand with this teaching series that we've been in from the Gospel of Luke? With your financial gift of thirty five dollars or more to this ministry, you'll receive a copy of Kingdom Come, 20 devotions from Luke. This important book of the Bible has so much unique information and teaching about Jesus's life and ministry very different from the other three gospels. And these devotionals will help you learn even more about them and we hope help you fall even more in love with our savior.

And once you're finished, it's a great resource to share with someone else. To get your copy, call right now with your gift. You can reach us at 866-335-5220 or visit J.D.

Greer dot com. And as always, we want to thank you for your continued support of this ministry. Now let's get back to today's teaching from Pastor J.D.

right here on Summit Life. What's on your list of things you have to experience before you die? I got to have a life. I got to have a wife. I got to have kids. I want to own a home. I want to have a house at the beach. I want to skydive. I want to own a Porsche. I want to take the Lord of the Rings tour in New Zealand. I want to run with the bulls. I want to streak in the Super Bowl. I want to throw eggs at Justin Bieber. What's on your bucket list?

What's on there? You see, could, listen, could you not be content? Could you not be content to make eternity your obsession and not be obsessed with what you're missing out on down here because you know that in the resurrection, the ultimate party, the ultimate kingdom, everything you miss on down here is not made up for by simply giving you a bunch of gold and rewards in heaven but you actually experience the fullness of it. That's why I say a bucket list doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a Christian because we got it all up there.

I don't have to be obsessed with it down here. The only thing on your bucket list, the only thing on your bucket list, the one thing that you cannot do in eternity that you can do here is bring people to Jesus. That's the only thing. I get one shot at my family. We get one shot at this community.

We get one shot at the unreached people groups in the world. I cannot do that in eternity. I'll get to experience all the glories of creation one day so I'm not obsessed with what I'm missing out on down here. Paul tells you every single part of your life has to be read through the eminence of Jesus' return.

I've got a list of like 10 other things that I'm just not going to only give you one more. All right, pain. When Paul talks about pain, what does he say? Paul doesn't say to your pain it's not real. Spirit filled people don't feel pain.

Name and claim it. No, he says your pain is real but then he compares it to labor pains and says you need to see the pain now in light of eternity and the pain now is to eternity what labor pains are to birth. Labor pains are real.

I don't know that personally, right? And I think it's really dumb when guys say that my wife and I are pregnant. No, you weren't pregnant. She was pregnant.

You were not. You watched her, right? I've watched my wife go through that time of labor. It was real. It was painful.

But it's interesting now because now even after that 18-hour labor ordeal on our first kid, she still has to ask me what it was like during that time because she can't really remember it. Because he gets swallowed up immediately in the joy of the child that's born, right? So what he's saying is your pain is real but when you look at it through the lens of eternity it just seems very, very temporary. So in the midst of your pain now he said hang on to what will be swallowed up in eternity when when it takes everything and makes all the sad things in your life come untrue. Everything in your life ought to be read through the lens of eternity. Verse 32, he begins these warnings.

Watch this. Remember Lot's wife. Remember Lot's wife. Who was Lot's wife?

Do you remember, again Sunday school, firearm rimstone coming down from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot and his wife and his family are fleeing to the hills. Lot's wife turns around, looks back at Sodom. Now why is she doing that? She forget to lock the door, leave the oven on, is that what she's doing? She's going to go back to the hills. She forget to lock the door, leave the oven on, is that it?

No, at that point that doesn't matter. Evidently she's wistfully looking back at Sodom wishing she could have some of the things she had there and what happens to her? She turned into a pillar of salt, that's right. Salt in the Bible is a metaphor for spiritual death. He's like Lot's wife spiritually is so attached to things here. You will pour salt into your soul when you are attached to things here and you will be unable to live as a disciple of Jesus. That's what that image means.

C.S. Lewis said it like this, wealth has a way of knitting a man's heart to this world and it creates an inability, it creates a spiritual infertility for you to really be able to live your life in the kingdom of God. Verse 33, whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, whoever loses his life will keep it. The one who builds up life on this earth loses it but the one who angles everything to get eternity is the one who keeps it. It's like I told you a few weeks ago with your money, you can't take any of it with you but you can send it on ahead, all of it. None of it you can take with you, in fact if you're focused on things that you can only do here on earth your whole soul is going to turn into salt and your kids are going to start to drink from a salty fountain that will destroy them. He said but if you can take your eyes off of those things and you can begin to leverage your life for eternity you become a fountain of fresh water that blesses your children and your family and you keep your life for eternity.

You can't take your money with you but you can send it on ahead of you to enjoy it in eternity. Let me put all this together, two qualities he's telling you to live with, right? Readiness, readiness. The church I grew up in and we talked all the time about the second coming of Jesus, we had charts, I got with some of the charts and they're like you know got beasts drawn on them and you know there's a lot of stuff we don't do but anymore but there was one thing that I always remember is I remember the eminence of Jesus' return, how close it felt. In fact I remember at six years old going outside because the preacher had said we need to watch and pray so I went out sat on the porch watched and prayed and my wife I mean my mom said what are you doing and I said well pastor told us to watch and pray and this is what he meant she's like well I'm not really sure but probably not but this is not a bad idea so we sat and watched for 10-15 minutes we prayed and we went back inside. There's something about the eminence of eternity that means that that's the way you should be it's the posture you should have in your soul. He might come today, he might come today are you ready? It also means when you understand that your life becomes light and mobile. Think of like walking to a department store, you're walking to a department store and you're seeing all the stuff you like but you don't have any money so what you do you grab everything you like and you get in your arms and you carry it around the store how dumb is that knowing that when you go out you got to drop it all and go home as empty-handed as empty-handed as you came can you take anything with you that you collect on earth no if you understand that in fact it's actually a more enjoyable experience if you don't encumber your life with all that stuff what you can do is you can send it on ahead of you you live light and mobile knowing that eternity is when the real the real party is you're not an ascetic it's not like you hate enjoyment you just want to enjoy it there eternally so you leverage it down here for enjoyment there patience is the other thing you live with patience means delayed gratification it means working faithfully even when you can't feel the outcome this is where most of us falter most of us like immediate results to our obedience don't we i see this all the time people like oh well i started to do what i'm supposed to do with marriage and my wife will switch to this immediately quit nagging me and start rubbing my feet every night that didn't happen what's wrong with god i started uh i started to tithe how come i didn't have a rich uncle that called me out of nowhere told me he's leaving me a million dollars we want immediate gratification listen if you are going to be able to walk with jesus you've got to live with patience because there is so much that will be unfulfilled and unrewarded until the second coming and if you cannot live with patience if you cannot live with delayed gratification if you cannot live with faithful obedience that you don't really see a whole lot of reward for in this life then you're never going to make it readiness you got to live with patience and you got to live with readiness the less real to you his coming the more obsessed you are with the here and now the more you succumb to temptations the more you engage in materialism the more you get focused on things like suffering and things that you don't have imminent expectation of the return of jesus is necessary for living as a disciple so let me play prophet here for just a minute i think this is completely absent from most churches anymore i think it's probably an explainable reaction to all the like goofy you know prophecy prediction kind of stuff i understand where it comes from but you never hear this talked about literally every book of the new testament talks about the return of jesus and its eminence to us the last words of revelation you know what they are last words the last book in the bible surely i'm coming quickly john's response even so come lord jesus the last words of the new testament are a prayer with their face looking up toward the sky saying even so come come we're waiting we're waiting you don't hear that ever talked about are you ready to meet god are you ready to walk into eternity it could be today one last warning he gives you verse 34 he gives you verse 34 i tell you in that night there will be two in one bed one will be taken on the other left there'll be two women grinding grain together one will be taken on the other left what's his point here it's very important family relationships won't save you being part of the right church will save you because there's a couple in bed one taken one left friends won't save you the division in god's kingdom is not between nations it's not between people inside the church and outside the church the division is within families within groups of friends in bedrooms in dorm rooms in this room are you ready are you ready to meet god are you living light and mobile focused on eternity are you ready for his coming have you leveraged your life for eternity with your eyes fixed on eternity or are you looking back looking down fixated on the here and now you're listening to pastor jd greer on summit life i hope you've been enjoying this teaching series in the book of luke as much as i have and in case you missed it earlier in the show i also want to be sure that you know about our latest featured resource that ties in perfectly with this series this month we're sending all of our financial supporters and monthly gospel partners a copy of pastor jd's new resource called kingdom come 20 devotions from luke you can read through these devotionals in 20 days be encouraged each day by their truth and then pass it on to a friend when you're finished it's a built-in discipleship opportunity to share with a loved one on how god's word has transformed your life you can receive your copy today with a gift to this ministry just give us a call at 866-335-5220 that's 866-335-5220 or give online at jdgreer.com while you're on the website be sure to sign up for our email list to get ministry updates and blog posts from pastor jd delivered straight to your inbox it's a great way to stay connected with summit life throughout your week sign up when you go to jdgreer.com and while you're online we'd love to connect with you send us an email and let us know how god's working in your life and in your community i'm molly vidovich thank you for joining us today and be sure to listen again tomorrow when pastor jd discusses the king's joy that's next time right here on summit life with jd greer today's program was produced and sponsored by jd greer ministries