Predicting the End

Download: Audio

Sermon Notes:

At the beginning of the sermon, there’s a quote from AJ Willingham’s article published by CNN (Accessed Aug. 9, 2020), found here.

At the 12:20 mark in the sermon, there’s a quote from Alan R. Culpepper. “The Gospel of Luke”. Vol. 9, in The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 334.

Scripture:  Luke 17:20 – 37

20 Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed… Read more…

Looking to Sunday

by Elaine Poproski

“In Christianity we talk of the now-ness of God’s kingdom.
We remember that Jesus’ gospel (His good news) was that God’s kingdom has come near.
We also talk about the not-yet-ness of God’s kingdom,
acknowledging that it is something yet to be realized in full.
As Christians, we live in the tension of those equally true realities.”

Those are some of the words I wrote to describe the sermons I’ve been preaching for the last two months. But they aren’t just intended to be a handy description of a temporary series of sermons and themes for worship services.  They describe the state of the world – a world in which so much is bad while at the same time so much is good; a world in which we can’t help but long for God’s kingdom while simultaneously celebrating its presence.

On Sunday we’ll be reading a challenging passage of Scripture from Luke 17:20-37. At the beginning, Jesus says perfectly clearly, “the Kingdom of God is already among you.” But then He continues with a whole speech all about how people are going to long for His return because things are going to get really bad because the Kingdom of God still needs to come. This is one of those passages of Scripture that’s been used by all sorts of people for all sorts of purposes, not least of which is that of trying to predict the end of the world – the return of Jesus. This despite the fact that He starts the whole thing by saying, “the Kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed.” And as if that’s all not challenging enough, He includes some pretty disturbing metaphors like the days of Noah and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Whew!

Here’s the thing: Jesus didn’t say all of this to scare people. Sure, knowing it’s coming and picturing things like a global flood drowning all land-based life or sulphur and fire raining down from heaven to destroy everyone and everything are terrifying to imagine. BUT God is GOOD. God is GRACE. God is FAITHFUL. God is our REFUGE and our STRENGTH. We can’t take this one, challenging passage of Scripture and divorce it from everything else in Scripture. And because of everything else in Scripture, we do not need to be afraid of what we read in this passage in Luke.

As you prepare for Sunday, I invite you to brainstorm as many parts of the Bible that you can think of that remind us that God is good. Don’t worry about doing it all from memory. If you have access to the internet, try googling “God is Good” and scrolling through everything that comes up. Click on links. Read the Bible verses you’re pointed to. Listen to the stories and songs that appear on your screen. And then consider your own life. How has God shown Himself to be good in your life? As you prepare for Sunday, ask God to reveal His goodness to you.