Matt Chandler - The King is Coming

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those. We’re going to be in Second Peter chapter 3. We’re simply going to continue with our Advent series here during the last weekend of 2014. For the last four weeks, what we have covered is really the person and work of Jesus Christ. What we said is that for Christmas to be all that it should be for us, we needed to do a couple of things: we needed to look back and marvel at the Incarnation. When we say «marvel at the Incarnation,» what I mean—and what I tried to unpack—is that although we celebrate Jesus’s «birthday» on December 25th, the reality is that he is co-eternal with the Father; he has always been. He is the active agent in all of creation. The Incarnation was God putting on flesh—the Creator putting on his creation and dwelling among us. That’s why he is called Emmanuel, which means «God with us.» So we marveled at his coming, but we didn’t want to just look back at baby Jesus; we wanted to consider the implications of the coming of Jesus for our lives. We looked at attributes of God and the application of those attributes to our everyday life. We started Advent by saying that God is a deliverer, and that was true not only with the coming of Jesus Christ and before Christ, but it is also true in our lives today. The power of Christ made manifest in the gospel delivers us from sin, death, addiction, bondage, and all sorts of other things. So the coming of Christ was a sign of the delivering power of God, and yet his power made available to us today continues to deliver us from dozens, if not hundreds, of different backgrounds and bondages. I don’t think «bondages» is a word—let’s just make it one. If hip-hop artists can do it, so can I. From there, we said that God is compassionate, and we said that the coming of Christ showed his compassion, which is still made available to us today. Then we said that God is glorious and how that glory works itself out today, and that God is worthy, and he is still worthy today. So what we said was necessary as we walked through Advent is that we needed to look back at Jesus; we needed to marvel at what is available to us in Christ today. Here and there, I just dropped that we also needed to look towards the return of Christ a second time—not as a baby, but rather as the ruling King of the universe. We don’t just look back at baby Jesus; we don’t just consider his power made available today, but we also consider that he is coming again, and that return is imminent. If you have all three of those pieces, then you can grow deep roots, and really the little shadow of Christmas morning actually comes true upon the return of Christ. I tried to frame up Christmas in a way that I think would be helpful for you: Christmas morning has a lot of promises tied to it, right? Family will be together, there will be Christmas cheer, you will get what you want, and all your dreams will come true. There will be this right holly-jolly thing that happens, and in reality, if there’s any of that, it’s only for a few moments and then it gives way because it’s a shadow of something that is coming but is not here yet. So I thought this last Sunday of the year, together, we could consider the day when all of that comes true and Christ returns, this time not as a baby weighing six pounds and eight ounces, but rather something altogether different. I thought we’d spend our time thinking about the return of Christ as King. With that said, I’m going to read Revelation 19 to you. You can stay camped out there in Second Peter 3, where I really want to dive into what these things mean. When we think about Jesus in our heads, we think of him as he is born, as he lives, as he dies, as he is resurrected, and as he ascends. But few of us have created space in our minds for what Jesus looks like upon his return because what he looks like upon his return challenges us a bit in a way that thinking about him as a baby or thinking about him healing diseases and rebuking storms or telling Lazarus that he’s not allowed to be dead anymore doesn’t. We also think of Jesus on the cross or even the resurrected Jesus who eats a meal with his disciples and is touched so we know he’s not a ghost. Then there’s ascension Jesus, right? If you know your Bible well, Jesus ascends in his resurrected body, and the disciples are left looking up into heaven when an angel asks, «What are you guys looking at? Do you not know that this Jesus will return the same way he has just left?» So we don’t really create space in our minds for the ferocity of the return of Christ and what Jesus looks like when this little area of time ends.