Text: Revelation 1:4b-8
Sermon
So many people in our world today are living for the moment, for today. They say, “I don’t care what it might mean in five or ten years—I only care what’s it going to do for me right now! ” We can see it in people all around us, and if we’re honest, we can probably see it in ourselves as well. Take some of the attitudes you might have seen on display in the days following our recent national elections. There are people who apparently said, at least by their actions, I want my candidate to win this election, so I'm willing to do whatever is needed, including lying and cheating, to find the votes it takes. We'll just keep on counting until the numbers come up our way. Now I wouldn't pretend that cheating in elections is anything new, and I can't prove it's any worse now that at some times in the past. But it certainly is an example of people living for the moment, doing whatever is necessary to get the outcome they want right now, without much thought for the future.
There’s plenty of other evidence that Americans today have no patience for the long haul, and are mostly living for today:
· Although we are one of the wealthiest societies in the world and in history, most of us haven’t saved much money. We Americans on average spend almost 95% of all the money we get and save only about 5%—we're addicted to instant gratification of whatever desire we might feel at the moment.
· We can’t wait for mealtimes to eat any more since we might feel hungry right now. So we eat and drink in our cars while we’re driving down the road, and at our desks while we’re working.
· We can’t wait for marriage in order to engage in sexual activity anymore. It’s too hard to deny ourselves that pleasure. So last year in the United States four out of ten babies born were born to unmarried parents—40% of births were illegitimate.
· People demand rights and privileges for themselves, even if those things are not necessarily good for them or for society. Think of the push over the past decade to legalize homosexual marriage. Twenty years ago most people would have said the United States would never allow marriage between two people of the same sex. Today gay marriage, as well as gay adoption, are legal in all fifty states. Gay marriage is here, whether we like it or not, and whether it’s good for the institution of marriage or not, because people were willing to forget about the long run and live for today.
You get the point. Sinful people living in this sinful world think living for today is where it’s at. Jesus tells us that everything about this present world is an illusion, a shadow. It isn’t going to last. The lasting reality is in the world to come, in heaven, where we will have true and lasting gratification of the desires God has put into the pure heart he has created in each of us by faith in Jesus. That’s why Jesus, our soon-to-be-returning King encourages us on this final Sunday of the Christian year, don’t live for today:
Live for Tomorrow!
On the basis of St. John’s words to us in Revelation chapter 1, I hope today to help you think through not only why we want to live for tomorrow, but also what we should be doing today as we live for tomorrow. So...
Why Are We Living For Tomorrow?
Well, maybe the question we should be asking really is, why not live for today? Why not join the millions of people who can’t begin to focus on next week or next year, let alone the end of the world? Why not live for today and enjoy the pleasures of life as much as you can? Why not take all you can get while you can get it, and as long as you can get it?
The answer is surprisingly simple: because God has opened our eyes to see what really lasts in this world, what really has value. And what he has shown us is, the pleasures, delights and experiences of this sinful world are only temporary diversions. What really is permanent is our connection to the God “who is and who was and who is to come,” to use the Lord's own words. What really has value is our relationship to the God who loved us enough to clothe himself in our skin and walk in our shoes, all so that we can go with him one day to a place of real value and permanent peace.
What really is worth focusing on in this world is not the temporary good feeling we get from the pleasures of the flesh, but rather the permanent joy we have in the one “who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.” By God’s grace we have come to know how much Jesus loves us—so much that he has already made an investment in us, the costliest investment possible. Jesus invested his own blood in you and me.
He came into this world because he saw that we were in chains, slaves to our own appetites and lusts. He knew we were addicted to the adrenalin rush we get from exciting and pleasurable experiences that ultimately have no real value. He knew we were headed for an eternal existence cut off from God and from the blessings he wants to give us. And Jesus didn’t want that to happen to you or to me. He loves us too much to let us cut ourselves off from everything good, forever.
That’s why he took on human flesh and blood: to take our place, to live under the law as our Substitute and get it right, where we always get it wrong. And then the God-man stepped forward to pay our fine, to serve our sentence so we could go free. That payment cost Jesus everything. Since “the wages of sin is death,” it cost him his life, as he poured out his lifeblood on the cross for you and for me. But he was willing to do it if it meant rescuing us from a hopeless future and freeing us from slavery to our own selfish, sinful appetites that would eventually lead us to destroy ourselves. That’s how much Jesus loves us. Enough to spill his own blood to set us free from the addictive power of sin.
Not only has Jesus loved us and freed us from our sins by his blood. St. John also reminds us that Jesus has made it possible for us to share in his power and his rule. John tells us he “has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father.” As King Arthur shared his kingdom and his food with the knights who sat at his Round Table, Jesus shares his kingdom with you and me, who gather with him weekly at his table to feast on his body and blood, given and shed for our forgiveness. Christ our King lets us have a part in bringing God’s gracious rule into the hearts of other people, as we speak the Gospel. And he allows us to serve as he served, as holy priests of God, able to share what we know about God with others and able to bring Jesus to them where they are, so that they too can become part of his kingdom.
Jesus has made us his kingdom, his holy priests, his family. He has honored us beyond what we could imagine. Now that our sins have been taken out of the way there is nothing that keeps us from being heirs of all God’s eternal blessings. That’s why we are living for tomorrow, eager to fully inherit the blessings we know are ours through faith in Jesus. Because there is nothing in this present sinful world that can begin to compare with the blessings of eternity.
What should we be doing today, as we wait for tomorrow?
The more pressing question we ought to be asking ourselves is, “What should we as the people of God be doing today, while we are waiting for Christ our King to come again.?” Is it like going to a service counter at Target or Kohl’s, where you pick a number and wait your turn to be called? Did we each get a number when we were first baptized, and now we’re just basically standing around waiting for our number to be called so we can go to heaven? That’s the way Christians sometimes view their time in this world, between when they first came to faith and the end of their lives—just kind of hanging around waiting for their number to come up.
But God never intended that. God didn’t call you to believe in Jesus, just to put you on hold for a lifetime. He made you a vital part of his kingdom—one of his royal priests—specifically “to serve his God and Father,” John says. A priest, remember, is a go-between: he brings the needs of the people before God, and brings the word and the grace of God to the people. As priests before God we are the link with unbelievers in this world, to let them know God as we know him, as a loving, forgiving Savior. Our responsibility as holy priests is to help extend God’s kingdom by bringing the King into the lives of those around us. It’s our precious privilege to share with people we know and meet God’s promise to make something worthwhile out of even the most messed-up, mistake-filled life, just like he did with ours.
What I’m saying is, becoming a believer in Jesus is not our final purpose in this world. Serving as royal priests and bringing others into God’s kingdom is. So how can we be content to just take care of our own spiritual life, to come to church once a week or once a month and put in our time until our number is up? Won’t we rather use every opportunity God gives us to bring the King we are so anxiously awaiting into the lives of the people we live with, work with and spend time with?
And as we share the love of Jesus with the people in our lives, we will direct all the glory to God. We might be tempted once in a while to claim some credit for ourselves, to think, Here I am, giving up the sinful pleasures of this world to wait for Jesus, and trying to share his love with people. Shouldn’t I get something for that, at least a little recognition? But God’s love has a way of adjusting our perspective. John reminds us of why God gets the glory:
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.
God gets all the glory for what we are and where we are, waiting for Jesus who is coming with the clouds any day now. His sacrificing love got us here. And his love will bring him back to take us to that new heaven and new earth he is even now preparing for us. That’s why we say “No” to living only for today, and instead set our hearts over the horizon on tomorrow. And that’s why, as we wait for our King to return, we’ll make every effort to bring to his kingdom everyone whom he might call, and to extend to them what John here in Revelation promises us: “Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come.” There’s no better reason to live for tomorrow. Amen.