Sermon Tone Analysis

It’s all heading somewhere...

Jerusalem!

When will these things come to pass?

Matthew, Mark and Luke

Four Points

Do not be deceived

Do not be frightened

It’s not going to get bad, it’s going to get worse!

Stand firm and you will win life

Unvirtuous circles

Some people get so caught up in all of this.

Maybe because it comes at teh end, they think it must be the most important thing.

In any case, in my observation, peiople seem to drill down further and further into the portents of teh end of the age that Jesus describes.

As if there is some secret code, some hidden message in there that if we find it we’ll win life, and if we fail to solve all the clues, and to jump through all of the right hoops, then we’ll be damned.

In short, they fail to heed Jesus’ advice - “Do not be afraid”

It may get wrapped up in fervour and zeal, so it might be hard to recognise, but make no mistake, what drives millenialist thinking is fear.

Fear that I will fail Jesus, and then he will fail me.

That in the end I will be counted not as a sheep, but as a goat.

The individualistic language is deliberate here.

What the millenialist fears is at stake is their own personal, individual salvation.

And in their fear, they also lose sight of Jesus’ first piece of advice - “Do not be deceived”

They run after this teaching and that - “The secret is in this verse” - “Jesus is coming on this day” - “These are the sins you must avoid to win life” - “This is the teacher who has the only true knowledge that can save us”

Again, and again and again.

It seems inevitable.

If you give into the fear that chaos is coming, and believe that you need to escape, then you will grasp hold of anything or anyone that you believe might offer salvation.

This is why so many Christians will follow a man liek Trump.

Not because they don’t know who or what he is, but because they believe the lie that he is the strong man who will protect them from whatever is coming.

They are afraid.

So, they are deceived.

And things get worse.

Every time.

What does it mean to stand firm and win life?

1 John 4:18 (NIV)

There is no fear in love.

But perfect love drives out fear

Not to be swayed by wars and rumours of wars, but tio stay true, through thick and thin, to the Love that calls us home.

The hope is not that we can escape the coming storm.

The storm is already upon us, and may be here for some time.

The hope is that all is not lost.

The hope is Jesus will sustain us through thick and thin - just as has already been doing.

The hope is that the storm is not the end of all things, but the beginning.

As we look forward to the second coming of Jesus - to the fulfilment of God’s creation, then we find ourselves called into the same kind of lives that we are called into by his first coming, just as, in the church calendar, the reign of Christ revolves into the season of advent, again, and again; year after year.

The hope of Jesus’ return, and the hope of advent are, in the end, one and the same.

And they call us, in all of their harmony and disharmony, into lives worthy of the calling to which we’ve been called:

Lives of faithfulness

Lives of grace

Lives of humility

Lives of hope, peace, joy and love