Notes from 5-18-11

Its the end of the world as we know it... but I feel fine


So, you guys have got 3 more days until Jesus comes back.
Isn't that a relief? Don't have to worry about college or credit card bills or etc etc etc.
So, 3 days until the end of the world. How are you going to spend it?

Where any of you guys aware of this? That the date of Judgement day has been predicted a major Christian ministry?



As you can probably tell, I am somewhat skeptical of these claims,
There have been end of the world predictions every single year since 2000, and they stretch back significantly further than that, scattered through the last thousand years of history. One of my favorites:.
In the year 1000 A.D.
King Otto of Germany had the body of King Charlemagne exhumed (removed from its grave) under the belief that Charlemagne would rise up and battle Satan, thus delaying the apocalypse.

Predicting the return of Christ is a long and misguided tradition among the church.

So, I say its misguided, why do I say that?

Well, there are these verses in Matthew:

Matthew 24:35-36
35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.


Matthew 24:39-42
39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.
41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.

Actually its that entire chapter of Matthew that Jesus talks about the end times and one important detail that we can pull from these two passages is that we cannot know the day that Lord is coming, but there is a second part to this and that is that while we cannot know the day, we are supposed to watch for it.

Matthew 25:1-13
1 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
2 Five of them were foolish and five were wise.
3 The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them.
4 The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps.
5 The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

6 “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’
7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.
8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’
9 “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’
12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’
13 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.



If I could make my own example:

Have you ever been at the beach, just hanging out, walking along the tideline, dodging the waves when they come up to your feet and all of a sudden you hear this crash behind you and you turn around and you see this huge freak-of-nature wave coming tearing toward you waist high?

We can't know the time and the day but the message of the parable is clear. Watch, be prepared, the Lord is coming.

And we don't have the comfort of being able to say that the Lord's coming is years away either, I don't think it will be Saturday, but it could easily be tomorrow.

Like the wave, like the bridegroom, If you aren't watching it could destroy you.

So be prepared, be watchful. Seek the Lord, prepare your heart, reach out to your loved ones.

The end of the world will happen, how are you going to spend your last days?

Its too late for me to still be awake.

ATF Sacramento 2011

Notes from 5-11-11

Salvation in 3-D

Hebrews 1:14
14 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

Okay, I'm hoping that tonight can be more of a discussion than the last couple of weeks have been.
If you remember, two weeks ago I talked about a question that my bible study leader asked us "What is salvation?" Drawing from the verse in Hebrews that we just read. Well, as I predicted Hebrews 1:14 was the jumping off point for what turned out to be an hour long discussion on Salvation and how God works in our lives.

Now, I've always been a guy who applies Occam's Razor to my theology. I've always loved to distill everything down to its simplest form, and its served me, personally, quite well; but after the pastors got done I was left with the feeling that maybe I've done you guys an injustice. So, salvation revisited, now in 3D

Now, what I said two weeks ago still holds true: in its simplest form salvation is being saved, being rescued.


I will now break out my pastoral dictionary and throw some deep sounding words at you, which we will then try to distill down to their simplest form, thus hopefully gaining both complexity and simplicity.

They are justification, sanctification and glorification.


What do these words mean? What do they mean to us as Christians and most importantly, what do they promise us?

Lets start with Justification.

Justification - Reconciled with God through His grace.
Saved from the consequences of sin.

1 John 4:10
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Romans 10:9-10
9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.


Justification, or to be justified by God, the classic memory trick for this one is "just if I'd" never sinned.
When we are justified (and if you've been saved then you were justified in that very moment) it is as if we had never ever sinned, and we are freed from the ultimate consequences of our sins, separation from God.

Sanctification - Being perfected by God.
Saved from the power of sin.

Romans 12:1-2
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

John Piper writes in his book The Passion of Jesus Christ:

"Our sins ruin us in two ways: it makes us guilty before God, so that we are under His just condemnation; and it makes us ugly in our behavior, so that we disfigure the image of God we were meant to display. It damns us with guilt, and it enslaves us with lovelessness."

Sanctification is God working through our lives, through our circumstances, to make us better.
We still sin. When we accept Christ and the work He did on the cross to save us we are justified, and the penalty of sin is wiped away, but we still sin, and that sin is an insult and wound to God, so he teaches us through our friends, through our circumstances, through so many different things, how to walk in His ways and obey Him. This is the process of sanctification, that we are free from sins power over us.

Glorification - Living with God in heaven.
Saved from the presence of sin.

Revelation 21:4-5
4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

There will be a day when all of this fallen world will be gone and we will stand in God's presence, for real, and like He promises right here in Revelation, there will be no more pain or sorrow or death. Sin will be gone. Sin will be impossible. The first question of the Westminster catechism is "What is the chief purpose of man?" and the answer to that is "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

There will come a day when we will stand surrounding God and we will glorify Him. If I can say this without sounding weird than I would say that we will be his glory. We will enjoy him forever. That is our future as Christians, that is the final part of our salvation. That is the end of the story as we know it, and that is pretty cool.

So, Justification: Saved from the consequences of sin. (Just as if I'd never sinned)
Sanctification: Saved from the power of sin.
Glorification: Saved from the presence of sin.

That is how we are saved.