What is Abundance?

Most days, I have a quiet time with God, a time when I consider God's Word and ask Him to reveal the truth He wants me to see in it for that particular day. To see how I approach quiet time, read here.

Look: “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:6-8)

Paul continues here to write to the relatively wealthy Gentile congregation in Corinth about an offering they had once pledged to give for the relief of Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. The latter were impoverished and struggling.

On first blush, one might think that what Paul writes in chapter 9 of 2 Corinthians supports the “prosperity gospel,” which is no gospel but a heresy and is popular these days. NOT AT ALL.

Paul is NOT saying, as the proponents of the heresy say, that if you give a lot, God will make you wealthy. Jesus gave and He wasn’t wealthy. Paul gave and he wasn’t wealthy. Peter gave up what was likely a lucrative business in order to follow Jesus. So did Matthew.

Following Jesus, believing in Jesus, is no guarantee of wealth. The God we meet in Jesus makes no deals for His mercy or His grace. Both are things that He gives to us.

So what is the promise of God to “cheerful givers” (in the Greek in which Paul composed this letter, the phrase is “hilarious giver) that Paul offers here?

Listen: The pertinent passage is verse 8. Paul says: “And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”

The verse is bracketed by abundantly and abound. This English rendering from Paul’s Greek is accurate. In both instances, the root word is περισσεύω, perisseuo, meaning literally, according to Strong’s concordance, to be over and above, to exceed the ordinary.

The double use of that term, appearing near the beginning and near the end of the verse forms what the scholars call an inclusio (or inclusion). It tells us, if it wasn’t clear enough on the face of it, that the verse deals with the subject of abundance.

The verse gives God’s understanding, the Bible’s understanding of abundance, though.

This understanding of abundance doesn’t mean that you won’t sweat out paying the mortgage some months.

It doesn’t mean that you’ll have the nicest car or bling.

It doesn’t mean that care and struggle with finances will necessarily go away.

Some believers in the God we know in Jesus will be entrusted with wealth. Abraham was wealthy. So were Joseph of Arimathea and Lydia of Thyatira. But some have been poor. Joseph and Mary were poor. So were others already named, including God in the flesh Himself, Jesus.

Some believers in the God we know in Jesus are gifted with a capacity for generating greater wealth or have inherited it.

But with greater wealth comes greater obligations (Matthew 25:24-27).

It also present greater spiritual danger. When Jesus encountered a wealthy man who asked what “good thing” he needed to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus saw straight through the man. (The question itself was all wrong. The rich man wanted to know what he good work he needed to do to gain eternal life. But no good work, not even making big donations, will gain eternal life for us. We are saved by God’s grace through our faith in, our trusting surrender to, Jesus alone.)

Jesus understood that this man’s wealth was his idol. Wealth was a spiritual danger to him. Wealth deluded him into thinking that he had control of everything, even his own salvation. The rich man did many right things, but in his heart, he worshiped money, not God. Radical surgery was necessary.

When Jesus told the man that the only way he could get free of the idol he worshiped and get with God, was to sell off everything he owned, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Him, the rich man walked away sorrowful. He was sorrowful because he knew that he would never have eternal life; his money was too important to him, more important than God.

This gave rise to Jesus telling the disciples: “I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:16-24)

Wealth might not be the idol or impediment for everyone that it was for that man. But Jesus’ words are a solemn warning against taking anything as our god but the one true God revealed to all the world in Jesus Himself. He’s the only One Who can give us life with God.

This kind of talk is anathema to the advocates of the “prosperity gospel.” They think that following Jesus is a matter of making deals with God: They will follow Jesus and He will put them on easy street. No financial worries. No sickness or disease. No hard times. But one look at the faithful Christians we have known in life will tell you that such immature heresies are all cow pie!

Jesus never promises that following Him will ease the financial strains--or any other stains--of this life. “In this world you will have trouble,” He says truthfully. “But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

And Paul warns Christians elsewhere: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Corinthians 15:19)

That’s why what Paul says in this verse is so important. He tells those who have made up their minds to give cheerfully, not under compulsion, but as a joyful response to the undeserved grace God gives to those who turn from sin and follow Jesus:

“And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”

To be blessed abundantly by God because we divest our idolatrous attachment to money doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to be wealthy. But it does mean two other things:

“...that in all things at all times 

1. We will have all that we need. This is what Jesus calls “our daily bread,” what we need. 

2. We will abound in every good work. In other words, when we give to cause of God in the world, when we PUT GOD FIRST--loving God, loving our neighbors, making disciples, God will magnify our giving and living so that it glorifies God and points others to Christ.

We will have what we need. And what we give, whatever we give--our time, possessions, money, service--will contribute the growth of God’s kingdom. We will be empowered to use our lives and all of our gifts for the purposes for which God gave us life in the first place and for which He gives new, everlasting life through Jesus to all who trust in Christ. THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO LIVE AN ABUNDANT CHRISTIAN LIFE.

How do I know that this is what Paul has in mind when he wrote this verse?

In the previous chapter, when he begins this appeal to the Corinthian Christians to follow through on their public pledge to help the Jerusalem Christians, Paul mentions an incident when ancient Israel, having been freed from slavery in Egypt and heading for the promised land that God would show them, was in the wilderness. They had no food. But God daily provided them with something called manna, an edible substance like bread.

Exodus 16:1-36 tells about this incident. When God provided it, He told Moses that the people were to collect the manna when it appeared on six days of the week. On the sixth day, they would be enabled to collect more than they needed for that day, double the usual amount, in fact; the people were to prepare all of the manna to eat and not collect on the seventh day, the sabbath, a day of rest. They were all to collect the same amount, an omer. When they measured what everyone had collected, from the oldest to the youngest, “Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.”

(Some got greedy for the world’s version of “abundance” and went out collecting the manna on the seventh day. They trusted this stuff that they could see, touch, and eat, more than they trusted God. Even though God was the One Who had given it to them!)

Paul references this entire incident in 2 Corinthians 8, writing to a church that may be thinking that if they give away money, there will be less abundance for them:

“At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: ‘The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.’” (2 Corinthians 8:14-15)

Paul’s picture of abundance then, is the same as that of Jesus, Who taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

I love how Martin Luther explains this petition of the Lord’s Prayer in The Small Catechism:

God indeed gives daily bread to all, even unbelievers, without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that he would help us to recognize this so that we would receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.

And then, Luther tackles the question of what is meant by daily bread:

Daily bread includes everything required to meet our earthly needs, such as food, drink, clothing, home, property, employment, necessities; devout parents, children, and communities; honest and faithful authorities, good government, seasonable weather, peace, health, an orderly society, a good reputation, true friends and neighbors, and the like.

In Biblical terms ABUNDANCE=DAILY BREAD.

And where it’s lacking, it isn’t due to a deficiency in God’s creation, but a deficiency in His creatures, His human creatures, the ones intended to be Creation’s caretakers, the ones made in the image of God whose fall into sin impacted the entire Creation over which it was to have dominion.

It’s the condition of sin with which the whole human race is afflicted at birth and from which only Christ can free us--and then only fully in eternity--that lay behind so many people getting their daily bread from God.

Famine and starvation, for example, are problems rooted in human sin. If those who have shared with those who haven’t more completely, including sharing technologies, no one on earth would go hungry.

Wars are the result of the human unwillingness to give a little.

It should also be evident that even many natural disasters are either the result of or are exacerbated by human sin. Climate change, which made the recent horrors brought to Texas by Hurricane Harvey worse, all the result of the hellish pursuit of more and of conspicuous consumption. Bad weather itself results from human sin, since the whole universe has been screwed up by the fall of the species who were meant to take care of it.  

In Romans 8:22, Paul writes that, “...the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time,” awaiting the final consummation of God’s plans in Christ. Christ will return, the old creation will be no more and the new creation--of which those who follow Jesus in this imperfect world are the “early adopters” who will populate the new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)--will be brought in its fullness for all who have loved Christ’s appearing (2 Timothy 4:8).

Whether I am wealthy, poor, or of the middle class, I must not be dazzled by the finite wealth of this dying world!

I must use whatever wealth I possess not just for my own daily bread, but with gratitude to God for Christ’s cross and empty tomb and all the promises I have as I follow Him, learn to give. This is how the abundant life is lived.

Respond: Lord, in Your Word, You declare, “...my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8). And sometimes, as one of Your departed saints, Rich Mullins, wrote, You are “hard to get.” But, Lord, help me to live the abundant life You have in mind for me and all of Your people, a life of usefulness and gratitude, of giving what I can from whatever means I have. Help me to be grateful for my daily bread and not to covet what others have. And where others lack daily bread, help me to do what I can to see that they have it. In Jesus’ name.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

The Spoiler You Can Love (Understanding Revelation, Part 4)

Revelation 21:1-7
Imagine that you’re the fan of a best-selling series of novels. For several years, you’ve been waiting for the last book in the series to be published. You’re so dedicated to the stories, in fact, that you stand outside in the shivering cold to be among the first million or so people who rush into a bookstore in order to snap up a copy of the latest installment just past midnight.

You purchase your copy and head home intent on binge reading through the night in order to know how the central mysteries of the series are resolved. You can’t wait to get started!

On the way home, you turn on your car radio and hear a news report on how millions around the world, just like you, are buying the book.

Then the news reader reports: “By the way, set free by the actions of the series’ protagonist, the evil princess is transformed into the embodiment of good, the evil lord turns out to be the hero’s father and repents, thereby unleashing a millennia of happiness and peace. That’s how the series ends.”

Everything you’d been wanting to learn through hours of enjoyable reading is now revealed to you in a matter of seconds by a big-mouthed radio announcer. You know the end the story.

Will you turn your car around and return the book for a refund, the experience of reading the book now ruined for you?

Will you join a class action lawsuit against the newscaster and his employers for spilling the beans?

Or will you, so in love with the universe created by the author of this series of books, shrug your shoulders and read the final book differently than you would have otherwise?

Will you now, read the book knowing that, while bad things will come, in the end all will be well?

Knowing how things turn out, in fact, may help you to go through the story with a comfort and enjoyment you might not otherwise have. You know what’s important and what plot twists are really red herrings that have no power to change the definite good end the author has in mind.

Today, as we continue our series Understanding Revelation, we near the end of a book designed to let God’s people who follow Christ know that in the unfolding history of life in this creation--in the life of this universe, in our personal and communal lives as Christians--there will be adversity, persecution, and death. But Revelation also comes to tell us that those who endure in following Jesus are part of the new and eternal thing that God began in Jesus Christ.

John, the author of Revelation, the recipient of the great vision from God that makes up the book, would agree with the apostle Paul when he writes in 2 Corinthians: “...if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Like the big-mouthed newscaster, John wants to tell us how the story ends for those who believe in and follow and trust and worship the God we know in Jesus Christ!

Is John wrong in doing this?

Knowing how the story of this universe ends, knowing how the story of your life ends if you will daily trust and obey the God we meet in Jesus Christ, does it ruin everything?

Do you want to sue God for spoiling the story?

Or, instead, doesn’t knowing that God is in control of history and how it ends and that the Author of life wants you for all eternity, make you want to change how you live each day?

Doesn’t it make you want to side with the whole great story’s writer and hero, Jesus Christ?

Doesn’t it help you to see your life, your relationships, your life’s work and daily activities differently?

I think that knowing how the story turns out for those who follow Christ can do all those things!

And believing that as I do, let me give you a spoiler alert as I invite you to look at our second lesson, Revelation 21:1-7. John is the speaker. “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.”

The problem with the old heaven and old earth, the creation you and I now occupy, isn’t that it’s intrinsically bad. It isn’t. When God first created this place we now call home, Genesis tells us: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” [Genesis 1:31] The problem with this universe with all its intricacy and beauty, isn’t with how it was made.

The problem is that the rebellion of humanity, the only of God’s creatures made in His image, has dragged the whole creation down to sin, death, and darkness.

So, God has resolved to give a new heaven and earth--a new Eden--to those who turn from sin and the death that comes from sin and turn instead to Jesus for forgiveness and new life.

In the meantime, as Paul says in Romans 8:22: “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth” for the new creation.

John sees this new creation--the new heaven and new earth. In describing it, it seems sometimes easier for him to tell us what isn’t part of the new creation than it is for him to describe what it actually looks like. He starts by saying “that there was no longer any sea.”

If you’re like me and enjoy oceanside vacations, that may not sound very good. But remember that Genesis 1 begins with God’s Spirit moving over the thrashing seas of chaos. The first creation happened when God pushed back this chaos, carving out a universe of peace and order for His creatures. When humanity fell into sin, we ushered chaos, disorder, and darkness back into our lives. Jesus, the Lord Who, you remember, stilled the stormy waters of the Sea of Galilee, is going to subdue all the chaos, suffering, and death which bedevils us in this world and give all who follow Him a new creation of still waters.

Verse 2: “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”

For the ancients, cities were places of safety and light in the midst of a dark, chaotic world, filled with thieves and wild animals. At night, people didn't want to be left outside the city gates because it was beyond the city that real danger loomed. This is part of what gave Jesus' parable of the prodigal son so much power to His original hearers. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was well known as a place beyond city gates where thieves hiding in crags of rock would pounce on defenseless travelers.

God is going to send and usher His people into a new city, a new Jerusalem, which His people will inhabit in eternal safety and joy.

The morning that my great-grandmother died, my mom woke me and said, “Mark, Grandma is walking the streets of gold with Pop today.” Mom was saying that this woman who meant, and still means, so much to me, was in the new Jerusalem. It gave me comfort to know that my great-grandmother was with God. It comforts me now to know that if I will persist in trusting Christ in this world, I too will one day walk on the streets of gold in the city God has in store for His people.

We members of Christ’s Church wait for God to descend to us like brides awaiting the return of their husband.

Verse 3: “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God…’”

In former times, you know, the presence of God on earth dwelt in the holy of holies at the temple in the old Jerusalem. The words will dwell translate the word in the original Greek in which Revelation was written, skenosei, literally meaning, will tabernacle. God will pitch His tent among His people.

This is the same word we find in John 1, which tells us that God in the flesh, Jesus, dwelt or tabernacled in this world.

In the new creation, we will never feel far from God. We will know intimacy with God. We won’t need a holy of holies; we will be living in the holy presence of God. Sin, death, and darkness will never get in the way of our fellowship with Him.

In verse 4, we read: “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.’ He who was seated on the throne [God, then] said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’”

Apparently, God doesn’t think that knowing how the story ends for those who follow Jesus--tears wiped away, death done forever, grief and pain dispensed with--will hurt us. In fact, I think it's safe to say that knowing the end of the story helps us.

When we lose loved ones, knowing that all who trust in Christ live with God forever, can give us strength.

When we know that we belong to God for eternity, it can free us to love even those who hate us and to bring God’s compassion and love to the lost and the hurting of this old creation.

Revelation tells us that death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a Christian.

Beyond the gates of death is perfect life in the perfect city of God!

Knowing how the story ends for followers of Christ can, if we will let it, make us downright bold and reckless about loving God and neighbor!

Verses 6 and 7: “He said to me: ‘It is done.’ [Or, we might hear God saying as Jesus did from the cross, “It is finished. I have completed what I set out to do.”] I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.”

Apparently, those who believe in Jesus Christ, won’t miss the sea with all its chaos, darkness, and sin. Instead, we will be given oceans of fresh and living water!

God will slake our thirst for life and we will inherit a creation rich with the very life of God.

The new heaven and the new earth will make Eden look like it was, just the beginning.

In the end, there will be no end, only God and us living life as it was meant to be lived: filled with new creations, new stories, new adventures, new fellowship, new fulfillment.

God will make all things new.

I hope that knowing the end of the story for those who dare to follow Jesus doesn’t ruin your experience of the story of your life, a life that God wants desperately to make continuously and eternally new.

I hope that knowing how it all ends for those who follow Christ will, instead, help you to do the one thing God most wants you to do: To well and truly live. Amen

Labor Pains

Mark 13:1-8
What I know about birth pangs or labor pains is, as it can only be for any man, second-hand knowledge. Mine comes from having seen my wife, Ann, go through labor with our two kids.

Ann was a champ! But after seeing what she had experienced first with Philip, who was 10-pounds, 9-3/4-ounces when he was born, and then with Sarah, who was 12-pounds, 2-ounces at birth, I could well understand what she told me shortly after Sarah was born. “Mark," she said, "if you want any more kids, you’ll have to have them with your second wife.”

I bring this up because, as New Testament scholar N.T. Wright points out, the key to understanding today’s Gospel lesson, Mark 13:1-8, is its final verse, where Jesus says, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles. These are the beginnings of sorrows.”

Now, the rendering of that last phrase in the New King James Version, the translation of our pew Bibles and in our bulletin, is frankly, not very accurate. A literal rendering of Jesus’ words there from the original Greek in which Mark and all the books of the New Testament are written, arche odinon tauta, would be, the beginning of birthpangs these things are. That’s why the translation of this passage in the New Revised Standard Version, which we use in adult Sunday School class, puts Jesus’ words this way: “This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”

I spent so much time talking about this phrase and its translation because these few words by Jesus are important!

In the Old Testament, especially in the writings of the prophets, the imagery of labor pains coming before the birth of God’s kingdom in people’s lives was often used. But Jesus uses the image of birth pangs in this passage differently. He’s not talking about the end of the world (He slides into a discussion of that seamlessly later on in Mark, chapter 13) or about the establishment of God’s eternal kingdom, but about the end of the temple in Jerusalem, an event that would happen in 70 AD, about forty years after Jesus spoke these words, when the Romans tore the temple down.

But there’s still a lot for us to learn as followers of Jesus from today’s Gospel lesson. Please turn to it, Mark 13:1-8.

It begins: “Then as He went out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!’”

“Wow!” the disciple is saying, “isn’t this a great place?” But Jesus seems unimpressed with the temple. Look at verse 2: “And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down.”

What a downer! The disciple who pointed to the beauty of the temple probably at least thought that he was making pleasant conversation. Or more probably, he thought that he was displaying pious faith in God by being impressed with the temple.

But Jesus gives the disciple no affirmation, in effect telling him (and us) to never confuse the eternal power of God with buildings, no matter how imposing or pretty.

I have to say that when the call committee here at Saint Matthew showed me the sanctuary at the conclusion of our first interview, I probably didn’t register much delight.

It’s nice, don’t get me wrong. But Ann and I learned a long time ago that God can be worshiped in all sorts of places. The mission congregation with which I worked during my seminary internship met in a Lions' hall. When we arrived on Sunday mornings for worship, we were often met with the smell of stale cigarette smoke and spilled beer. And for twelve-and-a-half years, at the mission church I served before coming to Saint Matthew, we worshiped in a broken-down old school gym.

Corrie ten-Boom found the holiest place of worship in the concentration camp in which she and her sister were incarcerated during World War II was the garbage dump crawling with rats and smelling of human waste and rotting food. It was the only place where she and her sister could go to remember God’s Word, sing hymns, and praise the God they knew through Jesus Christ.

Buildings crumble and fall.

Stained glass cracks.

Only God and those who turn from sin and trust in Christ as their only hope live for eternity.

Jesus was telling the disciples, including us, “Don’t put your trust in buildings, or traditions, or liturgies, or human beings or their works. Don’t even trust yourselves. Put your trust in Christ alone!”

Go back to the lesson, to verse 3. Jesus is now sitting opposite the temple on the Mount of Olives and four of the apostles--Peter, James, John, and Andrew--have a question. Verse 4: “‘Tell us when all these things will be? And what will be the sign when all these things will be fulfilled?’”

Now, you need to notice something here: In answering the four apostles' questions, Jesus never actually answers their questions. As we'll see, Jesus isn't being evasive in not answering them. In fact, Jesus has a more important point to make!

Look at what Jesus says, starting in verse 5: “‘Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My Name, saying, ‘I am He,‘ and will deceive many. But when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be troubled; for such things must happen, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles.”

Every single thing Jesus describes as signs of the impending destruction of the temple are events that have been going on from the moment Adam and Eve rebelled against God and consigned all of us to our inborn bondage to sin.

Can anyone name a time in human history, ancient or modern, when there weren’t wars and rumors of wars? Neither can I!

Can you think of a time in history when there weren’t disasters, earthquakes, and troubles? Neither can I! And I was a Social Studies major who is a life-long of history.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 says: “..there is nothing new under the sun.” That verse doesn't say that history repeats itself; because, quite simply, history doesn't repeat itself. But that verse reminds us that the world is no more and no less sinful or foreboding today than it was the moment God banished Adam and Eve from the garden.

Different sins become more popular at different times. But the same old sin, death, disasters, calamities, and warring have been going on for centuries.

In light of this fact, Peter, James, John, and Andrew might have said to Jesus, “But, Lord, all these things You describe as signs and events that will happen before the destruction of the temple are things that happen every day, year in and year out, and have always happened!”

And had they actually said that, Jesus could have answered, “Exactly!”

The temple came down at the precise moment when Jesus foresaw that it would fall.

But the disciples and no one else had any need to know when that would happen.

As hard as it is for we human beings to accept, there are some things we cannot know and never will know.

Geneticists, epidemiologists, and actuaries may be able to tell us our likely life expectancies, for example. But only God knows the exact moment He has appointed for the ends of our earthly lives. King David prays to God in Psalm 31:15: "My times are in Your hand..." And Job, in the midst of His pain, tells God: "A person’s days are determined; You have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed" (Job 14:5).

Scientists and climatologists may be able to make accurate projections of the moments most likely to bring the destruction of this planet. But only God knows the time appointed for that to happen. In fact, it seems that only God the Father knows when that moment will come. Jesus, God the Son, said, "...about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32).

So, Jesus doesn’t tell the disciples when the temple will fall or what the signs of its impending destruction will be.

His non-answer told them that they were asking the wrong questions.

What Jesus is telling them and us is that, no matter what painful or difficult things may come to us along life’s way, the future is ultimately in God’s hands. Our call is to trust in Him even in the midst of uncertainties and our own limitations.

He's also saying that all the painful things that happen in this world, no matter how calamitous are just the labor pains of God's new creation.

That’s why Jesus says in verse 8: “These [things] are [just] the beginnings...” Or, “These are just the labor pains for what’s to follow!”

In fact, the Bible says that our entire life on this earth constitutes the labor pains of the new heaven and the new earth all who believe in Christ will live in and enjoy after this entire universe has fallen down, Christ returns, and the dead who have died believing in Him will rise again.

Romans 8:22 says that “the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains” for that moment when, finally and fully, sin, death, and futility are put under Christ’s feet and the pain and tears of this fallen world will be things of the past.

This should give us hope! 

The athlete who keeps her focus firmly on her goal of winning  the prize endures all sorts of difficulties--arduous training, endless practice, injuries and physical rehabilitation--in order to attain her goal.

When we live each day in the certainty that God saves from sin and death all who retain their faith in Jesus Christ and have eternity with God as the prize for which they race, they can say with the apostle Paul, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to revealed to us” when, in the resurrection, we see Christ face to face!

 (Romans 8:18)

We have to be careful though. Faith isn’t fatalism.

Jesus isn’t telling Christians to sit around, letting life wash over them while waiting for Him to show up with a bunch of angels playing harps. (I personally hate harps, by the way!)

In fact, throughout Mark 13, where Jesus does go on to talk about the end of the world, Jesus tells us what we’re to do as we await the unfolding of God’s plans for our world and for our lives. We’re not supposed to sit, trying our best to look holy.

In Mark 13:5; Jesus says, “Take heed that no one deceives you.” Watch out that you don’t for those who tell you to hope in the things of the world--like money, power, a positive attitude, whatever--taking them as gods instead of Jesus.

In verse 9, Jesus warns Christians to “Watch out” that they not give up on trusting in Him. This applies to we Lutherans today, when our own the synodical officials in some parts of the country (not here in southern Ohio, it should be said) harasses or intimidates pastors and congregations into accepting false beliefs. We need to watch out when our own denomination ascribes the same level of authority to bishops, denominational assemblies, various church traditions, human experience, and science that the Lutheran Confessions claim belongs only to the Word of God found in the Bible.

Then, in verse 23, Jesus tells us to take heed, watch out, for people who point us to false Christs or to false versions of the real Jesus Christ and lead us away from eternal life with God.

And in verse 33, Jesus says to “Take heed, watch, and pray.” We have no idea when the end of the world may come; so we need to pray, as Jesus has taught us, that God will “deliver us from evil,” so that we don’t fall prey to sin and end up an enemy of God when we face judgment in eternity.

Jesus took back our fallen world once and for all when He offered Himself on the cross, the perfect sacrifice for our sins, then rose from the dead, opening up eternity to who trust in Him.

We don’t know what may happen to us or to the world in whatever time passes between this moment and the moment when the risen, ascended Jesus returns to bring judgment and the fullness of His kingdom to all who have believed in Him.

But we do know that there is no safer place we can be in this world (and the next) than in the hands of the God Who holds the future of this world and of eternity itself in His hands.

A new world is being born in this messy world in which we live. The labors of this world can be painful, even deadly. But if we will be patient and hold on tightly to Christ, we’ll have strength for the journey and an eternity of joy with Christ and all who, like us, have trusted in Him. Amen

[This was prepared to be shared during worship with the people and friends of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, yesterday.]