Monday's follow-up to Sunday's message: Preparation leads to expectation

The second coming of Jesus Christ—His Second Advent, if you will—will be a cause for celebration like no other.

He will come with shouts of triumph, with the blasts of trumpets.  He will come with angel armies and a sword in His mouth.  He will come to resurrect the dead to life, and bring His Father’s children into eternal life with Him. 

He will come for you.

Will you be prepared? 

The Scriptures tell us two specific things in regards to Christ’s coming: 1) No one knows when it will come.  2) Watch and wait for it in expectation.

Nothing quite builds expectation like preparation.  The bride picks out her wedding dress and longs for the time when she will be united with her bridegroom.  A family cuts down a Christmas tree and the children dance with gleeful expectation of December 25^th.  But how do you prepare for something like Christ’s coming?

You prepare for it by focusing upon what Christ has done for you and what He will yet do.  Not by working or giving or sacrificing for Christ, but by acknowledging that you have received good gifts from Christ.  And as you focus upon what Christ has done for you, you will be all the more eager to see Him when He returns.

1 Peter 1:3-5   ³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,  ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-- kept in heaven for you,  ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

Prepare for Christ’s coming, and you’ll life your life in joyful expectation of it.

Monday's follow-up (on Tuesday) to Sunday's message: The treasure of the church

“The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.”—Martin Luther

What’s the true treasure of the church?  What is the thing that makes church truly special?  Is it the fellowship we enjoy with one another?  Is it the sense of unity, of belonging?  Is it the treasure of shared memories of good times and happy days gone by?

Those things are good, to be sure.  But they are not the true treasure of the church.  They are not the thing that binds us together, that causes us to gather every week.  They are a gift from God, but not THE gift from God to His church.

The true treasure of the church is God’s Gospel.  His message of the enduring, faithful love He has for you.  The love that endures despite your sin.  The love that endures despite the sin of your fellow church members. 

But that Gospel treasure demands we take our sin very seriously.  It demands that we admit it, that we own up to it, that we confess it.  We are not an almost-perfect people who gather together every week to get some advice on how to be just a little bit better . . . we are sinners who come to agree with God once again that we deserve nothing from Him but punishment, but instead through Jesus Christ we receive nothing from God but forgiveness.

It’s a hard thing to admit, this thing called sin.  We’d rather play at being holy.  We’d rather listen to the advice of some spiritual-sounding teacher who tells us how to get holy.  But when we simply stand and agree with God that sin is sin, that sin is ours, and that only His Son—and not us!—can pay for sin . . . that is when we realize what a treasure we have in His church.

So enjoy your church friends.  Enjoy the memories you share.  Enjoy the fellowship you have with one another.  But treasure the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for only it can make you right with God.  Only the Gospel can truly make a church.