Transitions happen in our lives, and they happened in Jesus’ life too. In this message, we'll highlight 3 transitions that took place in Jesus’ ministry after He left the Temple, and discover the lessons they teach us today.
Transcription (automatically-generated):
Transitions, our lives are marked by them, both big and small throughout the entirety of our lives, our lives are so marked by transitions that we even are affected by transitions before we're even born. I'm going to keep this PG, but to speak with me briefly. There is a major transition where one time you were just a twinkle in your daddy's eye and then some time later you were conceived in your mom's womb.
The transitions were just getting started and there was no sign that you were in there. And then several weeks later, your mom transitioned to having a cute little baby bump. Some more weeks passed and that little baby bump grew to a ginormous bump. Then the transition transitions keep coming because then you came out and you weren't in there anymore.
And for a good chunk of the early part of your life, you were a little baby and you did a sum total of four things in no particular order.
You ate, you slept, you cried and you poured. And sometimes those things happen simultaneously. Sometimes they're going from one thing to another. But there's a season of your life. That's all you're doing as a baby. And then you transition to being able to sit. You transition to be able to to be able to crawl around you. You transition to be able to stand and then walk and then you're running and then you're transitioning to ruin and everything in the house.
You keep growing. Right. And fast forward a few years. There's a favorite time in everyone's life, a major transitional time in our life. The big P word, puberty marks a transition in our growing up in our adolescence.
And then you then you get old and like me, I'm coming up on 40 next year and I'm more tired than I was when I was twenty. I'm weaker and I'm getting you can't see me from the camera, but I'm even getting sprinkled with some whites in the beard.
Transition, transition. A lot of transitions in school. You know, big moments in your life when you transition to going into kindergarten, you transition to going into middle school. Today, back in my day, it was junior high. You transition into you transition into high school. Some of us transition out of high school into post-secondary education. And then we eventually have to transition into the out of school and into the into the workforce. Transitions, transitions, transitions, transitions.
Some transitions are permanent in nature, but some transitions are back and forth. They're cyclical. Think of the think of the seasons in the calendar year. We're in the summer right now and not too long. We're going to transition into the fall and fall from the transition into the winter. And winter is going to transition in the spring and spring, transition back in the summer. And around we go every year. Every day we have transitions. Every day you wake up and you transition to the sun rising and you starting your day.
And at the end of the day, you transition to to pulling the plug out and resting and tapering down into into sleep. You wake and you sleep and you wake and you sleep, sleep and you transition in and out of that every day of your life. So some transitions are permanent, but some we go in and out of all the time. Transitions are a common and a necessary part of our life. Which brings us to the place in our study in the Gospel of Matthew.
And here we're going to see Pivotal, a pivotal transition marked out in Jesus life and ministry. But not only is this what we're going to see here in this message tonight, not only is it a noticeable transition in his life, we're going to be able to see things in his transition that can have a dramatic effect on the way we live our lives as followers of his.
In this message, the message I want to highlight for you, three transitions in these two verse is that serve as our text for this message in our two verse is our Chapter 24 in Matthew Verse is one, and to let me read them for us. Verse is one. Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple, but he answered them, You see all these, do you not?
Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. Here's the first transition I want to highlight for you, and it's going to be the first film on your outline. Jesus goes from spending time with the crowds. To spending time with his disciples. Jesus goes from spending time with the crowds to spending time with his disciples. In order to show you this particular transition better, I want to take a peek with you at some of the larger context surrounding our two verse is.
In Matthew, Chapter 21, 22 and 23, we can see Jesus mostly, almost predominantly ministering to large public crowds in Jerusalem around the temple as Passover in Jerusalem. The city has swollen to one to two million people have come in. Jews from all over the surrounding area, around the world come once a year to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. This bombing is happening and the temple is right in the center of it all. And this is where our scene is is based and where it's coming out of here.
This is where Jesus had been going back and forth with the religious leaders of his day, as we've seen in Chapter twenty three. With everybody watching. Large crowds packed, Jesus is there, his disciples are there, his friends are there, his enemies are there, everyone is there and he's ministering publicly.
But then we get to chapters 24 and 25, and here we see that Jesus transitions to ministering privately to a small group of his disciples. See again in verse one says that Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple to Jesus leaves the crowds. And it's just his disciples who come to him, who follow after him to spend time with them. And then he spends chapters twenty four and twenty five, teaching only his disciples.
The crowds are gone, and now it's just Jesus with his disciples. This kind of transition going from a large crowd to a small group is not an isolated example in the Ministry of Jesus. One other example, will we see the same pattern play out as back in Matthew? Chapter 13 there, Matthew records for us a bunch of parables that Jesus preaches publicly to the crowds in Matthew 13.
The crowds were so big it tells us that Jesus had to actually get into a boat, push away from the shore and then speak to the crowds on the shore. But he had to make some buffer room between us, between them and him, because he was getting crushed and pressed up by the crowds because it was so intense and it was so it was so big.
But after he had finished addressing the crowds from his boat, teaching them all these parables in Matthew 23, go back and look at the at the scene. At the story, you can see Jesus leave and go into a house. And we also see who follows after him. His disciples, his disciples come after Jesus.
And it's there privately in the house where he actually spends the time to unpack the parables and explain it to them and teach them the parables. So we see the same transition back in Matthew, Chapter 13 as we see in our text in Matthew, Chapter twenty four, Jesus going from a large public gathering to a smaller private one. If you look for it, you can see this all throughout the three years of Jesus public ministry with his disciples by his side.
Throughout it all, you can see this pattern over and over and over again.
If you're looking for large public gathering, public ministry, smaller, more intimate groups and big public ministry with the disciples are there amongst the crowds and then smaller gatherings where it's just Jesus and his disciples. I'd argue that both atmospheres, the large public gathering and the smaller and more private ones, both atmospheres were and are important parts in the disciple making process. They were important parts in Jesus disciple making process. See, in the large corporate gathering, you're going to often find the time and the space set aside for for more of a monologue type proclamation of the word public preaching and teaching and exhortation from the from the pulpit, from the preacher.
Usually in a large crowd, you have a mix of a whole different bunch of people, all on different parts of their journey of faith.
Usually a mix of disciples of Jesus, followers of Jesus, and those who don't yet know Jesus or who are warm to Jesus, open to him or even hostile to him, and you have a mix usually in the large public gathering. Think of the four soils that Jesus actually spoke a parable about in that back in Matthew, Chapter 13 is the for soils of the four different hearts you have the the hard ground of the the thorny ground. You have the shallow grounding of the good and you have the good soil.
And that's a representation of people that are in the public crowds gathering at any time in public ministry settings, larger sites, larger sized crowds, makes it challenging to have a lot of different people participate actively in in their time together in the same kind of way as one person preaching or a couple of people leading worship.
Usually most people are spectating in the large gatherings, but that's why certain things are taking place in the smaller, more private gathering setting.
Not exclusively, but usually in these smaller settings are these are made up of those who already follow Jesus or those who want to learn more about him. Those are usually the ones that are marking those groups.
In those smaller group settings, you're going to often find more opportunities for those who are there to share and to actively participate in what's happening in that time, some things can actually only be done in smaller groups, verse is in larger groups like really hearing from one another, really knowing one another, really building any kind of relational equity with one another.
They set in the Bible in more detail and chewing on it more and wrestling with it together. That happens in smaller group settings and it's virtually impossible to happen in the same kind of way in a large public setting. Why am I highlighting this for us in this message out of our text? Well, I believe that this transition from Jesus ministry in large public gatherings to ministering in smaller, more private gatherings and going back and forth, I believe is given to us as Christians, as the church, as a pattern that followers of Jesus need to be aware of and that we even need to emulate in our own endeavour to make disciples today, because that's what you and I are called to do.
Every single Christian, without exception, is called by Jesus to make disciples. After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus gave his disciples a command or a commission, as we call it. And it's a great one. Is Matthew. Twenty eight. Eighteen to twenty in that Jesus says all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, guys go make disciples, baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Teach these new disciples guys to observe or obey everything that I've commanded you.
And lo and behold, I'll be with you always to the very end of the age. Go make baptized teach. I will be with you. Jesus has given us a list of things to do. So the question we could ask is that the list seems pretty plain and easy to understand.
But how do we actually walk this out practically? How do we actually go about making disciples? How do we shape our lives to revolve around this great commission that Jesus has given us?
It's a corny preacher joke, and I've used it once that I'm sure I will use it again, but I love it because this is called the great commission.
Go Make Disciples is not called the great suggestion.
This is a mandate that every single follower of Jesus has to take upon themselves as received from our Lord.
So if we're called to we're mandated as believers, as saved ones, as set apart ones, as is holy people to go into the world and make disciples, what can a disciple making life look like? Do we have any example of what a disciple making life looks like? Well, we do. We do. And the disciples in the 1st century, they had that example given to them. See, Jesus, the ultimate disciple maker.
If you want to learn how to do anything right, you look at Jesus. And over a period of three years, Jesus used a combination of different times and places and sizes of groups that he ministered to in order to make his disciples, Jesus use the large public gatherings often. And Jesus used the smaller, more private ones, too. And he seemed to go back and forth between the two. And we know that the disciples picked up what Jesus was doing when he was making disciples out of them because they did the same things.
When they went to make disciples, they employed the use of both large and large public gatherings and smaller private ones in their own lives. After Jesus ascended back to heaven, we can see them do this if we look ahead to the Book of Acts at how the early church patterned their rhythms of worship throughout the week, it's on your outline. But Acts Chapter two verses forty two to forty seven reads like this. Speaking of the early church, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Everyone was filled with all at the many wonders and signs performed by the Apostles, and all the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold their property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Really highlight here in Verse is 46, every day, they continued to meet together in the temple courts, they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and and enjoying the favor of all the people.
And the Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved. So we see that.
We see that they met in the temple courts. And there we have the picture of a large public gathering with a mix of a whole different types of people and different places on their own journey of faith. People, pro Jesus, anti Jesus in between hovering, trying to figure out that would have flooded the temple.
But then they spent time in their homes. And just practically speaking, homes were way, way, way smaller than the temple. And you can only fit a certain amount of people in every home. And so we went from some ministry in the big public setting of the temple into homes where they broke bread and they had a more intimate gathering. The early church pattern, this for us, they used both. How do we do this today, the year twenty twenty, how do we do this in our respective churches?
Well, New Hope Church does this. They have their large public gathering.
You guys do is I'm preaching to you know it. You have your large public gathering on the weekend pre covid. It was Sunday nights at five p.m. And now since covid, you've partnered with us at Gorog for four Saturday night prayer and worship nights down at Riverside Community Church.
That's a big, larger public gathering. But you guys also have smaller, more private gatherings as well. I know that your women have a women's group every Tuesday morning and the men have a men's group, a smaller group that gets together on Tuesday evenings throughout the throughout the week and throughout the throughout the calendar.
Jeff has let me know that the men's group and I think maybe the women's group don't quote me on this is on a pause right now through the rest of the summer. But sometime in the fall, those groups are going to get started back up again.
And if you are a part of New Hope Church and you've attended the weekend large public gathering pretty consistently, pretty regularly, regularly, but I haven't yet got connected in a smaller group. Can I encourage you to reach out and seek out some information about what that might look like in your life? If you attend and are a part of and you hope church on a regular basis, there's a way that you can connect. Jot this down or I might be on your hand out my new hope to see a connect.
If you go there, you'll be able to get connected and find out what happens in the life of New Hope Church. Throughout the week. We have the same pattern of large and small gatherings that I got from church three covid we met on Saturday nights. But now post covid, we're meeting with New Hope Church on Saturdays at five p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at Riverside Community Church and has been amazing. That's on Saturdays, big, large public gatherings. But then through the weeks, on Wednesday nights, we have our smaller discipleship groups where we get together.
I happen to be coed, but we do that on Wednesday nights. We, too, are breaking through the rest of the summer, but we're going to get started back up in September. And if you're watching this and you've been a part of God Rock Church in some way, shape or form and have yet to get connected in a smaller midweek kind of relational group, a discipleship group, email God Rock Pocho at Gmail dot com. Ask about groups on Wednesday nights, 7:00 p.m. in the fall, and we will be happy to get you the information that you need to get connected to that.
I want to I want to give everyone watching an exhortation at this point, if you are a disciple of Jesus, I want to encourage you. If you don't do this already, I want to encourage you to prioritize spending time with him and with your fellow disciples throughout the week, both in large public settings and in smaller private ones, prioritize both as both Jesus and the early church modeled for us, prioritize participation in both kinds of group settings, knowing that sacred sacrifices will likely need to be made in order to prioritize the weekly calendar this way.
And I know that every life is different. Every life has a different set of nuances and and responsibilities. But I believe that prioritizing this kind of gathering throughout the week, utilizing both large and small group gatherings, equips us. I believe it's paramount for us if we are going to be successful in making disciples in our generation. So I'm calling the church to prioritize this in your life. That's our first transition, here's the second one transition. Number two, it's going to be the second fill in on your outline.
We see a transition taking place from the way worship had been to the way it was going to be, and now is one more time we see a transition taking place from the way a worship had been to the way it was going to be. And now is. At this point in time, as we're walking through our journey through the gospel of Matthew, how had worship been experienced up until this point?
Well, it's really simple worship of the one true God of the Bible centered exclusively around and in the temple that was located in Jerusalem.
Everything revolved around the temple and this temple in Jerusalem was something to behold, the disciples who we know didn't live in the big city in Jerusalem, they lived kind of out in the out in the boonies. They were taken back by the temple when they saw it there. See what they do in verse one in our text says that Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him, the buildings of the temple is like they're they're like, hey, Jesus, would you take a look at that?
Wow, what a beaut. What a beauty.
Isn't she? And I want to I want to if you haven't seen pictures, if you don't know what I'm talking about when I reference the temple in Jerusalem, let me try to paint a picture for you of what a person would have seen if they were there and they looked at the temple, if they beheld the temple for themselves.
Let me try and paint a picture for you both. Mark and Luke's gospels tell us that the disciples were specifically pointing out to Jesus the beautiful stones that decorated the temple and the glorious architecture of all the buildings on the Temple Mount, for example. This was such a sight to behold that the brass gates of the temple were a hundred and thirty feet high.
The main temple building stood three times higher than the Dome of the Rock, which is the mosque that sits on the Temple Mount today, if you ever looked at pictures of Jerusalem in that yellow golden dome, the temple that we're talking about, three times higher than that, taller the stones of which the temple was constructed, the ones that that the disciples were pointing out to Jesus, they measured, get this, 12 feet high by 12 feet wide, by 40 feet long, weighing in at 300 to 400 tons each.
And they were so precisely cut that not even a knife blade could fit between them when they were placed together. The exterior walls were covered in white marble on three sides of the temple, and the whole front wall was covered with gold plates that reflected the morning sun and made the building visible for miles. The Talmud says that you couldn't look at the front of the temple during the day without being blinded by it. Additionally, the wealthy would give donations to the temple, things like gold sculptures, golden plaques and other treasures.
Herod, who was responsible for rebuilding this incarnation of the temple that we're talking about. He donated a gold golden vine with clusters of golden grapes that stood nearly six feet tall. These gifts would have all been displayed on the exterior walls or hung in the portico area.
The level of wealth on the Temple Mount at this time was incomprehensible. In fact, the value of the buildings, the materials and the adornments of the temple would clock in at over a trillion dollars today in today's currency. It was the greatest building ever built. The temple was not only incredible, an incredible architectural display, but the temple was the Jewish center for everything, for religion, for society, for identity. The temple was everything for a Jewish person.
Everything revolved around the temple. Like I said, religion, worship, culture, commerce, identity, everything. ABLE-BODIED Jews who didn't live in Jerusalem would come to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the feasts. Right now in our in our story in Matthew Chapter 20 for everyone is there for one of these feasts as Passover.
Everyone has flocked here. It's where you would go to offer sacrifices to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that would worship would take place at the temple. Now we're talking about transitions in this message. And this is a major one.
This is where worship revolved around the temple is where it happened for hundreds of years for God's people. But the location of worship, of their worship was going to change. A transition was taking place where worship wasn't going to center around that physical temple anymore. God was moving worship to a different location. This is no small thing. We know something was going to change because in our verse is that we're looking at here together tonight, Jesus said that the temple was going to be destroyed.
That's what he says. And if it was destroyed, reason with me, how could anyone worship there any more?
Let's take a look again at verse two in our text. But he Jesus answered them after they were pointing out the temple to him. You see all these, do you not? Truly. I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. Want to know something? That's exactly what happened in the year 70 a D were were around the year 30 to 33 A.D. in less than 40 years, Jesus prediction is prophecy comes true down to the very letter.
Less than 40 years after Jesus spoke these words, history tells us that General Titus and I always butcher his name. Vespasian would storm Jerusalem with the soldiers of the Roman Empire with instructions to completely wipe out the city and its occupants. And although Titus commanded his soldiers not to desecrate or harm the temple, one of them threw a flaming torch into it.
The ensuing fire became so hot that the gold inside began to melt and run down the walls between the stones. To the Romans, it appeared as though the rumors that gold was used as mortar between the temple stones, it appeared to be true. And so the fire had died down. The soldiers began to pull apart the stones of the temple in order to try to get to the gold mortar. And they didn't quit until they had managed to pull down every single stone.
Exactly as Jesus had prophesied. Not one stone remained upon another. That's why if you go to Jerusalem today, all you will see is the Wailing Wall, which is a part of the Temple Foundation. It's a massive wall, but small in comparison to what the temple had been. And you can also see piles of those stones that were pulled down by the Romans. They're still there to this day. You can go hop on a plane, go there and see them for yourself.
But this is this is the first reason I want to highlight for you why worship couldn't revolve around this physical temple anymore.
The physical temple doesn't exist. It doesn't exist, but there's more than one reason why there is a transition happening where worship had been to where it was going to be, another reason we know a transition was coming was because. Of what Jesus had been saying earlier about worship in his public ministry is on your outline. I'm going to take you to mid mid conversation. Gospel of John Chapter for Jesus is having a dialogue with the Samaritan woman at the well.
And we're going to pick up this text mid conversation to hear what Jesus has to say about worship. Sir, the woman said, speaking to Jesus, I can see that you are a prophet, so this is John, Chapter four, verses nineteen twenty six. I can see that you were a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain. But you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Woman Jesus replied, Believe me, a time is coming when you when you will worship the father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You Samaritans worship what you do not know, we worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews, Mark this year at a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the father seeks. God, his spirit and his worshippers must worship in the spirit. And in truth, the woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.
Then Jesus declared I, the one speaking to you. I am here. Incredible, here we hear Jesus saying that a time was coming and had come where people would not worship God in Jerusalem anymore as the sole center of worship. Jesus had been talking about this transition for a while. Before we get to our scene in Matthew. Twenty four. He's been talking about it and preparing people is not going to be around, so we know no one.
It's not going to be around the temple because the temple is destroyed to Jesus has been talking about a transition coming. And there's a third reason we know that there is a transition away from worshiping at and centered around the physical temple in Jerusalem, because we're told in the New Testament that Christians are the temple. Now, we are a new living temple and we are filled with the very presence of God. We are where worship of God takes place. In us, this is this is incredible.
There is a transition that's taken place where now each Christian is a temple of God, individually, the spirit of God in us.
The apostle Paul says as much in his letter to the Corinthian church, First Corinthians, Chapter six 19. Paul says this or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? So the moment that you placed your faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, you place your faith in his sinless life, his sacrificial death on the cross for your sins.
And his resurrection is mighty resurrection from the dead, the moment that you repent of your sins and believe in him for the first time, the Bible says that you are born again spiritually on the inside your made new and God came to live inside of you in that moment. Wow.
Wow, so, Christian, you are an individually a temple of the living God, but the church, the collective body of Christ, all the individual Christians that make up the church, we collectively are also the temple of God.
The Bible describes the believers as being joined together like one stone is built upon another. And we are like living stones, the Bible says, built together and joined together to be a place where the spirit of God dwells, not just in us as individual temples, but amongst us as his people. The apostle Peter says this in his in his first letter. First Peter Chapter two verses four to five reads like this. Speaking of Christians, as you come to him, the Livingstone Jesus, rejected by humans, but chosen by God and precious to him, you also like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Christians are individual temples of the Holy Spirit, but collectively we are, as God's people, his temple that he dwells, dwells in and amongst. Do you know what this reality means for us as Christians today? Church buildings are an incredible, incredible luxury to have for people to gather together in and worship God in and to do ministry, and they are a great blessing. But. Church buildings are not necessary they're not necessary to have in order to properly worship God, so we don't need a manmade temple of any kind any more.
All we need for true worship of God is his people who are filled with his spirit, who are loving him according to his word. Which means knowing it, believe in it and doing it, and that is what we need for true worship of the true God today. So give us a tent, give us a football stadium, give us a school building or just a single classroom. Give us an open field in a park. Give us a living room, give us some office space, give us an old barn.
Give us whatever.
As long as we have God in us, which we do, as long as we have each other, which we do, and as long as we have his word, which we do, we can worship God in spirit and in truth, no matter where we are. Question for you. Church, how often do you reflect on this reality as it pertains to yourself, that you are a temple of God and that God lives in you? If you thought about this incredible reality more often, do you think that would change the way that you live your life?
If you realize that everywhere you went, everything you did, you have the presence of the living God dwelling inside of you. I wonder if we knew that and we thought about it more and more. I wonder if we would say the same things that we say. I wonder if we would watch the same things that we watch. I wonder if we would do the same things that we do or would our lives be different if we truly believed we were bringing God with us wherever we went?
This is the second transition I wanted to highlight in this message coming out of Verse is one and two in Matthew. Twenty four, this transition of moving away from a physical location, the temple where worship of God was located, transitioning into this more fluid reality, where Jesus is in his new temple that he made by his hands as he's in us now, as the church brings us to the third transition. I want to highlight all of these two verse is.
It's going to be the third fill in on your outline. And it's this Jesus transitions from talking about things that are the talking about things that are going to be. One more time, Jesus transitions from talking about things that are to talking about things that are going to be. Here's what Jesus has been mainly talking about up until this point in his ministry. In a nutshell, in a snapshot, Jesus has been going around all of Israel from town to town, publicly preaching and proclaiming a simple message repent for the kingdom of heaven and repent and enter the kingdom.
Return from your sin, turn to God, get right with God. And in this message, the Messiah is come. The Messiah is here.
I am the Messiah that that's the message. But the people had rejected rejected him. But that was what he was saying in the present time. The Kingdom of God, the kingdom of God here. And now it's at hand. Get right with God. But then in Matthew, Chapter 24 in Verse is, one to two in our verse is, Jesus transitions to talking about what is to come.
Transitions from talking about what is to talking about things that are going to be in these two verse is Jesus starts talking about the event that's going to take place in the near future, the destruction of the temple in 70 ad this event that we've already looked at here together tonight, but then starting in Verse is three and going all the way to the end of Chapter twenty five, Jesus begins to describe even further events in the future, events that take place after the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. and before the end of this world as we know it and before the consummation of the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth.
Next week, Jeff's going to pick things up for us in Verse is three, and we're going to begin to look more closely over the next few weeks at what Jesus has to say about the end of the world in chapter twenty four and twenty five. And the signs that we can look for that will take place before that happens.
And thinking about this particular thought and in this moment, it dawned on me and dawns on me now that there are some people who don't think the Bible is relevant today, who don't think the Bible has any weight or bearing on our lives today.
Our world is in utter chaos, if you haven't noticed lately, is falling apart at the seams and most people have no idea what's going on. But Christian, you don't have to be afraid about what's going on in our world today. You do not have to be kept in the dark about it. You don't have to be caught off guard about what is happening and what is going to happen.
Jesus told us plainly two thousand years ago what will happen in this world before he comes back. He's like a teacher who's given the class the answer key way before the final exam is given the answer key to the final exam. Here you go. First day of school. There is your answer key to to the test, to the finals at the end. Imagine the teacher giving you all the answers to the finals on the first day of your school year.
See, we know what's on the test. We know what's going to happen before any of it takes place.
Jesus has told people what to look for before he comes back and then he's coming back.
And I hope that everybody watching this message tonight knows that Jesus came once already two thousand years ago, the lamb of God. And he didn't come the first time to judge the world. But he came to what it came to save the world. He came and he was slaughtered as as the sacrifice to pay for the sins of all of humanity.
He came once the first time, and we did whatever we wanted to him. He died on the cross. He rose from the dead on the third day. And then you send it back to heaven from where he came and from where he is going to come again. And then. One day soon, Jesus is coming back again. He's coming a second time and the second time around is going to look nothing like his first time around. This second time around, there is going to be zero crucifying the king.
He came as a sacrificial lamb the first time, but the second time around, Jesus is coming as the conquering lion of Judah, the righteous judge. He's coming to save his people and he's coming to deal with unrepentant sinners and all forms of evil once and for all. And there is nothing. There is nothing. There is nothing that anybody can do to stop that from happening. All those who love Jesus, you know it, we can't wait for that day for him to come.
We can't wait for him to bring his kingdom into inaugurated. We can't wait to enter into sinless perfect joy and bliss and ecstasy, walking with intimately the presence of our king, walking with them and seeing. And we can't wait for Jesus to come back. But those who reject him have no idea what terror awaits them when he comes back. Now, there's something I want you guys to tuck away in the back of your minds as we look ahead in the weeks to come at the things that Jesus says are going to happen in our world.
I want you to talk this way.
I want you to to take note of the literal fulfillment of Jesus words in Verse is one and two in our text. You see, this is so important, guys. Jesus said that the temple in Jerusalem is going to be destroyed and that would have been impossible for anyone to believe back in Jesus day.
But then the funny thing. Well, not so funny thing. The reality is that it happened. Just like Jesus said it would. The temple was literally destroyed less than 40 years after Jesus said the words that he said for us in verse two, there is no spiritualised in what Jesus said. Now, Jesus is important because Jesus says a lot of things in chapters twenty four and twenty five, a lot of intense things, a lot of crazy things to our our untrained ears.
Now, these things that Jesus says, they are also going to be literally fulfilled. Every single one of them, just like you said, the temple is going to be destroyed. And then it was all the things that he's going to say to us in chapters. Twenty four and twenty five of Matthew are going to be fulfilled.
And we would do very well to learn what Jesus says is going to happen, we would do very well to learn for our own sake so that we as Christians can be rooted in our faith and not shaken by all the calamities in our world that are only going to increase in frequency and fervor before Jesus comes back.
For us, knowing what's going to happen in the end gives us an anchor for our souls during difficult times, none of us has to be caught off guard. When terrible things happen in our world, we can be prepared for them. We have a living hope. Jesus promises many terrifying things in the last days, but he is also the one who promises to be with his disciples even to the end of the age. The one who tells us what's going to happen in the future is the one who is in us preserving us and carrying us through whatever dark times we may face.
So we need this kind of study for our own sake, for our own faith, for our own foundation. But we also need to know this study for other people's sake.
See, Christian, we have answers to give a lost and a searching world. There are so many people alive today who are so shaken by what's going on in our world and people have no clue what's happening or what's coming. But we have a clue, though.
We have the answer test and we can tell people about the things Jesus has done, the things that Jesus is doing and the things he is going to do. And we can share these things with complete confidence. So this study in Matthew twenty four.
Twenty five is for us, but it is for people who wouldn't come to church, who have no idea, who don't know the Lord. We need to be able to equip them and share this with them. I mean, let we close our time together here transitions, they are a part of life. They are a major part of our life and they're a major part of Matthew's gospel. We've looked at three of them here and I pray and I pray and trust God has blessed you.
But the transitions we've looked at in this message coming out of the first couple of Matthew's sorry, the first couple of verses in Matthew, chapter twenty four. So would you. Now, just wherever you're at this Balya ahead and close your eyes and pray with me as we wrap up this time together.
Father, I just I have a couple of specific prayers and specific transitions. I just feel compelled to pray and we and I pray this with my brothers and sisters who are watching and participating here tonight. Lord, we pray for everyone who doesn't know you, everyone who doesn't know you, our friends, our families, our co-workers, our neighbors, strangers, everyone, anyone who doesn't know you transition them. We pray, Lord, transition them out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light.
Transition them, Lord, from being spiritually dead to becoming spiritually alive in you. Transition them Lord, from believing and living a lie to the loving and believing and obeying the truth. Transition them from being spiritually dead and spiritually broken, to being spiritually alive and spiritually made whole. Make that transition work as the gospel goes forth, a lost and dying world. Let Your Grace lead sinners to repentance, Lord, and transition them to everlasting life. Transition them out of a relationship with you into a relationship with you.
Do that we pray. And if anyone watch and we have any friends watching tonight, Lord, who need to repent of their sins, confess their sin, turn and trust and believe in your life, death and resurrection, grant them repentance that leads to everlasting life. Now, even now, we pray together.
Lord, do that. So do that for for everyone who doesn't know you and then for us who do know you. Lord, we pray for a transition in our own life. You promised Lord to to move us in our sanctification, in our maturity and our growing up in you to be moved from one degree of glory to the next, to transition from one degree of glory to the next. And we pray, Lord, together, that the work that you've begun in us, you'd see it through to completion, that you continue to transition us into the deeper levels of maturity and intimacy with you and holiness and obedience transition as more and more and more to look like and to be conformed to the image of you.
Jesus do that, Lord, for our joy, for Your glory, and for our effectiveness in this world and in this time that we have before you come back, do these things. We pray, Lord, and we pray these things in your sweet and in your powerful and your majestic name. Jesus. Amen. Amen.