INVINCIBLE CHURCH 10-15-23

Invincible Church Sermon Notes
10/15/2023
Be Ready pt 1
Luke 21:5-38
One of the foundational themes in the life – teaching – instructions – ministry and prophecies of Jesus is for His follower to be ready! The primary reason He warns us to be ready is that only God knows the exact date and time that Jesus is coming back!
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at all the reasons Jesus tells us to be ready… and why we should want to be working hard to be ready! It all centers on us loving Jesus enough to be a faithful/obedient follower to Him as our Lord, Savior and King!
Luke 21:5-38 NIV - 5 Some of His Disciples were Remarking about how The Temple was Adorned with Beautiful Stones … And with Gifts Dedicated to God! … But Jesus said … 6 “As for What you See Here … The Time will Come when Not One Stone will be Left on Another … Every One of them will be Thrown Down!” 7 “Teacher” they Asked … “When will these Things Happen? … And What will be The Sign that They are about to Take Place?” … 8 He Replied … “Watch Out that you are Not Deceived! … For Many will Come In My Name … Claiming … “I Am He” … And … “The Time is Near!” … Do Not Follow them! ... 9 When you Hear of Wars and Uprisings … Do Not be Frightened! ... These Things Must Happen First … But The End will Not Come Right Away!” … 10 Then He said to them … “Nation will Rise against Nation … And Kingdom against Kingdom! ... 11 There will be Great Earthquakes … “Famines and Pestilences” in Various Places … And Fearful Events … And Great Signs from Heaven! … 12 “But Before All This … They will Seize you … And Persecute you! ... They will Hand you Over to Synagogues … And Put you in Prison … And you will be Brought Before “Kings and Governors” … And All On Account of My Name! ... 13 And so you will Bear Testimony to Me! ... 14 But Make Up your Mind Not to Worry Beforehand How you will Defend yourselves! ... 15 For I will Give you “Words and Wisdom” that None of your Adversaries will Be Able to “Resist or Contradict”! … 16 You will Be Betrayed … Even by Parents … “Brothers and Sisters” … “Relatives and Friends” … And they will Put Some of you to Death! … 17 Everyone will Hate you Because of Me! … 18 But Not a Hair of your Head Will Perish! 19 Stand Firm …And you will Win Life! ... 20 “When you See Jerusalem being Surrounded by Armies … You will Know that Its Desolation is Near! ... 21 Then Let Those who Are In Judea Flee to The Mountains … Let Those In The City Get Out! … And Let Those In The Country Not Enter The City! ... 22 For This is The Time of Punishment in Fulfillment of All that has Been Written! ... 23 How Dreadful It will Be In Those Days for Pregnant Women … And Nursing Mothers! … There will Be Great Distress in The Land … And Wrath against this People! ... 24 They will Fall by The Sword … And will Be Taken as Prisoners to All The Nations! … Jerusalem will Be Trampled On by The Gentiles until The Times of The Gentiles are Fulfilled! ... 25 “There will Be Signs in The Sun … Moon … And Stars! ... On The Earth … Nations will Be In “Anguish and Perplexity” at The “Roaring and Tossing” of The Sea! … 26 People will Faint from Terror … Apprehensive of What is “Coming On” The World … For The Heavenly Bodies will Be Shaken! … 27 At That Time … They will See The Son of Man Coming In a Cloud with “Power and Great Glory”! … 28 When These Things Begin to Take Place … Stand Up … And “Lift Up” your Heads … Because your Redemption is Drawing Near!” … 29 He Told Them this Parable … “Look at The Fig Tree and All The Trees! ... 30 When they Sprout Leaves … You Can See for yourselves … And Know that Summer is Near! ... 31 Even So … When you See These Things Happening … You Know that The Kingdom of God is Near! ... 32 “Truly I Tell you … This Generation will Certainly Not Pass Away until All These Things have Happened! ... 33 Heaven and Earth will Pass Away … But My Words will Never Pass Away! ... 34 “Be Careful … Or your Hearts will Be Weighed Down with Carousing … Drunkenness … And The Anxieties of Life … And that Day will Close On you Suddenly like a Trap! ... 35 For It will Come On All Those who Live On The Face of The Whole Earth! ... 36 Be Always On The Watch [Be Ready] … And Pray that you May Be Able to Escape All that Is about To Happen … And That you May Be Able to Stand Before The Son of Man!” … 37 Each Day Jesus was Teaching at The Temple … And each Evening He Went Out to Spend The Night On The Hill Called The Mount of Olives … 38 And All The people Came Early in The Morning to Hear Him at The Temple!
All of this sounds like the ole’ good news/bad news thing where somebody asks, “What do you want first… the good news or the bad news? Most people want the bad news first, hoping that the good news will take the sting out of the bad news!
It’s the same teaching method that Jesus used and He wants us to know the good news that never changes which is, God is always good, even in the worst of times, but for about 6 months, Jesus had been telling the disciples to be ready…
… because He was going to be betrayed – arrested – falsely accused – beaten – humiliated – tortured – and crucified! He wanted them to start getting spiritually prepared, so they’d be ready to take on whatever needed to be done to advance the Kingdom!
But the disciples thought that once Jesus was resurrected, He’d immediately establish His millennial Kingdom on earth, and they’d all get back to properly serving, worshipping and praising God the way true followers of Jesus are called to!
They kind of skimmed over all the bad news that had been prophesied and was 100% going to happen… and only focused on the good news that was 100% going to happen too, but not until God’s perfect plan and timing called for it to happen!
The disciples formulated in their minds their preference of what they wanted to happen! What they thought would immediately happen was Jesus would supernaturally overthrow Rome, establish His Kingdom, the millennium would start and everything would be good!
But God had His perfect timing for everything! A lot of people are going through difficult times with all of the hardships, health problems, corruption, depravity, wickedness and evil going on in the world right now… and some of it is beyond horrific!
That’s why we have to remember that God’s with us in the midst of all of it… and we have to trust Him when He says that He is working all things for the good of those who love Him! He’s faithful to His Word and promises, so if we love Him, we’ll be patient and trust Him!
John 14:1-3 NIV - “Do Not Let your Hearts Be Troubled! ... You Believe In God … Believe Also In Me! ... 2 My Father’s House has many Rooms … If That were Not So … Would I have Told you That I Am Going There to Prepare a Place for you? … 3 And if I Go and Prepare a Place for you … I will Come Back … And Take you to Be with Me … That you Also May Be Where I Am!
Jesus gives us the bad news first… because of sin, the earth is fallen and depraved! So, the truth is, there are going to be hard times in this world! Then, He gives us the good news that once we believe in Him and submit to Him as Lord and Savior, we belong to Him!
Because we belong to Him, we get to live with Him in heaven forever, where there is never ever – never ever – any bad news ever again! And the Bible teaches us that God wants His church to know that Jesus could come back at any moment… so be ready!
Today we’re going to focus on (vs 5-9) our primary passage. In that, we read in Luke 21 where Jesus preached His final public sermon from the Mount of Olives and the foundation of the message was “Be Ready” for His second coming! It’s called “The Olivet Discourse”.
It’s covered in 3 of the 4 Gospels… and they don’t contradict each other… they compliment one another! It gives us a more complete perspective of what Jesus was actually teaching. It’s like the encyclopedias that had the transparent overlays. When all the pages are turned, the picture is complete! “The Olivet Discourse” is the same way…
In it are … 4 Ways Jesus Gives Us to Be Ready…
1) Discern “The Prophetic Times” we’re Living In – Every follower of Jesus is supposed to be diligently praying, working and watching for the signs of the times, so we can discern exactly what God would have us do in response to what we see going on around us!
God never changes and history never changes, but the world and the people in it are changing all the time! The takeaway from (vs 5-6) is if we’re going to be ready for prophetic times, we need to know and understand Biblical history.
Satan is trying to distract us from focusing on spiritual matters! He wants us to put more of our attention on things of the world and less of our time and attention on the things of God! He wants us to get lax in our Bible reading and devotion time!
God gave us the Bible to feed us spiritually, which keeps us alive and growing in Him! When we go too long without reading the Bible, our spiritual life starts to atrophy! Our faith and our ability to serve God gets really weak! Then, we’re not training or being fed!
It’s dangerous because we’re literally starving ourselves spiritually! It’s why Jesus warns us to always be increasing our reading, learning, meditating on and training in God’s Word! We need to be as spiritually strong as we can be to fight the evil and wickedness that keeps getting worse everywhere in the world, every day!
It’s the Bible in our heart that allows us to discern how to avoid or attack the evil things going on in the world around us… and also discern how we love, pray and are thankful… how we go, make and teach… how we ask, seek and knock!
If we don’t keep getting spiritually stronger, we won’t be a very effective ambassador, warrior, servant or saint for Jesus! We’ll be apathetic to the times we’re living in and we need to know and understand the fact that time is running out!
That’s also why it’s super important for us to know and understand Biblical truth and principles! Time and light aren’t scientific constants like we’re taught in school! As a matter of fact, the Bible teaches that time and light are running out for this fallen world!
Time and light are physical properties of this physical universe, so time and light are kind of supernaturally condensing or slowing down and will eventually run out! I’m convinced it’s the primary reason why it seems like we have less time to get things done!
It’s because God’s in control of everything including time, light and life, but God doesn’t always exercise His control over all things, so we need to keep a Biblical perspective on life instead of solely relying on a scientific perspective!
Putting all this together, the world is faced with a lot of bad news! The economy is bad… evil is running rampant… more people are consumed with depravity and perversion... death and destruction are everywhere…
So, it’s only the true follower of Jesus who can be thankful to God for putting us here for such a time as this! The rest of the world and false religions are consumed and worried about their prideful preferences, selfish pleasures, status in society and financial well-being.
While true believers who are true followers of Jesus are only interested in pursuing Jesus Christ and Him crucified, working hard to show Him we love Him by doing what He’s told us to do, even when we’re faced with all the horrific circumstances going on today!
Early on in their walk with Jesus, the disciples still had some of this same prideful perspective on the things of God. They thought the most important things about God were the physical things that would be built or seen like ceremonies, rituals and the temple!
Mark 13:1 NIV - As Jesus was Leaving The Temple … One of His Disciples said to Him … “Look Teacher! … What Massive Stones! … What Magnificent Buildings!”
They wouldn’t understand why Jesus wasn’t enamored with the temple! Solomon built it and it was built to God’s specifications more so to see if the Israelites would follow His specific instruction to just have an opulent temple! Now, it was a sight to behold!
It had a lot of polished white marble and was trimmed in gold! The Romans even declared it to be one of the “7 Wonders” of the Roman empire, even though they didn’t build it! It was so bright that when the sun would rise, the reflection off the temple made it seem like the sun was rising in the East and West!
But Jesus knew that after His birth, life, ministry, death, burial and resurrection, God isn’t interested in the buildings we build to worship Him. God is interested in us working to make our body and life the temple of our love, praise, worship and obedience to Him!
There’s a church that’s a short driving distance from here that built a new building about 7-8 years ago and it includes a 7-million-dollar fountain! Now, if they discerned that God would have them build a 7-million-dollar foundation, then go for it… but I don’t know!
Jesus prophesied “The Fall” of the temple is Jerusalem to them because He wanted them to refocus their temporary hope from the earthly things that they could see, but which could also be destroyed, to the guaranteed hope of the unseen spiritual things of God that are eternal!
Jesus is telling them the future so He can teach them that we can read prophecy like a book! The question is, will anybody read it? It’s important that we continually read God’s Word because Bible prophecy is God announcing history in advance!
The reason prophetic history is so important is twofold. We study it to learn from the past so we strengthen our faith and trust in Jesus and God announces prophetic history to us, so we’ll be diligent in praying that we’ll do whatever it takes to be ready!
God gives us His Word to prepare us, not to terrify us! And we can trust God’s Word 100%. So, when Jesus tells us how to be ready, He knows we have the tools to do it!
There’s a whole lot of terrible things going on in the world now, but it shouldn’t catch us off guard! So, we don’t need to panic, we need to praise God because He trusted us enough to put us here now for just such a time as this!
Pastor Jack Hibbs said it like this… It’s only through the eyes of God that man can begin to see life clearly. It’s even more true when it comes to looking into the future through Biblical prophecy! God tells us in the Old Testament in…
Isaiah 46:9-10 NIV - 9 Remember The Former Things … Those of Long Ago … I Am God … And There is No Other … I Am God … And There is None Like Me! ... 10 I Make Known The End from The Beginning … From Ancient Times What is Still to Come! ... I say … ‘My Purpose will Stand … and I Will Do All That I Please!
God knows we’ll be better equipped to face the future if we’ve taken the time to learn from the past and been properly trained to master it! Then, we’ll be better able to properly discern our actions for the present!
Isaiah 48:3-5 NIV - 3 I Foretold The Former Things Long Ago … My Mouth Announced Them … And I Made them Known … Then Suddenly I Acted … And they Came to Pass! ... 4 For I Knew how Stubborn you were … Your Neck Muscles were Iron … Your Forehead was Bronze! ... 5 Therefore I Told you these Things Long Ago … Before they Happened I Announced them to you So That you Could Not Say … “my Images Brought them about … my Wooden Image … And Metal god Ordained them!”
All past, present and future prophecy from God has always been and always will be 100% accurate and in full alignment with the Bible! That truth alone ought to be more than enough reassurance for us to fully trust in Jesus for all the actions He calls us to take!
God expects us to love Him enough to know the prophetic times we’re in, which means it’s time for us to know Biblical history because true faith in Jesus is founded on and backed by fact… and we need to work hard to be ready for His return!
We’ll pick up here next week and I’m going to start tying current events into the prophecies of God.
If you’re listening online and you haven’t made the decision to follow Jesus, then I’m inviting you to pray to Jesus right now and receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior! He knows what’s best for us and it’s eternity with God in Heaven, but the only way to get there is through a salvation relationship with Jesus, so don’t wait. Receive Him now!
Let’s pray.