The Presence of Christ
Download MP3Sermon text tonight is Luke 21 verses, 29 through 38. After I read this, if you would, put a finger in Ephesians 5, Joel will also be referring to that tonight. Luke 29 21/29. And he told them a parable. Look at the fig tree and all the trees.
Speaker 1:As soon as they come out and leave, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of god is near. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life and the day come upon you suddenly like a trap For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth.
Speaker 1:But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the son of man. This is the word of the lord.
Joel Brooks:If you would, pray with me. Lord, You said the words that You speak to us are spirit and life, and so I pray that we would receive spirit and life in this place. Where my words are death, Your words are life. People don't need to hear from me, we need to hear from You, Lord. And so I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Joel Brooks:But Lord, may Your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Jesus will be crucified in 2 days. Jesus knows this.
Joel Brooks:He's been preparing for this. Everything's going according to plan. We we've seen the last few weeks that he is forcing people to make up their mind about him, that people either need to crown him or they need to crucify him, but they are not gonna stand in on the fence concerning him. And by clearing out the temple courts, by attacking the religious leaders who ran the temple courts, Jesus has assured his death. And now there's only 2 remaining days, and so Jesus's words have a extra intensity to them.
Joel Brooks:And what we're going to look at tonight is his last words to the crowds at large. After this, he's gonna go off. He's gonna have his Passover meal. It's just gonna be the 12. This is the last public sermon he preaches.
Joel Brooks:The context of this is earlier. The disciples had commented on the grandeur of the temple, and really, it's hard for us to imagine a sight like that. It was it was one of the wonders of the world. It was massive. It was 400 yards by 500 yards of pretty much solid polished stone.
Joel Brooks:The historian Josephus, he describes it, by saying it was hard to look at. It looked like it was, it was on fire because when the sun would hit it, it was so bright as it reflected off all the painted gold, all the jewels and the polished stone. You couldn't really look at it in daylight. And the stones themselves, some of the stones were 70 feet long. They were massive, And these are the stones that the disciples looked at and said, look at the stones, and Jesus says, I tell you not a stone will be left on the other.
Joel Brooks:It's all coming down. And then he says, I tell you what, you want you want to build your life on something that will remain? Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words, you could count on that. My words will be here forever. And so this this passage here is how we can live our life on his words and how we cannot perish.
Joel Brooks:Verse 36 tells us that that's the the focus of this. Look at verse 36. It says, but stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of man. So the reason for this last sermon is that we all need to strive for the ability to stand someday and not perish someday before the Son of Man. That's the focus, the theme of Jesus' last message here.
Joel Brooks:Let's look at how we do this. We're gonna read verse 34 to 36 again. I want this pounded in your heads. But watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth.
Joel Brooks:But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the son of man. And now all of these same themes that we just read are picked up by Paul in Ephesians 5. And I told you to turn your finger there, earlier to go ahead and flip over to Ephesians 5. We're going to be going back and forth, back and forth between these two texts. Ephesians 5 verse 14.
Joel Brooks:Awake, oh sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit. And so you have all the same themes here.
Joel Brooks:There's this same sense of urgency. And both Jesus and Paul, they they first, they say, we need to be awake. Jesus, verse 36, he says, but stay awake. Paul in verse 14, he says, awake, oh sleeper. Both say that we have to watch ourselves.
Joel Brooks:Jesus in verse 34 says, but watch yourselves. Paul in verse 15 says, look carefully then how you walk. Same thing. Watch yourself. And and notice that we're not to look for an outside danger.
Joel Brooks:He says watch yourself. The the danger is not gonna come from from the outside. The danger is gonna come from within. You need to be careful how you're walking. Finally, Jesus and Paul, they both mentioned that we are not to be drunk.
Joel Brooks:Jesus in verse 34 says, but watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness. Paul in verse 18 says, do not get drunk with wine. There there are more similarities in those texts, especially if you broaden it out, but we're gonna look at at at those right there. That's enough to show you that they're they're talking about the same thing here. Both Jesus and Paul say that we need to be awake.
Joel Brooks:Now, you only have to tell somebody to stay awake if there's a danger of falling asleep. If if, you know, like right now, wake up. Wake up. You know, I hate when I'm I'm preaching and the sunlight's coming down behind me, and I see some of y'all getting a little, sleepy. I'm not gonna allow you to fall asleep.
Joel Brooks:You only have to say, stay awake when people are on the verge of falling asleep. A number of things happen when you fall asleep. The, the primary thing that happens is, you you start to dream, and you begin to think that your dream world is the real world. For instance, I still have dreams about basketball. 2 sports analogies in a week, or 2 weeks.
Joel Brooks:Won't ever happen. I I still dream about basketball. As a matter of fact, the last dream that I had about basketball wasn't too long ago, and, you know, you can you're always just incredible. Nobody can stop you. I could jump out of the gym, and it was just one of those amazing dreams.
Joel Brooks:I'm dunking on everybody. And I wake up, sort of, because I need to go to the bathroom. And I don't know if you've ever done this, when you're having a great dream, but you need to go to the bathroom, you're just gonna no, I'm going back to sleep. I'm going back to sleep. Finally, I know I needed to go.
Joel Brooks:And so I got up without opening my eyes. And I'm like, I don't need I I need to stay in this dream. I'm not leaving this dream. It's a good dream. And so as softly as I could move, no lights coming on, I didn't want to raise my pulse, I was trying to stay asleep.
Joel Brooks:And I even remember thinking in this weird state, my team needs me to stay asleep. They need me. It was it was a dream world. And most of us, we live life in this kind of quasi dream state. I mean, for most of us, when we look at reality, it's just not as good as the dream world, and we want to stay in there.
Joel Brooks:Jesus has just been talking about persecution. He says, hey, some some of your own family's gonna betray you. There's gonna be wars. There's gonna be pestilence. These beautiful buildings are gonna be gone, and you're like, I wanna stay in the dream world.
Joel Brooks:I don't wanna listen to that. The world I wanna, I wanna be a part of is where there's beauty, it's where all my friends love me. It's where I can do whatever I want with my life. And you want to drown out the voice of Jesus there. The problem is it's not real.
Joel Brooks:This is where we most live. And so when thoughts come to us, like, someday, I'm gonna die, and I'm gonna have to give account of my life to the Lord, we're like, uh-uh, stay asleep. I don't wanna think about such a sober reality. Jesus and Paul say, wake up. It's not living.
Joel Brooks:That's a that's a fantasy world you're in. And despite what you think, it's not even a good fantasy world, because when you meet the living Jesus, the living glorious Jesus, everything else seems to lack substance. A matter of fact, that's what the the word glory in Hebrew simply means heavy or solid. And when we say Jesus is glorious, we mean he's real. He's real.
Joel Brooks:Everything else is just kinda transient and fading, but Jesus is glorious. He's heavy. He's real. After we wake up, we're supposed to watch ourselves and we're supposed to not be drunk with wine also. Jesus says that we need to watch ourselves, lest we be weighed down by dissipation.
Joel Brooks:Dissipation, some commentators translate that as, like, the hangover, and drunkenness, and and the cares of this life here. Paul says in verse 15, he says, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the lord is, and do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit. Verse 16 says that we are to make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Some of you might have different translations there.
Joel Brooks:Literally, it's redeem the time. It's buy back the time because days are evil. Says, if you do not buy back time, you're going to be a fool. You're going to be un unwise. If you do not buy back the time, then time's just going to pass you by, and you're going to kind of go into some some spiritual wasteland.
Joel Brooks:If you don't buy back the time, you need to realize things naturally degenerate. You're gonna waste your time at best. You're gonna turn evil at worst. The the key is you gotta buy back time. Now, I I've got 3 kids.
Joel Brooks:Time is very valuable. I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that I wish I had more time, that I could use a little more time. Maybe some of you feel like, if I just had 30 more minutes in the day, just 30 more minutes, gosh, and you're in of course, you make the mistake of thinking, I would spend those 30 minutes in Bible study and prayer, you know, then I would really do something meaningful with my life, just 30 more minutes. I wouldn't, you know, watch more TV, or do the laundry, or something. It would be devoted to spiritual things, but we deceive ourselves when we think the key to our problems is just more time.
Joel Brooks:God created time. He gave you the perfect amount of time. When you look at Jesus, Jesus was never rushed. Jesus was never hurried. Jesus had all the time in the world to build relationships, for prayer, for study, and He did more than you will ever think about or dream about.
Joel Brooks:Having more time isn't the issue, it's redeeming the time that God's given you. It's buying it back. And and and the key to doing this, Paul says, is we're not to be drunk with wine, but we are to be filled with the spirit. That's how we buy back this time, is to be filled with the spirit. Now I have heard some horrible sermons on this.
Joel Brooks:I've heard some horrible songs. The college ministry that was involved with at the University of Georgia sang a song called I'm Thirsty. And, the chorus went like this. Fill me up, Lord. I just want to feel it.
Joel Brooks:Make me drunk, Lord, with your holy spirit. I'm thirsty, Lord. I'm thirsty. And that chorus went on ad nauseam forever. I mean, just kept going.
Joel Brooks:And he laugh at that, that people used to sing songs like that. I've been to conferences in which people have gotten up and testified that they have gotten DUIs on the way home from church because they have been drunk with the spirit. And so they're testifying, got a DUI, got pulled over because I was drunk with the spirit. That is not at all what this is talking about. Paul is pulling these things together to contrast drunkenness.
Joel Brooks:It's not saying being filled with the spirit is like being drunk. It's the opposite. When you're filled with the spirit, you're never more alert. You're never more alive. You're never more in self control.
Joel Brooks:One of the fruits of the spirit is self control, not losing it. It's interesting here that Paul does bring in the sin of drunkenness and not others. He he doesn't say, do not kill people, but be filled with the spirit. Do not steal, but be filled with the spirit. He does bring out drunkenness for a certain reason.
Joel Brooks:He says, do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. And he does this for a few reasons here. We'll we'll look at a couple. One is because I think, the reason people go to alcohol at times, a lot of people go to alcohol when the cares or the concerns of this life, which Jesus had just talked about, when those cares and the concerns for this life overwhelm them, you go to drink. You have a horrible day at work, You stop by a bar at home, and the bartender says, have a good day.
Joel Brooks:He said, it was an awful day. Can I have a double? Can I have a double? That's how we cope. And so that's a way of, you know, putting yourself back in that dream like state where you don't have to cope with reality.
Joel Brooks:It's a depressant. It it it suppresses your view of reality. Paul says, instead of going to that, you should go to Jesus. Now now, for some of us, it's not alcohol. For some of us, you you know, it's a really hard day.
Joel Brooks:You go shopping. You you know that you you you go Internet shopping, or you go to the summit, or you have a really bad day, you go to the refrigerator. You know, all of us, we have our little outlet that we go to, to escape the cares of this life. Jesus says, Go to me. Redeem the time.
Joel Brooks:Both being drunk and being filled with the Spirit have controlling effects. Alcohol weakens your senses, gives you fake courage. Being filled with the Holy Spirit sharpens your senses. It makes you alive, gives you clarity. It it, I'd say it makes you human.
Joel Brooks:And I don't know if you've ever experienced that. When the Holy Spirit is, He is in you and He gives you such clarity and singular purpose. That's normal for us. That's what we should be striving for. And Paul says that when we're that we are to be filled with the spirit, and and the word there fulfilled is, without boring you, it's a present active imperative, which means you don't ever stop being filled.
Joel Brooks:He says, always be filled. Keep being filled. Never stop being filled with the spirit. It's not a one time action, like, done. I can rest.
Joel Brooks:Had the chill bumps one time. Check it off. It's it's we keep seeking the spirit. This raises a question. How can we be filled with the spirit so we can redeem time, so we can make the most of every opportunity, so we could be awake, so we could stand in front of the Son of God and not perish.
Joel Brooks:How can we do this? I'm just gonna give you 3 things. First, and this is pretty simple, you need to be convinced that it's the Lord's will for your life. You need to be convinced it's the Lord's will for your life. That being filled with his spirit, being filled with his presence is not a optional add on.
Joel Brooks:Like if you go to a car dealership and you're like, well, it kind of, this is what I want. And, but there's some extra perks, some luxury items that you could add. That is not what Jesus or Paul is talking about here. This is part of the normal Christian life. This is what he wants for us, is to be continually filled with his presence.
Joel Brooks:2nd, fill yourselves with his word. Once again, look at Ephesians 5. I'm gonna read 18 through 20. Says, and do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the lord with all your heart, giving thanks always. Now listen to Colossians 3.
Joel Brooks:Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Does that sound familiar? They're almost identical passages. They're they're they both say, one says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, and you're going to sing songs, spiritual songs. You're gonna make melody and you're gonna give thanks.
Joel Brooks:The other says, be filled with the spirit and you're going to sing songs and hymns and you're gonna give thanks. For Paul, letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly and being filled with the spirit were synonymous. They're the same thing. Don't don't think that when you hear Paul say, be filled the spirit that he's saying, be more mystical, you know, go in your room, light incense, you know, seeing Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus a 1000 times, and and somehow have this religious experience. Don't think that.
Joel Brooks:I don't know so many Christians who try. It's that it's it's much more tangible than that. It's filling yourself with his word, taking long drinks of scripture, saying, Spirit, breathe that to life in me. Let the word of Christ dwell in me richly. And you see that in the life of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:We've seen it through Luke. Luke chapter 4, when Jesus goes off to the desert to be tempted, it says he was let he was full of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit led him out into the desert. And every temptation, scripture, scripture, scripture. Jesus is on a cross. You you you poke him.
Joel Brooks:He's gonna bleed scripture. So if you wanna live a spirit filled life, you have to immerse yourself in His word. Do not try to be filled with a power or a force. You're being filled with a person. There's all these different terms for this, you know.
Joel Brooks:We are to, keep in step with the Spirit. That's a very relational term. It's like walking side by side with somebody, keeping in step with the Spirit. If you want to really know someone, you listen to their words. You're not going to be filled with the Spirit by squeezing in a few minutes here, squeezing in a few minutes there of prayerfully reading God's word.
Joel Brooks:And I know schedules are hard, but you you need to try to find well, not try. You need to redeem the time, and you need to find an opportunity for you to take a long drink. Maybe it's once a week, where you could sit and you can just read a long section and drink it in, prayerfully, and ask God to ignite that in you. I'll I'll be as blunt as possible in this. You cannot be filled with the Spirit.
Joel Brooks:You cannot, unless you're filled with His word. No no matter what worship service you go to, how many chill bumps you get, no matter what you feel, you you will not be filled with the Spirit apart from His work. 3rd way to be filled with the spirit. Actually, this is gonna be a little different than just being filled with the spirit. This is going to is there a way to be to experience the spirit's power in your life?
Joel Brooks:We've been looking at His presence in your life. This is His presence and His power in your life. And to do this, you simply must commit to glorifying Jesus. Commit to glorifying Jesus, and I wish I had time to really unpack this. You see, the spirit of God, he lives to glorify Jesus.
Joel Brooks:John 16:14 says, Jesus says this of the spirit. He says, he will glorify me, for he takes what is mine and he declares it to you. That's that's the spirit of God's mission, to glorify Jesus. At JI Packer, he wrote a great book called Keeping in Step with the Spirit, and his main point is this, says the essence of the Holy Spirit's ministry is to mediate the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, the spirit comes to make Jesus real to people.
Joel Brooks:He comes to show Jesus who He is and His glory. That's that's the spirit of god's mission. And what this means, and I hope this connects, what this means is that if you seek, if you commit to glorify Jesus in your life, and you you walk in faith in a situation to give Him glory, the spirit of god is going to see an opportunity to mediate the presence of god and give him glory, and he's not going to miss that. He is looking for opportunities to glorify Jesus. And so when you take this, if you boldly proclaim Jesus and the truth of Jesus in your workplace, the spirit of God is gonna say, that's an opportunity for me to mediate the presence of Jesus, and he will come in power.
Joel Brooks:You don't sit in a room and say, come in power, come in power, come in power. I'm gonna wait to feel something, and then I'm gonna go share. You go and you commit yourself to the glory of God. And when you step out on faith, you give the Holy Spirit the opportunity to say, I cannot miss out on that. That is the chance to glorify Jesus.
Joel Brooks:That is what I long for us as a church to do. For us to be a church that's filled with the holy spirit, it means that we will take opportunities to glorify Jesus in Woodlawn, and we will take those steps. And as we step in those directions, the Holy Spirit will say, That's an opportunity I cannot miss. I will come and I will mediate the presence of Jesus to those people. And for you personally, whether it's in the workplace, or whether it's your home or whether it's a neighbor that you've never talked to, to go there and say, I'm gonna commit to glorify Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And you walk there, and you give Him an opportunity He will not want to miss. Are you giving the Holy Spirit those opportunities? Are you just sitting, twiddling your thumbs, wondering, why can't I why don't I experience the power of the Spirit in my life? I pray, as a church, we give them those opportunities. I pray we redeem back the time that coming here on a Sunday night is not a waste of time, that our home groups is not a waste of time, that when we gather together and we corporately seek God's presence, We buy it back, and he passionately leads us forward to mediate the presence of Christ in a dying world.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. Lord, I am so aware of the failings of my words and I thank you for that. Lord, I believe what I have spoken is truth. I'm convinced of that. So, Holy Spirit, here's an opportunity for you to come and for you to work, for you to take that truth and to make that truth into a reality, to draw us into the person of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:So I ask, Spirit, that you would come in power, and you would do that. Whatever areas there are in our lives that, Lord, we are quenching your spirit, where we are so full of ourselves that we cannot be full of you. Lord, I pray right now in the power of your spirit, you would remove that. That would become hideous in our life. For the areas in our lives where we are just utterly wasting time, whether it's through our anxiety, through the cares and concerns of this world, whether it's through us being so entertainment driven, wherever we are wasting our time, I pray right now through the power of your spirit, you would convict us, that we would hear you say, wake up to reality, buy back the time, be filled with my presence.
Joel Brooks:Right now I ask that You would do that, Lord. Because we want to see Jesus in His glory. I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
