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Grace, mercy, and peace be upon you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning’s sermon comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated. Everyone in every generation has had the lesson of the fig tree portrayed to them. If you heard in the Gospel reading, Jesus said all these things shall come to pass during your lifetime. The apostles at that time, and in fact, every generation since the apostles, with every culture around the world, have seen the lessons of the fig tree. They may not know who is coming, but they know the transiency of this world. They know the mortality of their very person. It is not their own; it is in the hands of someone else.
But you, you do know. You are his child. He has come to you. And the lesson of the fig tree applies as much to you and your generation in this culture as much as it applies to anyone else of any other culture, of any other location around the world. Because every day you see the signs. And the signs have been there for every generation: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.
Now, because we are living in the end times, and every generation prior to us have been living in the end times, the realization of this transiency of life, this seeming out-of-controlness, comes upon us. It doesn’t take a situation in France or in Mali or in Beirut or in Kenya to remind us that we are not in control. None of us are. And it doesn’t take a parent too long to realize that, you know what? We’re not in control of our children either. We’re not in control of our parents as children. And we’re not in control of really anyone, not even our own person. The more we see the lesson of the fig tree in our life that God allows to have occur, the more we see a great need to repent.
Because Satan is there to tempt us to two extremes. He is tempting us away from godly confidence to unfounded certainty that says, “It’ll never happen to me. It won’t happen to my children or my family. It won’t happen to my parent. It won’t happen to my state or my country.” That’s unfounded certainty. The lesson of the fig tree is very clear. It is going to happen.
The other extreme of this temptation that we are enmeshed by, Satan is the temptation of the fig tree. Which God’s eternal word is continually pulling us out of his grasp, is the other extreme that is of unfounded fear, where fretting is a part of our day about everything’s going to, you know where, in what kind of a basket. That’s also not godly confidence. But it is a part of living in the end times and having the lesson of the fig tree portrayed to us on a daily basis.
Yes, God allows all of these experiences to occur to keep us humble, dependent, and practicing our most holy faith. It is God’s Holy Spirit who desires to breed within you godly confidence that never ends and never fails. And it is His eternal word that empowers you by His Holy Spirit to stay awake and endure.
Jesus said, “It’s like a man going on a journey,” and we know who that man is. That is Jesus. He puts his servants in charge, and we know who they are. That’s us. Scary, isn’t it, if we’re in charge? Each with his work, and he commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight, or when the cock crows or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you, I say to all, stay awake.
Staying awake is a part of practicing your most holy faith. And the gym, which is not the perfect analogy, but the place where you are continually trained to practice that faith is here. Here is where your ears hear again, and God comes to you through that word, and you do not receive your God who comes to you in that word with fear. You do not receive him with trembling. You receive him with great joy, as Jude says, because he comes to you with grace and mercy and benevolence.
Everything about what we do on a Sunday morning is a practice of that most holy faith, where you wait for the Lord to bring you his word, to feed your soul, to quench the thirst, and to bind up your brokenness. Here’s where you hear again, heaven and earth will pass away. Here is where you hear again, my word will never pass away. And it’s here that you’re fed his eternal word that never passes away, where he comes to you through words: “I forgive you all of your sins.”
He comes to you. And you receive that word not with fear, with trembling, but with awakeness, with joy, with joy. When it’s read and preached to you, you do not receive that word with eyes closed and slumbering and laziness. You receive it as you are receiving it, with joy and awakeness. And when, like beautiful little baby birds in a nest who open their mouths, crying out to their mother to feed them, so he puts into your mouth his very flesh and blood, and you receive it not with trepidation or anxiety, but with joy. But with joy, comfort, and peace.
Daily we keep repenting, and daily we keep receiving. As a body of Christ, we weekly come together to repent and receive. That is practicing your most holy faith. That is staying awake. That’s what it looks like. He comes to give you a godly confidence. And to get rid of unfounded certainty that thinks it’ll never happen to me, it won’t happen to my family, it won’t happen to my country. He comes to give you a godly confidence, not the one of unfounded fear that leaves you debilitated, helpless, and trembling. He comes to give you godly confidence that brings joy. He comes to give you himself.
Jesus said, “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of those He has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” He doesn’t lose His children. He doesn’t let go of His babies. Even when they have unfounded certainty or unfounded fear, “I will raise them up on the last day.”
Every Sunday you practice receiving Jesus. Every Sunday you receive Jesus. Every Sunday you receive Jesus with joy and awakeness. That is staying awake. That is practicing your most holy faith. Jesus said again, “If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
It’s that flesh that he gives you that is pure and holy. In place of the flesh inside of you and me, it’s the flesh that is pure and holy that has all that unfounded certainty. To think that because we raised our children this way, because we made these choices and decisions in this way, because we didn’t choose this path or that path, that’s why our life is the way it is. Christ died for such unfounded certainty and buried it to give you godly confidence based on him and his word.
In his flesh did he take your unfounded fear. Envelop it. It says, “Though you do not know that hour or that day, he has never left you. He abides in me and I in Him.” And even says to you, “Stay awake,” but I’m also abiding in you. Be watchful, but I’m abiding in you and you in me.
All the while, to destroy unfounded certainty and unfounded fear, and bestow and breed godly confidence within us. Then that day is seen with joy, not with fear; with relief, not with anything else. Here’s where you’re encouraged regularly. Here is where you’re built up repeatedly. Here is where you are established religiously. And here is where you are upheld routinely, being completed as you wait for that great and glorious day, whether it comes today for you or whether Christ comes today for you.
You are staying awake as you practice your faith here and at home. He, as Jude said, is able to keep you from stumbling. You from stumbling. And He is able to present you blameless. You blameless. Before the presence of His glory with great joy. Great joy, not fear and trepidation.
Therefore, to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority both before all time, now, and forevermore. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.