Serving Faithfully
Even though we may have unanswered questions,
we should serve Jesus Christ faithfully
until He comes again.
Here's Gene:
When Jesus Christ came and chose
these twelve men, the apostles.
The fact is, of course, Judas certainly
departed from those twelve.
But those eleven men that were left
actually went to their graves with
certain unanswered questions.
And that's true really of all of us.
We will always have unanswered questions.
But even though we have unanswered questions,
we should serve Jesus Christ faithfully
until he comes again.
And what I want to do is to illustrate
this for you as it comes from the from
the Gospel of Matthew.
And I'm going to take you back again to Caesarea, Philippi.
And here's the geographical setting.
Caesarea, Philippi, which was called the
gates of hell in the previous Principle.
We've Illustrated this in relationship to
Satan's influence in our lives.
Even though we may have our basic
doctrines in order, Satan still wants to
take advantage of us.
Now there at the base here of Mount Hermon,
which is a huge tall mountain that
extends down into Israel,
but goes way on up into to Syria.
Particularly in Lebanon, into that whole area.
It's a huge, huge mountain.
And Jesus wants these men to learn a lesson.
And he's going to teach them a
significant lesson.
Let me take you to verse 21:
From then on, Jesus began to point out
to his disciples that it was necessary for
him to go to Jerusalem,
suffer many things from the elders,
chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and
be raised the third day.
Now we've seen, though Peter confessed
that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God,
he did not understand this.
In fact, he resisted this.
And Jesus is really wanting to prepare Peter.
But not only Peter, but two other men particularly,
James and John, the two brothers.
James and John and Peter.
And so he takes them up, I believe,
up on to this mountain.
And that's where we have a reference
to these three apostles. Notice in verse 28,
Truly I tell you,
there are some standing here...
And he's talking to the twelve.
...there are some standing here...
Right here on this rock,
here at the gates of hell.
...there's some standing here who will
not taste death until they see the Son of Man
coming in his kingdom.
Now what does that mean?
Well we can find out what it means.
Because Jesus takes Peter, James, and John,
and He's transfigured before them
up on the mountain.
And they see the glory of God in Jesus Christ
as He's transfigured.
And this is what Jesus is prophesying.
Because it relates to his second coming
back to earth in all of his glory.
So notice verses 2 and also verse 5:
Jesus was transfigured in front of them...
That is, in front of Peter, James, and John.
...and his face shone like the sun;
his clothes became as white as the light.
[And] while he was still speaking, suddenly a
bright cloud covered them, and a voice
from the cloud said, "This is my beloved Son,
with whom I am well-pleased. Listen to him!"
And Peter's so excited with this, he said:
Let's build three tabernacles and stay here.
And I think that God is speaking directly to Peter,
in a sense and saying: Peter, listen to Jesus, okay?
Just listen to what Jesus is saying.
And He's transfigured.
Now this wasn't just a normal worship experience.
I mean this an unbelievable
transformation which was projecting
ahead to the coming of Jesus Christ.
The second coming of Jesus Christ
and all of his glory.
So before they died, they saw Jesus,
as it were, coming in all His glory.
Which refers back to what Jesus had just said.
When he said: Some of you standing here,
namely Peter, James, and John.
Now this will be fulfilled when Jesus
comes in all His glory.
When the messianic prophecies are fulfilled--
all those promises in the Old Testament.
And the facts are that the apostles did
not understand this great truth,
even following the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
They did not understand what Jesus was going to do
in going back to heaven.
And then going to come again someday.
And how do we know that?
Well go to the mountain where Jesus
ascended back to heaven.
And they had a conversation with Jesus.
And you find it in Acts 1:6-8:
So when they had come together...
That is the apostles, and there probably others there.
...they asked him,
"Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to
Israel at this time?" ...
They're still thinking of that earthly
kingdom where Jesus will reign.
They still don't get it.
...[And] he said to them,
"It's not for you to know the times or
the periods that the Father has set by
his own authority. ...
In other words, that's an unanswered question
in terms of the specifics.
But it's going to happen.
But then Jesus said:
...But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit
has come on you, and you will be
my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea
and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
And of course, they went back.
The Holy Spirit came, which then began the
carrying out of the Great Commission.
And the apostles, as we've seen even in Peters life,
still was learning. Trying to understand
that the gospel of Jesus Christ
is for the whole world.
So here we have a beautiful illustration
of the fact that we have unanswered questions.
And we may have unanswered
questions until Jesus comes again.
But that shouldn't keep us or deter us
from carrying out the Great Commission
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It's part of God's design not to answer
all of our questions.
Yet these men were obedient in carrying out
the Great Commission.
So the Reflection and Response question:
How should the experiences of Peter,
James, and John impact all of us in view
of all we know today from Scripture about
the second coming of Jesus Christ?
Now think about that.
Today, we know more than Peter,
James, and John did before they died.
Because we what? We have the Holy Scripture.
We have Peter's Epistles.
We have Paul's Epistles.
It speaks of what is going to happen.
But there are still unanswered questions.
And some of those questions are theological.
And some of them are pragmatic.
In terms of pragmatic situations--
human tragedies. There are things that
happen in this life that, basically,
we don't have answers to except that God is sovereign.
We simply have to trust Him.
Recently, a couple lost their baby who was just
a few months old through crib death.
And it was a very difficult experience for them.
And I remember meeting with the father
a couple of weeks after it happened.
I purposely waited to have a meeting
with him because when that kind of
thing happens, you know, everyone comes
and there's lots of activity.
And then finally the reality sets in.
And they're alone, trying to figure this out.
And I purposely waited to meet with the father.
And when I met with him,
I stood there in silence.
And I put my arms around him.
And I just held him. And I said: I don't understand.
I don't understand why this happened.
And we just stood there together.
In a sense, my silence and my comment
ministered to him. He didn't need Scripture.
He knew Scripture.
What he needed to know was that, the fact
that he was struggling: Why did this happen?
Were we at fault?
Why did it happen?
He was struggling with that and he
needed to know that that's normal.
And there are certain things where we
do not have answers.
Now after we stood there in silence,
communicating briefly, I did share with
him an illustration.
I said: I remember when I was 4 years old.
I had a little sister, beautiful little girl.
She was three.
And I do remember we were in a home playing,
and she ran into a table--a low table.
And it kind of pushed her side.
And she cried.
Comforted, I remember mom
comforting her.
The next two or three days
she complained of pain in her side.
And finally, they took her to the hospital.
And they opened her up.
And she was filled with gangrene
from that wound.
Now there's some questions about
what happened, whether it was an
appendix that was involved.
But it happened directly related to
running into that table.
And I remember mom holding me up,
looking at her, there in the hospital.
And all they could do back then was just
sew her up, and let her die.
Because they didn't have the antibiotics
that we have today.
Could have saved her life.
I look back at that.
I don't have an answer to that.
Why did God allow her to die and not me?
There are just certain questions that we
won't have answered until Jesus comes again.
So we have these pragmatic,
unanswered questions.
But we have theological questions that
are still unanswered and will be until
Jesus unfolds the answers.
For example, we know that Jesus is
going to come and remove the church--
the family of God--from this earth
before he comes to earth to rule and to reign.
We know that from 1st Corinthians 15:52:
Listen, I'm telling you a mystery. ...
That's a mystery.
It's a mystery that's now being revealed,
in part through the words of Paul.
But there are unanswered questions
in relationship to that mystery.
...Listen, I am telling you a mystery:
We will not all fall asleep or die,
but we will all be changed, in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound, and the
dead will be raised incorruptible,
and we will be changed.
And Paul explains that further in 1st Thessalonians.
We call that the rapture of the church.
The church being removed before Jesus Christ
comes back to this earth.
Now we all know that it will happen.
We know that it could happen at any moment.
But again, we don't know the answer to when.
We simply need to be ready and that's
by God's design.
And so let me elaborate on the Principle that
really grows out of the apostles' experience.
And that is Serving Faithfully.
Even though we may have unanswered questions,
we should serve Jesus Christ faithfully
until He comes again, knowing He could
remove believers from the earth at any moment.