Matthew 24:29-35

Transcription

Matthew 24. Do you remember back when we do you remember back when we were studying through the sermon on the mount? Do do you know where does the sermon on the mount start in Matthew? Matthew chapter 5. So we this is a while ago back go back over a year ago we were in Matthew 56 and 7. That's a famous teaching that Jesus gave. Do you remember in the sermon on the mount, Jesus was teaching his followers about the kingdom and and the kingdom coming to earth? You remember a lot of the the message of Jesus was this proclamation, this broadcast about the good news of the kingdom. In in contemporary like western evangelical churches, we often talk about the gospel as this personal relationship with Jesus which is the gospel. But Jesus it says proclaim the gospel of the good of the kingdom. The gospel the good news of the kingdom. And so in the sermon on the mount Jesus is saying hey the people welcome in my kingdom are the down and out the humble the meek. This is what my kingdom is about. And then there's this ethical framing talking about how his kingdom is about us having character, not just being rule followers, external rule followers, but deeply formed by the kingdom ethic in our relationships with one another through from the very heart. He says this is where the kingdom flows from. That's where Jesus wants to originate. That's like ground zero for his kingdom is in our hearts. So, we we covered that over a year ago. Now, we're looking at what's called the Olivet discourse because it happens on a hillside outside of Jerusalem and uh that it was the Mount of Olives. There's olive trees there as you can imagine and Jesus is teaching his disciples and the theme is all about the future kingdom. So you have the sermon on the mount which is about the kingdom present invading as a new society in our hearts first and then out into the world that we are in now. And then the ET discourse is about the future coming kingdom and the signs leading up to that kingdom and the second coming of Christ. But before we get into that, I just want to bring before your your kind of the the forefront of your minds this idea of a social contract. We talk about that in polit politics, but think about it first in terms of your home. Like when we have kids or grandkids, we we ask of kids that they would um do their schoolwork and that they would clean their room and that they would um treat people in a particular way and they'd be a family member that's behaving well. And there's in a sense this social contract with our kids where we're saying, "Hey, you're in this formative stage and someday you're going to be an adult and you're going to live out what you're practicing at home. In politics, oftent times politicians will talk about or a country will talk about having a social contract. We're kind of in a in a state of turmoil in the west because the social contract broke down. It used to be something along the lines of go to school, put your head down, use a number to a pencil, you know, circle in, you know, draw inside the lines and uh do your schoolwork. well, go to college, work a career for 30 or 40 years, and then you can retire. And that was kind of like the social compact or or the contract that existed. And that's broken a bit. And now there's this, you know, things have been turned upside down and people are have worked jobs for years and years and years and all of a sudden they find themselves um replaced and and fired. The Kingdom of heaven makes g Jesus explains the kingdom of heaven as if it were a social contract, but we don't get to fully see it realized. We're we're in this place of like anticipating what will this become? And as we go through the ET discourse, we're beginning to see the fulfillment. This idea of like, hey, you're we're living in Sermon on the mount material, but it's not the end of the story. Which is good because in the sermon on the mount, Jesus promised you're going to be persecuted. You're going to be hated. And Jesus has been talking about that in the discourse as well, that there are hardships promised during this time. The kingdom of heaven as it was declared in the sermon on the mount. It welcomed in these outcast citizens, calls you and I to form character, calls us to this authentic religious expression. Remember, like if you're going to pray, don't just pray like babbling prayers, but pray from the heart. All of that we're we're living in, but life is still hard. We had last last week before we came into church, Veronica overdose, right, and and passed away. Little did we know two two Sundays before when she was here. And you know, you could look at her, you could visibly see that she was in the midst of her addiction. Little did we know that this is her last Sunday with us. But so we're living in the midst of we've got people struggling with with cancer, people with chronic illness, with uh poverty. We're not living in the the world that we hope and long for. We're we're longing for things to be made right. Right. And so here we are trusting Jesus and living following him. And there is oftentimes this question of like is it worth it? You know that you're going to delay gratification that you're going to serve others that you're going to love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you. That's a strange way to live unless there's a second coming that the the social contract is going to be fulfilled and there's going to be the future reign of Christ. Otherwise, the the call of Jesus to live as a kingdom citizen is utterly foolish. You might as well if Jesus isn't going to make all things new, then you ought to not be a Christian. You're totally dumb for being a Christian. question if Jesus is not going to restore the things that need to be restored. And so the ET discourse is Jesus beginning to pull back the curtain on this future kingdom. It's based on the questions you remember the disciples asked. And last week um we began to see some of the answers to the questions that the disciples had asked about what are the signs of the end. What is it going to look like before you come? And Jesus is answering those questions a bit. Last week, we talked a little bit, well, we'll go back to the timeline here in just a second. We talked about the cosmic battle theory. If you're going to frame up the whole thing, you'd have this idea that God is in this pitched battle against Satan in the realm of the earth. Humans are created as blessable, imagebearing, covenant partners, dropped into this battle. And doing good is the primary weapon of spiritual warfare. You can go back and listen to that if you want. The tribulation, which we're talk, we talked about last week, we'll talk about again today. The tribulation period, it isn't random suffering. It is the final phase of the war that began before creation. Satan knows his time is short. So, he unleashes his full fury through the Antichrist system, attempting to prevent the completion of God's plan to fill the earth with his imagebearers. So that tribulation we're going to talk about that now we're we have tribulations like small t in our life but there is this time of tribulation that Jesus speaks of that is unlike any other which we read of last week. And then last week we also saw the abomination of desolation in verse 15 and a which is a key sign associated with the great tribul So the two go hand in hand, abomination of desolation and tribulation. And then we saw that the son of man will come like flashing lightning that will be visible to all. So if you hear these rumors about like the son of man's out in the wilderness or he's in this closet over there, that's a lie. Don't be deceived. No. Because the son of man, the coming of the son of man is going to be just as bright and public as lightning is when it flashes. across the sky. So, where are we at in the text? Let me give you um just this timeline very quickly. If you look into your Bible, you have the Gospels, four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And that's covering the time period of 3 BC to 30 AD. And it tells us the life and the teachings of Jesus. Then you have another book called the book of Acts, and it starts in 30 AD and it takes you up to 60 AD. It gives you about um 60 years of what early followers of Jesus did and how new churches were formed. And against the backdrop of the book of Acts, we have the letters. We call them epistles. They were written by Paul, James, and some other characters, Jude, Peter. Um those are the letters that are written in inside of the history that's unfolding in the book of Acts. So, this is history. This is letter writing. And then the last book in your Bible is the book of Revelation, probably written around 96 AD by John the Apostle when he's um exiled to the island of Patmos, where he has this crazy vision, this apocalyptic vision of the things that are going to happen. Now, if you're We're going to take that and shrink it into where are we at? You have the first coming of Christ and then we go into the church age. We're living in what is called the church age. If you want to read about that, you can go to Romans 9:10 and 11 in your Bible. And Paul explains why does the history focus change from being all about the Jews to really being about the Gentiles hearing the good news of the kingdom. We're living in the in this kingdom age and then there is a final tribulation which we read of in verse uh 21. He says it's unlike any other tribulation and then there is the coming of the son of man. So the Bible teaches that Jesus died on the cross, ascended to heaven, he's seated at the right hand of God. Jesus is the king. He's the rightful king because of what he did on the cross. He's reigning in heaven and he's going going to return at the end of this age, the end of the church age to reign and rule from Jerusalem. And that is where we're at. So, I'm going to read to you um from Matthew 24. And these are the verses that we will uh study this morning starting in verse 29. Immediately after the distress of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not shed its light. The stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the son of man will appear in the sky and then all the peoples of the earth will mourn and they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the sky to the other. Learn this lesson from the fig tree. As soon as its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all these things, recognize that he is near at the door. Truly, I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Let's pray together. Father, we um are going to take this passage um under consideration. And while we consider it, we want to say that um you are our king and your word is authoritative and we want to learn from you. We we're giving time to this text so that you can teach each of us how to be a follower of you in the church age anticipating your future return. And so as we go through these verses, we ask that you would instruct us and teach us and correct us where we need to be corrected. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. So fun materials. There's stuff that's in here that seems kind of like you would read it in a fantasy book or, you know, watch it in like the Lord of the Rings film. It's just these um cosmic events that are being described almost hard to believe except for the fact that the Bible had been has it many times predicted the future and it was right perfectly on track with what it predicted. We looked at that last week how Daniel predicted the exact number of days until the um son of man would come into Jerusalem. Perfect prophecy hundreds of years in advance being fulfilled within history. We see this with the character Joseph who had these dreams that would about what would happen um in his own lifetime where he would be elevated from being the youngest to being in a position of authority. And then during his lifetime, he engaged with the Pharaoh of Egypt who had these dreams. And then in those dreams, God's revealing, hey, there's going to be this time of famine. And but there's going to be first this season of abundance. And um God uses that to guide the nation into saving from the abundant season so that it has plenty of resources once it goes into a season of famine. And so it's not strange for the people of the Bible, which we are as a church. It's not strange for us to be a people who have a heads up on what's coming. Where God can reveal like, hey, here's what's around the corner. Here's what's and and God can do that even in your own personal life where God can say, hey, I want you to be aware. This is what's coming. It happened in Paul's life. Paul on his third missionary journey journey as he's heading back to Jerusalem. He was visiting from church to church, traveling around um the Mediterranean, northern Mediterranean area. And when he'd visit a church, someone would have a prophetic word. And they would say, "Paul, what's coming in Jerusalem is you're going to be bound and you're some hard stuff's going to happen." And and then the church would hear that prophetic word and they'd plead with Paul saying, "Paul, please don't go to Jerusalem." And Paul would say, you know, this is this is what God has for me. And if I if I go and I face hardship, you know, what am I going to do? Like that that that is just it's baked in. I've got to do what God's calling me um in my life. But God was preparing Paul to face this very difficult season. And so here we have this material where Jesus is speaking to things that are yet to come. He talks about world events, wars, famines, earthquakes, persecution against Christians. He gives these warnings saying, "Don't be deceived um by false messiahs and don't be a a people that are alarmed by these crazy world events." And then he says, "You need to be a people." He says, "The mission of preaching the gospel, of proclaiming the gospel, it's going to happen. The gospel is going to spread across the world." So, Picking up in verse 29, he gives this list of he says it's immediately after the distress which we read of in verse 21. It's this tribulation event. He says the sun will be darkened, the moon will not shed its light and the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. We get this type of material when we go over to to the book of Isaiah. It's also in Daniel. It's in Joel. I mean, if you're a Bible student, you've read this kind of language before. And the the picture here is the the cosmic world, the Genesis one world that's created by God gets deconstructed. And this is a pattern throughout the Bible that as God brings judgement ment on the world. There is a deconstruction of what he created. Some of you have gone through your own personal deconstruction in your life as you've walked in a rebellious way against God and God's allowed the pieces to fall apart in your life. Or we might say he's allowed the wheels to fall off. Right? God allows for these types of things to happen where it feels like even in your own personal life like like the sun has gone dark or the moon is not shining any longer. This is not new material. But this event that's described here by Jesus is a final and ultimate. There's nothing um more serious than this event here. If you go back to verse uh 21 um in chapter 24, you see that this is unparalleled. So it's not new but it is ultimate. Let me give you um very quickly Isaiah 34 where you can see the same material. All the stars of the sky will dissolve. The sky will roll up like a scroll and its stars will all wither as leaves wither on the vine and the foliage on the fig tree. It's crazy. What a crazy image of what Jesus says is going to happen. I mean, the things that are we take for granted as stable. He says this um God's judgment on the world is going to be cataclysmic. It's going to be radical, unlike anything that's ever been seen. And then Jesus continues and he says that the sign of the Son of man will appear in the sky. Now, we don't know exactly what that sign is. If we look at Revelation, we see that there's trumpets that are being blown in this process around this time. Is it a trumpet? Is it angels proclaiming the gospel in the heavens? There's a there's a bunch of different things that are occurring, but there is this sign of the son of man that appears in the sky and then all the peoples of the earth will mourn. Now, us as Bible students, we're asking why why are people mourning? There's a passage in Zechariah that is similar to this. In Zechariah 12:10, it says, "Then I'm going to pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the house of David." That sounds good, right? God's pouring out his spirit, the spirit of grace and prayer in the house of David and the residents of Jerusalem. They will look at me whom they pierced. Wow. Again, here's a prophecy by a character named Zechariah hundreds of years before Jesus is pierced. And God is leading Zechariah to write this prophecy about Jesus. They're going to look on him whom they've pierced and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child and weeps bitterly for him as one weeps for a first for a firstborn. Is it possible? Again, the way that prophecy is written, you can have two events spanning over a thousand years squished into one verse. So, here we have Jesus pierced. But then we have mourning as one mourns for an only child weeping bitterly. Now this could be it could be at the time of the crucifixion that there is mourning. There's definitely mourning that's going on by the the disciples, but Jesus speaks of this future mourning. It is so common as we're looking at prophecy and we'll look at some others this morning where literally the front half of the the verse speaks to the first coming of Christ and the second half of the verse speaks to the second coming of Christ and yet the prophecy is all squished together. So when it was written it's got this vagueness again it's like looking at a mountain range from afar where it seems like all the peaks are kind of squished together but when you get up close you realize this is dozens and dozens of miles uh apart between the peaks. And so Jesus again He says that they will mourn the this sign of the son of man. That's another nickname for Jesus. It comes from the book of Daniel. They're going to see this sign and the peoples of the earth will mourn. And then they're going to see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. Now, it is easy as we read through this and we're kind of like You know, it's like a dense jungle where you're trying to make out what the path is. And in the midst of trying to put together the like there's signs and there's cosmic failure of of the sun and the moon and stars that are following, it's easy to miss the great statement that's right here. They will see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven. When your life and my life is falling apart and there's difficult things that are going on. This is what we we long for this moment when there are there's political upheaval or economic upheaval or there's a a bad health you know diagnosis in our life. What we are longing for is for the day that the son of man comes on the clouds with power and great glory. This is called our hope th this is this is what we um are anchoring our life to. And if this is real, then you can love your enemy. Um you can pray for those who persecute you. You can give generously out of your lack because there is this future promise of the son of man coming on the clouds with power and great glory. If this is real, then you can bet your life on it and you can take calculated risks now based on this promise that the son of man will return. If Jesus is not coming back, then again the Christian life is a strange if not foolish investment of your time. Let me give you again another passage. This is Daniel chapter 7. 13-14. Daniel is a he was a young Jewish man taken captive out of Jerusalem and taken to Babylon. He grows up in this foreign country and the whole book of Daniel is kind of his story and one of the things that happens with Daniel is he has these crazy dreams and visions and he has a scary one like one that totally freaks him out and it's recorded in Daniel chapter 7 and it's literally a vision that gets interpreted and explained to him by an angel. But in this vision, he gets a um a cosmic timeline of different empires that will reign. Four different empires that will reign um in the coming centuries of time. I'm dropping you right in the middle of it. In verse 13, he says, Daniel says, I continued watching in the night visions and suddenly one like a son of man was coming on the clouds of heaven. Doesn't that sound familiar? So, so Daniel's had this vision of these beasts and these animals with horns and these kingdoms that are existing and then at the end of that whole these different kingdoms that rise and fall, he sees one like the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven and the son of man approaches the ancients of days. We would call that God the father. If we have the trinity, we have God the father, God the son, and God the holy spirit. The ancient of days is God the father. And he's escorted be before him. And Jesus being the son of man is given dominion and glory. We have glory in the verse we're looking at. In Matthew 24, Jesus is given dominion and glory and a kingdom so that those of every people and nation and language should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away. And his kingdom is one that will not be destroyed. It's beautiful. It's incredible. Notice We have just this we're in a school, right? And they're happening to c celebrate like different nations, countries that are special to our team. These flags represent different nations, different people groups. And Daniel says that there will come a day where the son of man, Jesus, is given dominion by the father over all of these nations. And that it's going to willing to last forever. It's not going to pass away. His kingdom is one that will not be destroyed. So imagine you're a Jewish young person. You go to synagogue. You're learning every every Saturday, every Sabbath, you're learning about the writings of a Daniel and you're reading from the Torah. And and you see these things, this this whole conversation about the kingdom. And then this miracle worker Jesus comes and he's baptized by John. The spirit comes upon him and there's a voice from heaven saying, "This is my son in whom I'm well pleased." And he goes on to do all of these miracles. And what does he preach about? He preaches about his kingdom, the good news of his kingdom. You see, it all ties together. Daniel's talking in the terms of the king, these kingdoms that have come before Jesus comes on the scene and he is preaching about his kingdom. A kingdom that works inside out. A kingdom that is upside down. A king that is a kingdom that is um like um levan that works its wealth way through dough. It is this incredible um it's this incredible invitation for you and I to step out of the kingdoms that are not everlasting. the kings that fail and to step into Jesus's kingdom where he has dominion. Now, if you go over to 1 Corinthians 15, which you can read after church today, what you're going to see is that the father has entrusted given dominion, authority to the son, and that he has that his enemies are put under his feet like a foottool. Is is when you put your recliner up and you're resting your feet on your recliner. That's how the enemies of God are placed under Jesus. They're under his feet. But not every enemy is yet revealed to be subdued. So there's our experience is that we don't see the full kingdom revealed. And so when Jesus is teaching us as his followers to pray, he tells you and I, hey, pray that my kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven. Right? So you and I when we're talking to God in our prayers, what we're saying is the reality of the son of man being given dominion and kingdom and being the rightful king. Let that be a reality in my world. So tomorrow morning you're going to wake up, you got work or you got appointments that you got to go to and you and I should be praying, God, Let your kingdom be a reality in me and in these things that I've got to do in these relationships. Maybe they're broken. Maybe I have hopes for this relationship. Let your kingdom be real just like it is in heaven. Let it be real here on earth. This king Jesus came. It says in John chapter 14, is it 12 or 14 where he washes the Apple's feet. He, it says before he washes his feet, he says, knowing that all things had been entrusted to him, all things had been put into his hands, he disroed, put a towel around his waist, and he washed the disciples feet. You see, Jesus, the king who has all everlasting dominion and knew it, came and served his followers. He is still at your service and my service. As a church, we went through Hebrews and it says that he is our everlasting priest. Right now, today, Jesus's full-time job is to advocate on your behalf and my behalf to be close to the ancient of days. His full-time job is to try to see how close can I get you to the father. He went to the cross to take away the guilt problem. He reconciled us back to the father, but he is there advocating for our closeness to him so that you and I can experience the kingdom in our life. Daniel 7:27, you go jump to the end. So this is a part of the interpretation that the angel gives to Daniel because because Daniel has this crazy vision. He doesn't know how to make heads or tails out of it. So the angel comes and explains it explains it to him. And it says, "The kingdom, dominion, and greatness of the kingdoms under all of heaven will be given to the people, the holy ones of the most high." Who's that? Who are the holy ones of the most high? That's right. I heard that over there.

You and and I were created in the image of God, placed, the original humans placed in a garden to what? Reign, rule, be fruitful, and multiply. That's what you were designed to do. That's what you were made for was to reign and rule. And in the end of the story, the reigning and ruling on the earth gets turned over to the given to the people, the holy ones of the most high. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will serve and obey him. This is just a radically different story than the story we live in. Like we we oftentimes pigeonhole ourselves within a political framework or a genealogical framework or an addiction framework. And the Ible comes along and says, "Here's the meta narrative. Here's the overarching story of God's work to bring about his victory over the chaos monster, Satan. I'm going to place humans in the world as my image bearsers. They're blessable image bearsers. I'm going to put them in the world. They're going to do good, kingdom good, and that's going to overcome the wicked one. Oh, but they're going to fail. And so, I'm going to and the perfect human Jesus to lead the way. And all of us, we get to be inheritors with Christ of his victory and walk behind him in his reigning and ruling. It's crazy vision. So, we have this 7year that Daniel's 70th week, which we talked about. We have the darkened, no light for the moon, the heaven shaken, abomination of desolation. This might not be a perfect timeline, but you got to have some Jesus is giving some articulation of this is going to happen, then this is going to happen. And you got to kind of to the best of your ability piece it together. But the what you need to know is the timeline doesn't matter as much as what's the end result is that the son of man is going to reign on the earth. He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet and they will gather his elect from the four winds of the earth from one end of the sky to the other. So we have this gathering of the elect happening in this time period. We've had the son of man appear on the earth with glory in the clouds and now the gathering of his elect. The only thing I'll just say in passing because we need to keep moving. But do you see the word here? They will gather. If you go to Haven City Church's website, when it talks about what we are doing right now, this we call this a gathering. When we come together on Sunday morning, we we are anticipating a future gathering of God's people. That's why being together like this is is good and cathartic for us. God deserves The worship that we bring to him in song and in our obedience and our love towards other, all of that is worship. But we're also foreshadowing a future gathering together of all of God's elect to be his people to be in his kingdom. All right. He goes on and he says, "Learn this lesson from the fig tree as soon as its branches become tender and sprouts leaves. you know that the summer is near. So literally he's in in here it doesn't use the word parable but in the Greek it says learn the parable of the fig tree the the parable lesson from the fig tree. In other words, how do you relate to the fig tree you have in your yard in the springtime as it has these tender roots that shoot out from it or the the leaves that come off of it? You know it's we're getting into summer. summer time. Right now, we have leaves that are changing. We know, hey, it's just a matter of time. Winter's going to be here. It's going to be freezing cold. We're going to have snow. It's easy. So, if you're able to, you have the capacity to look at the fig tree and know what season you're in. Jesus is saying you should have the same capacity to read and acknowledge what's going on in your world and anticipate this future. arrival of the king. Here's some figs, trees that are budding. This is the image that his listeners would have had in their mind as they were hearing the parable of the fig tree. And he says in verse 33, "In the same way, when you see all these things, recognize that he is near at the door. Truly I tell you this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things take place. Now hold on a second. Jesus is talking and those disciples that are there right in front of him, they've passed away. So is Jesus wrong when he says this? What he's saying is not that that generation that's in front of him will not pass away, but the events he's describing will all occur within a generation. It's not going to be spread out. The this final tribulation, this abomination of desolation, the return of the son of man, the gathering of the elect, all of this is going to happen within a single generation. It's not going to be spread out. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. If we go on and you put the pieces together, from the book of Revelation, you go into the book of Daniel, what you see is that Jesus is going to come back. He's going to reign. He's going to reign and rule from Jerusalem. That there'll be a thousand-year, what we call the millennium. And at the end of the millennium, there's going to be this epic final battle where Satan is freed because for a thousand years, he's chained up. At the end of the thousand year, Satan is freed up and he deceives some people on the earth just like he did back in Genesis chapter 3. And then there is this final uh destruction of Satan and the demons, the rebellious angels. They're thrown into the lake of fire. The world as we know it is burned up and there's a new heavens and new earth that is created. We don't have time to go into it now, but what you just need to know is that the Bible as it talks about the future things and we talk about this idea of heaven. We we have family members that have died. And if they knew and they followed Jesus, we believe they're in heaven with Christ. But their eternal state is not to be in he heaven. The Bible talks about those who are in Christ coming back to the earth. So as you think about your future, your lived reality, if you die, you're going to spend some time in a heavenly realm where God is on the throne, where Jesus is on. on the throne. There's worship before him. But our eternal state is to be with Christ reigning and ruling in a new heavens and a new earth. You're not going to be like a cupid sitting on some cloud playing a harp. No. The the picture of that the Bible gives about our future is very similar to this experience. You get a new body. Um the pain and suffering goes away. way because the perfect king is reigning and ruling and your lived experience of relationships and food and work and activity. A lot of those things, there's more things common to you now that'll be common in heaven than are different. There's just the things we hate that are taken away. So, in closing, Jesus preaches this message. He he he I don't know how much preaching he's doing. He's kind of just teaching as a teacher on this olive oliveette, you know, Mount of Olives. And he's laying out this image of the future. And the invitation again for you and I is, do you want to be a part of this future plan of God? You don't have to be. The beautiful thing about the Bible is is the It's just an invitation. And God is loving enough to you that he has given you freedom to choose whether you want to accept his invitation or reject it. We talk about hell and hell being this horrible thing, which it is, but it hell is simply just God honoring your decision on earth that you want to live a godless life. You don't want him be involved in your life. And he just says, "Fine, you can live eternally without my presence." And that's a horrendous state to be in. I know the times where I've felt far from God. It's horrible. I don't want to live my future like that. But God loves you enough to give you a decision. In a minute, we're going to take communion. We're going to celebrate what Jesus did, his victory on the cross and his resurrection. And that meal is for those of us that have made a personal decision. We we've accepted the invitation of the cross. This this meal is not a church meal. This is a Jesus If if you know in your heart that you have not yet accepted the invitation that Jesus gives to you to be a part of his kingdom, then communion is not for you. It's for you after you accept what he has done on your behalf. So I just want to ask you hold back. But as you're abstaining from eating the bread and the cup, I want you to think about this invitation. And now today, Hey, today is the day to have that conversation with God, to talk to him. We we call talking with God. We call it prayer. It's really just having a conversation with God. He can hear you. And you just say, "God, I'm ready to accept that invitation that Josh is talking about. I I want to be a part of your kingdom. I want you to be my king. I'm tired of living my own way. I want to turn my life over to you." That That's what you're saying to him. You're receiving bring him into your life and your sin is taken away. He gives you his spirit. He gives you the hope of heaven and of eternal life to live eternally with him. All of that is what you're accepting. He's only asking for you to accept. He's not asking you to clean up your act. He's not acting. He's not asking for you to change the way that you dress or the way that you talk. He will change you in the future. He's just asking for you to respond. to his invitation to to trust in him. And if you've never done that, today's the day to do it. And if you pray and you have that conversation with God, let us know because we want to pray with you. We want to help you know here's the next steps. Here's what it looks like to walk with God. Let me pray and then I'll invite uh you to come and take the elements. The worship team can come forward as well. Lord, we um thank you for the dominion of God that Jesus, you are the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. That you will reign and all enemies, even death and sin will be placed under your feet. And we just long for and anticipate the future reign of Christ. We collectively like long for that. And as we wait patiently for for that salvation. May we see in our own lives the kingdom coming on earth in the same way it's already come in heaven. Lord, we ask that that would be our reality this week and in our lives that we would be a people submitted to your kingdom coming on earth. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.