Surely I Am Coming Soon

Turn with me, if you would, to the very last page of your Bible. Revelation chapter twenty-two. And I want you to notice something before we read a single word — notice where we are. This is the end. Sixty-six books, hundreds of years, prophets and kings and letters and songs, and it all comes down to this page. And do you know what is on it? Not a warning. Not a rule. Not a list of everything we got wrong. A promise. And the promise is a person. "Surely I am coming soon." Now I want to be honest with you this morning, because I think we are often not honest in church about this. When some of us hear "Jesus is coming back", the first thing we feel is not joy. It is fear. We start doing sums. We start thinking about the argument we had on Thursday, or the thing nobody knows about, and something in us goes cold. If that is you this morning, I want you to hear me. That fear is not from God. Perfect love casts out fear. The One who is coming is the same One who went to the cross for you. He is not coming to catch you out. He is coming to collect what he already paid for. You are not a debt he is coming to call in. You are a child he is coming to bring home. Let me say something about forgiveness, because I do not think you can hold onto this promise with a clenched fist. Some of you are carrying something against somebody in this room. You have carried it for years. And you have got very good at carrying it — you can carry it and sing at the same time. Here is the thing about unforgiveness. It does not hurt the person you are angry with. They are asleep. They are fine. It hurts you. It sits in your chest and it makes you tired. Jesus said, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors — and I have always found that a frightening prayer, because it asks God to treat me the way I treat other people. Forgiveness is not saying it did not matter. It mattered. Forgiveness is saying: I am not going to be the one who collects on this any more. I am handing the account over to God. Let him settle it. That is not weakness, that is freedom, and some of you need to walk out of here free today. Now, waiting. Because this is where it gets practical. He said soon, and it has been two thousand years, and if we are honest that is a long time to hold your breath. The five wise girls and the five foolish girls in Matthew twenty-five did exactly the same thing for most of the night. They both waited. They both fell asleep. Nobody in that story is blamed for sleeping. The difference was what they had prepared before the waiting started. The oil was in the jar before the lamp ran dry. You cannot borrow oil at midnight. You cannot borrow your mother's walk with God. You cannot borrow this church's faith. When the moment comes it will be what you built quietly, on ordinary Tuesdays, when nobody was watching, that holds you up. So what does that look like on Monday morning? I will tell you what it does not look like. It does not look like calculating dates. It does not look like being frightened of the news. Watching is not the same as worrying. Jesus asked for the first and warned against the second. It looks like this. Read a little of the Bible, even four verses. Talk to God like he is actually listening, because he is. Do your work honestly. Be kind to somebody who cannot repay you. Deal with the thing you have been avoiding. And forgive that person. And here is what I want you to leave with. Live this week as though he might come on Friday. And plan as though you have forty years. Both of those are true at once, and holding both is what a Christian life actually looks like. Because our King is coming back. And until that day — let us love God, love people, and finish well.