Answering Your Questions: Do you know someone stressed out about the ‘End of the World’?

A lot of people are really interested/concerned about all the tension in the world right now and how and if it relates to God’s plan for the future.  Since I’ve been asked a few times recently to speak or write about it, I figured this would be a good time to at least begin the discussion.

 

 

 

Back to the topic of the day… It might surprise you, but there are a variety of interpretations about the details of what the Bible lays out as God’s plan for the future.  Good people who love Jesus and are committed to scripture can definitely disagree on how the future will unfold. 

 

1) God’s plan is for resurrected image-bearers (humans) to wisely rule a ‘resurrected’ universe (New Heavens and New Earth). 

2) God will return (not that He is not here now, but you know what I mean…) in person to planet earth to put the finishing touches on His remodeling plan (often called Jesus’ second coming). 

 

 

During Jesus’ life, Jews living in Palestine were waiting expectantly on Yahweh (God) to return and take up residence in the temple again and deliver them from their season of exile (of being dominated by tyrants). 

 

They had all the Old Testament promises and prophecies, yet still could have never guessed that God coming in person would mean that God would become a person.  They had all the Old Testament promises and prophecies, but even if you would have told them that God would come in flesh and blood; they would have never imaged that the way he would defeat the forces of evil would be to give himself as a sacrifice.  In retrospect, we can see it; but they never saw it coming despite their knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures (which is almost certainly greater than our knowledge of scripture today!). 

 

In fact, some of the religious leaders of the day thought they had figured out the details of how God was going to rescue them and acted on their misled beliefs.  The results were disastrous. 

 

 

Let’s be confident of God’s plan to restore humanity and all creation.  Let’s be confident in his second coming.  
 Let’s be humble when it comes to thinking we’ve got the details of God’s plan nailed down too much. 

 

If the Jewish people of the first century never saw the first coming happening in the way it did despite their knowledge of scripture, it’s safe to say that we will probably be surprised by the beauty and creativity of God’s plan for the future.  

Be careful not to let people who seem to have ‘insider knowledge’ or know too much get us stressed out. 

 

We should live in light of our hope for the future.  We can live in anticipation and comfort knowing God can decide to bring his plan to an amazing next chapter today, next year, or 5,000 years from now.  We can celebrate the goodness of creation and the mercy of our God day in and day out without getting too caught up in what can be at best a desire to dig into scripture regarding the future and at worst become a religious sounding conspiracy theory. 

 

Jesus came, died for our sins so we can be set free today, and will return to make all things new… one day.  Until then, carry on loving people like Jesus loved us. 

 

 

 

 

Changed People Can Change Our Community!
P.S. One of the things Sunday Night Services (starting February 21st) will give us an opportunity to talk about are the different ideas believers have on exactly how God might do all this.  To sign up email us today!