Sermon CREC- Reformed 3- A Saved World

CREC-Reformed 3- A Saved World

Matt. 28:18-20

John 3:16-17

December 3, 2017

Lynchburg, Virginia

Note: After one church membership, three baptisms and a commissioning, we only had time for a short homily on December 3. 

You can listen to it here.

Homily

A Few Words About a Saved World

Advent is the time before the birth of Jesus when we look for his coming and prepare ourselves to receive Him. Christmas was the arrival of the Messiah, the One who saved Israel from her sins and conquers all her enemies.

We know that the Messiah is much more than Israel’s Savior. They were thinking too small. Sometimes, we talk about whether the Bible is literally true. Some folks want to take it all literally, say the various beasts of Revelation as real mythological style beasts with real heads, the stars falling from heaven, the sun and moon darkened. But the Bible is meant to be taken as it is given. There are different genres of the Bible and should be understood that way. Is it typology? Poetry? Apocolyptic? Historical?

I am thankful that in the Reformed Tradition, we have a great heritage in understanding these things in a systematic way. We are not given to fancy.
And yet, at the very point where we Reformed want to line up for a literal interpretation of the Bible, our theological opponents shy away from the literal nature of the Bible and go figurative.

What about the Great Commission? Should we take that literally? Yes!

What about John 3:16? Is that literally true? Yes, and John 3:17, too!

In Matthew 28, the Great Commission, Jesus sends His disciples out to claim the whole earth.

¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, ^h“All authority ⁱin heaven and on earth has been given to me. ^{19 j}Go therefore and ^kmake disciples of ^lall nations, ^jbaptizing them ^min^{2 n}the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them ^oto observe all that ^pI have commanded you. And behold, ^qI am with you always, to ^rthe end of the age.”

What Authority has been given to Jesus? All authority in heaven and on earth.

Where did He tell His disciples to Go? Everywhere, all nations.

To do what? Disciple them, ALL the nations.

And what else? Baptizing them in Christian baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

And what else? Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

How can we do this? By His Spirit which He sent at Pentecost, For, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Didn’t Jesus tell His disciples to baptize and disciple the whole world? Well, let’s believe it can be done and let’s do it!

Or what about his famous verse?

John 3:16   “For God so ^aloved the world, that He ^bgave His ^1conly begotten Son, that whoever ^dbelieves in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.  ¹⁷ “For God ^adid not send the Son into the world ^bto judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. 

         What did God love? The world, the cosmos He created. All creation.

         Whom did He want to save? Everyone who believes in Jesus.

         Did God send Jesus to judge and condemn the world? No.

         Then why did He send Him? To save the world through Jesus.

         Will Jesus do what the Father sent Him to do? Yes.

         What is that? Save the world.

         Who will be blessed among the saved world? All who believe.

         What will happen to the rest? They will be judged by God as unbeleivers because they love darkness rather than light and their deeds are evil.

        

¹⁸ “^aHe who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of ^bthe ¹only begotten Son of God.  ¹⁹ “And this is the judgment, that ^athe light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for ^btheir deeds were evil.  ²⁰ “^aFor everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.  ²¹ “But he who ^apractices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” 

God is all powerful. He can do this. And since He gave the task to His Son, Jesus, we know that He will, in fact, do this. We see that He is doing it.

It may not look like we imagined. The work is not yet finished. The saved world will look like order out of chaos. It takes time to set things in order. But Jesus is doing exactly this through His Church, by His Spirit and will continue to do so until every knee bows and every tongue confesses that He is Lord.