Last things first

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon

 Sunday, December 30, 2007

Heavenly Father, as we stand in the last days of this year and even the last days of all Christian history, Lord, bless us to draw strength from your word spoken to us through the prophet, Micah. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

Here we are in the last days of 2007, last day and a half, after 363½ days, we might be tempted to just mail in the last day and a half and all the great stuff for 2007 has already happened, but wait. Sometimes, at the very last day, the last hour, the last minutes, the last nine seconds. . . [Video football game–“30 yard line, would make it a 40 to 50-yard try but let’s hope Drew does better than that. Here we go, first and 10. Three wide outs for the Hawkeyes, including Chandler the tight end, take back the pass. Throws over the middle. It’s caught at the 40-yard line by Eddie Hinkle. Five for Clark. That’s ten. That should be enough for a first down so they will stop the clock. Taking the underneath stuff. Until LSU commits more to covering that. 33 seconds left to go in the game. Here’s Tate. They wind the clock. Drew’s gotta go. 30 seconds to play. Tate wants to throw left, comes over the middle instead, Garter, is it a catch? Yep, he’s got it. Sure looks like it. But first time out here. Gotta call a time out. Gotta call a time out here. Gotta call a time out, Drew. 15 seconds to go. Now he spikes the ball. Hold him. They cost themselves 5-6 seconds. Yeah, we weren’t set. Team wasn’t set either. Oh, boy. The ball goes back. The team wasn’t ready to play, 5 yards penalty. Oh, boy, that’s a big mistake. Big mistake. So they lose 5 yards and another 6 seconds. Iowa has two timeouts out left but let’s not forget as great as Drew Tate’s been this year, he’s still a true sophomore. Well, and he might have thought he had the first down. He might have thought that ball was far enough from where he was at. Now they gotta call time out. They wind the clock. 9 seconds to play and Drew Tate doesn’t know that! The game’s going to end on this play. He fires down field. It’s caught and into the end zone! Touchdown Iowa! Touchdown Iowa! No time on the clock! I don’t believe what I just saw! Touchdown Iowa!”]

Big things can happen at the last minute, can’t they? Last 9 seconds. That was an amazing play, something we’ll never forget. The bible talks about wonderful things in the last days, in the last moments, the last seconds that can happen for us as well. Micah writes in his prophecy what I call five great previews of the last days and not just the last days but previews of what it’s going to be like for us in heaven.

The first great preview has to do with worship. He writes, “In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains. It will be raised above the hills and the peoples will stream to it.” This prophecy was partially fulfilled when the exiles, the Jews who had been taken captive and carried off to Babylonia and Assyria when these exiles were freed and allowed to return to their homes. They came back and they rebuilt the temple bigger and better than it ever had been under the wealth and ego of King Herod. When the people expanded from a small group of Jews worshiping and offering sacrifices and celebrating feasts to a worldwide Christian church, everywhere celebrating the birth of the Savior and the resurrection of the Savior, this prophecy of great worship was fulfilled.

What formerly had been a small part of the world impacted by the people of God, now has spread everywhere. Worship went from a small faithful group to a worldwide group. What is this a preview of? The great worship that we’re going to experience in eternity. Now let’s take a moment just to imagine what that will be like in heaven, what our worship experience will be like. Imagine the most wonderful worship you’ve ever experienced, resounding music, glorious choirs, spectacular solos, magnificent floral arrangements and beautiful pageantry that overwhelmed the senses and losing yourself in the surging river of praise to God Almighty by one and all forever. That’s the great worship that Micah’s talking about and pointing forward to. That happens in the last times as all Christians gather together and worship and will happen in eternity in that blessed reunion.

The second great preview is the preview of great teaching. Micah writes, “Many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths. The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’” When the Messiah comes that Micah is talking about, he describes it as a period of great teaching, that the people will receive a wonderful teaching unlike any they have ever had. Reminds us of some of the stories we read about Jesus, doesn’t it? Remember when He was only 12 and His family was traveling, they had gone to the feast of Passover in Jerusalem and they had gone by caravan. It was quite a journey. After the feast was over, the family returned by caravan. There were many people so they assumed that Jesus was somewhere in the caravan but that wasn’t true. After a search, they found He wasn’t there and they panicked. His parents panicked and they returned to Jerusalem and searched everywhere they had been and tried to figure out, “Where is He? Where is He?” And where did they find Him? In the temple. And this is what it says about the people who were listening to Jesus, the 12-year-old boy, “Everyone who heard Him was amazed at His understanding and His answers. He was speaking with the scholars. He was speaking with the greatest teachers of the time but He was so much more authoritative and profound, there was no comparison.” Now the Jewish Rabbis of the day taught in small groups and small classes of instruction teaching the law and God’s word and the traditions of the people. But when Jesus came, thousands of people formed huge multitudes that followed Him everywhere He went and they wanted to hear one more parable, one more great teaching, one more interpretation and explanation of the Old Testament prophecy, so much so were they transfixed that they gave no thought about eating or working or where they were. They even followed Him to a deserted place where the feeding of the 5,000 took place.

And then this prophecy of Micah about great teaching was also fulfilled when two disciples were walking on the road to Emmaus. This is after Jesus had been crucified and they were thinking about these different events that had taken place and then Jesus rose from the dead and He joined them as they were walking but they didn’t know it was Him, remember that? They were walking together. And after that experience, they said, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us.” The prophecy of great teaching that Micah was talking about was being fulfilled.

Today that prophecy continues to be fulfilled as God speaks through every Christian throughout the world, the wonderful truths of His love and forgiveness but this is only a preview of what we’ll experience when we have that perfect knowledge of God and a full understanding of His great teaching in eternity.

The third great preview that we hear in Micah has to do with justice, great justice. “He will judge between many peoples. He will settle disputes from strong nations far and wide.” For the people who Micah was writing to, justice seemed like a fairy tale. Remember, these were people 700 years before the time of Christ who were slaves, captives. They had no freedoms. They had no rights and they had been abused in every imaginable way. For them, just to hear words about justice seemed like a dream. But 2,400 years later, this dream, this prophecy, this preview took form as our founding fathers formed our Constitution.

David Barton points out these things in his comments about the 4 th of July. “The 4 th of July is one of the most celebrated holidays and has been for nearly two centuries, a fact confirmed by a very elderly John Quincy Adams in a speech he delivered on the 4 th of July in 1837, America’s 61 st birthday. John Quincy Adams properly reminded the crowd that one of the most important elements of the American movement for independence had been its spiritual underpinnings. He asked, ‘Why is it that next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, our most joyous and most veterated festival occurs on this day and why is it that thousands and tens of thousands among us, year after year, celebrate the birthday of the nation? Is it not that the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked to the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized a social compact of the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth that it lay the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity? Our founding fathers knew that without God’s help or as they actually put it in the Declaration itself, a firm reliance on Divine Providence, they would never achieve their goal.”

Admittedly, even in a great country like ours, we fall short of that prophecy of Micah, the preview of great justice that he gives us, that it’s undeniable that God’s word has an impact and an influence on our government and on our country’s course of history. We live in a country that’s wonderful. We celebrate freedoms that most other countries just hear about and dream about. But can you imagine living in a place where people are actually held accountable and are appropriately punished for their behavior? A place where you can have full confidence that if you are innocent, you will not be falsely accused or convicted? A place where someone can’t buy their way out of trouble? A place where the great justice prophesied by Micah will be ours?

Well, this side of heaven, we can only aim in that direction and pray for our leaders that we elect and pray for the judges and everyone that runs our country and leads us. This side of heaven, that’s what we must do. But this preview also speaks of heaven, that one day we’ll live where we will be completely satisfied with the justice that is carried out.

The fourth great preview is great peace. Again, it’s a strange thing for us to think of great peace, perfect peace. This is how Micah writes, “They will beat their swords into plow shares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation nor will they train for war anymore. Can you picture a world where there is no war, where nations don’t have to send their youth to solve problems created by dictators violently imposing their will over others, where no family has to experience the tragic loss of their child? This is the preview that Micah is giving us, the preview of great peace.

There are times in our world, even times that are called the great peace, the Pox Romana, and things like that, where we feel like there’s peace but it’s very local and regional and specific. It’s not worldwide and it’s only temporary. But Micah gives us a preview of permanent and eternal peace, complete peace for everyone where we all get along and there are no problems.

There’s an amusing side note to this concept of peace. My wife is from Fairfield and you all know what Fairfield is famous for, Maharishi and all the meditators and all that kind of thing. Well, about a year ago I think it was, they brought in hundreds if not thousands of these pundits from far India and these guys are here to meditate and bring about world peace. I think that’s a worthy goal. I’m not sure of their means but I think it’s a good goal. The problem is this organization doesn’t even have local peace. Being connected to Fairfield like I am through my wife and my in-laws, they have constant disputes over land and other issues in their own community. How can they focus on world peace? World peace seems unattainable but we can have peace with God, can’t we? The bible says that God sent His Son, Jesus, the Prince of Peace, to reconcile the world to Himself. God has taken away our offense, our sin. He punished His Son on the cross in our place and now we have peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ.

The fifth and greatest preview is the one of prosperity. Now we Americans like to talk about prosperity. We know we live in the wealthiest country in the world but listen to how Micah describes prosperity. “Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.” That’s kind of a strange image, isn’t it, but it fits the culture of that time. Prosperous people own their own vineyards. Prosperous people own groves of fig trees and the people who Micah was writing to possessed nothing. They were slaves. They were captives. Everything had been taken from them so, to them, prosperity was a very simple notion. “Oh, I would just love to be able to sit under my own grapevine or my own fig tree and not be afraid of anyone or anything.”

Again, we live in the wealthiest country in the world and yet, many times, we are anxious over our finances and unsatisfied with what we possess. But this verse gives us a picture of prosperity for those people who Micah was writing to and I think it’s better than the things we aim at in this country, accumulating more wealth. All they’re talking about is security and peace and safety. Can you imagine not having to worry about your mortgage, credit cards, college costs, retirement, health insurance or employment? That’s what this verse is describing. In the last days and beyond, God’s prosperity given to us.

Yes, we are living in the last days of 2007, one and a half days left. And there’s probably not going to be a Capital One Bowl victory, although Michigan’s playing in that game this year, that we can celebrate but there are great things to come, right? Micah gives us five great previews, great worship, great teaching, great justice, great peace, great prosperity, five great previews of what is yet to come.

A lot of times we see the previews for coming movies and, you know, you get all excited and then you go to the theater and it’s not that great a movie. But you can rest assured that the previews Micah gives us of eternity in paradise, the previews pale in comparison to the reality. Amen? Amen.

Copyright 2007 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church