I don’t know about anyone else, but the best thing about elections being done
with is that we don’t have to see or listen to any more snarky political ads, at
least not for another year or so.
I think we’re all tired of hearing one group bash the other group. We’re also
tired of outside groups collecting money from large corporations or unions and
filling the airwaves with even more negative advertising.
The bad news is that in another year we’ll be into presidential primary season,
and this year’s record spending will be dwarfed by what will be spent next year.
So savor this time of relative peace on t he airwaves, because it won’t last
forever.
Now everyone complains about all the negative advertising, but every last
political consultant will tell you that you have to do it because it works so
well. Whoever has a lot of cash can buy up airtime or billboards and say
whatever they want. And if you say it enough times a large number of people will
accept it as truth.
Let me give you a few examples. If you were watching TV or listening to the
radio you would hear the business world telling you that they could not create
jobs during this recession because the government has stifled them with
regulation and over taxation for the past two years. There are billboards all
over our area saying so.
The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics says that in 2008 the economy lost an
average of 317,250 private sector jobs per month. In 2010, we have gained an
average of 95,888 private sector jobs per month. Most people wouldn’t believe
you if you told them that because it doesn’t fit in with the narrative that’s
been created.
Same thing goes for the stock market. We’ve heard daily that neither party is
doing anything to help us out of the economic doldrums, that they’re standing in
the way of economic recovery.
But that claim is hard to square with the numbers coming from Wall Street. In
January of 2009 the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 closed at 7,949, 1,440, and 805,
respectively. Last Friday they were at 11,108, 2,512, and 1,183. In other words
since January 2009 the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 have increased 40%, 74%, and
47%, respectively.
I don’t know what the business community wants out of the government, but it’s
clear that overall they’re not hurting these days.
The issue that energized voters the most in this election was the level of
federal spending. We heard on a daily basis about how spending was out of
control and how the federal deficit was mushrooming in the past couple of years.
According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office the deficit in 2008
was $1.416 trillion. In FY2010 the budget deficit was $1.291 trillion, a decline
of $125 billion. No, it’s not where it needs to be, but it certainly isn’t going
up.
I’m hoping to make the case that misinformation abounds, that it has a profound
effect on people, and it can impact the way people look at their own lives, the
world’s future, and their view of human existence in general.
From the very beginning this kind of problem has also existed in the church.
People hear a preacher say something about God, but they have their own
thoughts, and their thoughts are influenced by a variety of influences around
them.
Sometimes that dynamic has led to people believing things that were completely
different from what was being taught in the church. Later on that choice to
believe something other than what the church was teaching came to be known as
heresy.
In one particular case, the case we’re dealing with this morning, word got
around that somehow Jesus had returned from heaven, that his believers had been
resurrected from the dead, and that somehow some of the churches just missed it.
We don’t know just how that rumor got started, but the evidence in the Bible
suggests that it could have been a letter someone wrote, someone who was
claiming to be Paul. Or it could have been someone claiming to be his
representative.
But somehow the church Paul started in a Greek city of Thessaloniki was stirred
up because someone convinced folks that Jesus had come back and they missed the
boat. Imagine for a second just how terrifying that would be. Because Paul and
his followers taught that the world would be destroyed after Jesus came back to
take his believers with him.
Now I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hard time picturing how Jesus could
return, dead bodies could come back to life and fly up into heaven, and somehow
that doesn’t make the evening news. That kind of event would be hard to miss.
At the same time, they’re dealing with a church situation where the pastor is
saying to them, “Jesus is coming back soon. He could return any day now. You
have to live your lives expecting that the entire world will come to an end
soon.”
In Paul’s own letters he tells people not to get married if they didn’t have to
because he didn’t want them to be “burdened” with a spouse. He wanted their
entire lives to be devoted to the life of the church because he thought that’s
what it took for people to be ready for Jesus’ return.
That’s all fine and good, but the longer its takes for Jesus to return, the more
people are going to start saying, “Well where is he? I thought you said he was
coming back. Did he get lost? Did we just miss it?”
The author of this letter says to folks, “Don’t be fooled. You know I told you
it wouldn’t happen that way. There a couple of things that have to happen first
before he returns. And those things haven’t happened yet. So we know he hasn’t
come back yet.”
So what was supposed to happen first? Well, two things. One, there’s supposed to
be some kind of rebellion in the world. He doesn’t say what kind of rebellion it
is, but it’s presumably against God.
Then some figure will appear in the world, and he calls this figure, “The
Lawless One”. Now he doesn’t call this figure “The Antichrist”, but many
Christians have kind of lumped this guy together with another figure from
Revelation called “The Beast.” I don’t think you should associate the two, but
some people do.
This figure, whoever he is, will take a seat in the temple and declare that he
is God. That statement in itself presents us with a lot of problems. First, this
letter is probably written after the temple has already been destroyed in 70AD.
So what temple is our author talking about?
Is this a cryptic way of talking about a future emperor who will proclaim
himself God? I doubt, because most of the Roman emperors considered themselves
divine. So that wouldn’t be different from what’s already happening. So it’s a
little unclear what he means here.
Whoever this figure is, he seems to be a divine figure who is being held back by
Satan until the opportune time. But before Jesus returns, Satan’s going to let
him go, and he’s going to deceive everyone who already doubted the Christian
message.
I know, this all sounds pretty depressing. But the purpose of the letter is to
say to the people in the church, “Hang on. Don’t give up. Stick with us. The
good stuff is coming. God will reward you if you stay faithful.”
The author reminds his readers that they didn’t just stumble onto the Christians
faith. They have been called by God. The author has a sense that God has been
working on this plan all along, and God has acted in a decisive way through
Jesus to begin saving the world.
He refers to the church as “first fruits”, which is the term they used for the
first crops to come out of the ground during a growing season or the first
fruits to grow from a tree. Those first fruits were considered holy, and the
Israelites were supposed to offer them to God in thanks for providing crops.
That’s the image he has for the church. We ourselves are evidence that God is
still working in the world, still saving the world, still God in the world. And
if what we do is that important, then no one will ever stop us, and the things
we do around here are terribly important.
He tells the church these things to comfort them, to reassure them that the
things they do are not being done in vain, and to dispel this whole idea that
they’re wasting their time because God has already passed them by.
That’s really what I want to focus on this morning. We can get into the whole
question of who this “Man of Lawlessness” is or when the rebellion happened or
will happen. But no one has as of yet figured any of that out, and I don’t think
anyone ever will.
And even if they did, the purpose of talking about those matters is still the
same: We as a body of believers need to hold on to what’s been passed down to
us. We need to continue being the church. We have to go forward in the faith
that what we do around here is God’s work, and that nothing will ever stop God
from accomplishing God’s work in the world.
We need to have a sense of purpose. We are here because we have been chosen by
God to be part of the body of Christ in Waukesha at this time in history. We are
here so that the people of this town and this world can know that Jesus lives,
that he saves, and that our community can come and experience him in the life of
our church.
If you’re wondering about the future, that’s why we hold on. That’s why we stay
faithful. That’s why we get up on Sunday morning even when it would be easier to
sleep in. That’s why we go and pick people up from their homes and bring them to
church. That’s why we visit people in the hospital and in nursing homes.
That’s why some of us prepare Sunday School lessons and why others participate
in the classes. That’s why five congregations are going to worship in this
building today. That’s why two of our members are preparing for the ministry.
That’s why we’re going to be taking our children skating this Thursday.
Our author says the purpose is so that we can “obtain the glory of our Lord
Jesus Christ.” Now I know we probably look at a verse like that and say, “Glory
of Jesus Christ? Really? We’d just settle for keeping our noses above water.
We’d just settle for paying our bills. We’d just settle for having Sunday School
teachers every week.”
Shoot, we’d be happy with just not having people in the church getting sick all
the time. We don’t expect to obtain the glory of Jesus Christ, but we would like
to see our boilers heating the church properly.
We don’t expect to obtain the glory of Jesus Christ, but we’d appreciate it if
he could shine just a little of that glory on our church’s stock portfolio. We
don’t expect to obtain the glory of Jesus Christ, but we’d be pretty happy if
the elevator stopped getting stuck.
We don’t expect to obtain the glory of Jesus Christ, but it would be great if we
could have enough people agree to serve on our committees without having to
resort to medieval torture methods.
See, my point is that our concerns over those kinds of things tend to blind us
to what’s really going on here. Hang on folks, because what’s happening in our
midst, what happens when we get together and work out our differences and love
each other as if we were all part of one body, what happens is that we obtain
the glory of Jesus Christ.
It may not look like it. It may not feel like it. But when you look back and
think of all the incredible things God has done for us and through us over the
years, you can’t help but see the glory of Jesus Christ.
I want to close with a story about some college students who participated in a
Baptist campus ministry at Marshall University in Huntington, WV, last year, the
students were challenged to receive an offering in response to their learning
more about the global sex trade.
They heard about the way in which both men and women are traded like livestock
in some parts of the world. One way of getting someone out of a situation in
which they are enslaved for this purpose is to purchase that person’s freedom
from the slave owner. The offering collected by these college students would be
used to buy the freedom of a woman that had been enslaved into prostitution.
College students are believed to have little or no disposable income. These
students were not asked to do a fundraiser or campaign—they were simply asked to
give what they could to free a woman from slavery.
The 150 students gave what they had, and nearly $1,000 was received (the amount
needed to free the woman). The students did not focus on what they did not
have—they simply responded to God with generous hearts with what they had.
Say what you want, but this freed woman most certainly found that these college
students had obtained the glory of Christ Jesus. She would never think about God
in the same way again.
That’s why we’re here. That’s why we give. That’s why we work so hard around
here. And that’s why we hang on. Next week is pledge Sunday. In preparation for
next week, I want to ask you to look at those cards we sent you in the mail.
Don’t’ fill them out – just look at them.
Those cards will contain a challenge for all of us – they ask us, “Will you hang
on? Will you stand fast? Will you continue the ministry of this church next
year? How have we done in obtaining the glory of Jesus Christ during this past
year? What will the glory of Jesus Christ look like in our community next year?”
Bring them with you next week. And let’s try to answer those questions during
worship next Sunday.