27th December 2024

27th December 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Titus 2:11-14)


Message (Alan Burke)


Did you get what you wanted? Did you eat too much? I suspect there are many of us who were left disappointed and who ate far too much but now that it is all over what is your focus? Getting the belly off? Being good all year so you might get what you actually wanted next year and not another pair of socks and a toothbrush. For we as believers our focus should be on something else, for Christ has come and he is coming again, our focus should beyond this life to the hope of Christ’s return that will drive us onward, to holiness. His first appearance is one that is based on a historical event and his second appearance is a prophetic hope for the believer and we are to live in response to that hope, we look expectantly forward to what will be when Christ returns because for the believer there great hope, if we fall asleep before the second appearance of our Lord as many have we at our death are made perfect in holiness, immediately passing into glory, but our bodies being united to Christ rest until the resurrection where they will be raised up in glory, where we shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God, to all eternity. (WSC 37&38). 


All of this is based on he who v14, gave himself up for us, to redeem us. The first advent Jesus came to redeem us from all wickedness, lawlessness, iniquity, however it is translated before you, Jesus has redeemed a people for himself, and we in this life live in response to who he is, what he has done, and what he will come to do. The first advent speaks of God himself who has come to us, Immanuel, God with us, the promised one whom was promised of old to save their people from their sins. The second advent speaks of how the Lord will come again to fulfil the promises that he has made, destroying the final enemy bringing his people into the new heaven and the new earth a kingdom that shall never end that the first advent had brought about. But he is coming again and will receive a people to himself.


Knowing that he is coming again, that what we celebrate at Christmas is not one advent but two, how it is not only his coming but his coming again helps us for we we live as those with hope. In the midst of hardship, failure, what ever it may be the hope of the second advent, the coming of Christ will enable us to go forward knowing that this will not be it that there is something better that awaits for us. This matters because in a world of darkness, where we see mans inhumanity to man our hope needs to be lifted from the first advent to the second advent, it should be the coming of the Lord Jesus for the second time that we long for, for this world is far from how we would want it or desire it to be, where many of us were left disappointed, how the indulgence we partook in added a few pounds to the waistline, it is a time that has left the bank balance in a shocking state, where marriages are stressed, family politics abound, where we realise that we are getting older, but we look to the hope that we have in the advents of Christ, the first advent based on a historical event and the second advent based on a prophetic hope. 


A hope that means that these days will be long forgotten by God’s people. Remember Jesus’ words before the crucifixion as he comforted his disciples in the upper room said to them “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” He is coming back so that we may be with him (Jn 14:3)


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q72 What is forbidden in the seventh commandment?
A. The seventh commandment forbiddeth all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions.
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