If you would turn to Luke chapter 17, and our text this morning is found there in Luke 17 verses 20 through 37. Luke 17 verses 20 through 37. Hear the word of the Lord. Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed. Nor will they say, Look, here it is, or there. For behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. And he said to the disciples, The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, Look there or look here. Do not go out or follow them. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. So will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let the one who is on the housetop with his goods in the house not come down to take them away. And likewise, let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken and the other left. And they said to him, where, Lord? He said to them, where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father God, we thank you for your word and God, we need Your grace to change us as your people. God, we know that at the beginning of our lives in Christ, as we put our faith in Him, that we were born again and that there was a fundamental change in us, a new nature. And yet God, this world in which we live, constantly seeks to mold us and shape us after its own image. We feel the pull to think and to act in ways that are consistent, not with your kingdom, but with the kingdom of this world. To prioritize earth rather than heaven. And God, we pray that this morning that if you would be pleased to help us be heavenly minded and to have the right perspective as we look back and forward to what matters in our own past and in the future that is to come, that we would have a Christian worldview and perspective that would help us to live faithfully in this world. We would be grateful if you would do this, and we pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen. It is a unique feature of the human experience that we are aware of more than the present moment. You know that there are certain animals that live sort of notoriously in the moment. goldfish, you know. There's nothing but the present moment. There's just this very short attention span, memory. There are certain people that may seem to have less of an awareness of anything outside of the present moment, but in general, it is something that is natural to the human to be aware of more than the present moment. We live in the present, but we have a historical consciousness. We remember and we record so that people coming after us will know what took place before. And for many people, the past shapes our present lives in profound ways. This couldn't really be said necessarily of a of any other creature, but a human can recall, they can remember, they can live their lives on the basis of even experiences that they themselves have not had, but have only read about, and they can learn from the past, and this shapes our lives in the present in profound ways. And even when we think of just our personal experiences and past history, trauma, mistakes, loss on the one hand, And on the other hand, happy memories, defining moments, and so on. What's in our past definitely affects how we live in the present. And the same could be said, in a sense, of our future. We are historically aware, but also future oriented. We have goals. We have hoped for outcomes. Intense longing in our hearts that pulls us forward towards what we would like to be our future reality. And so of all creatures, humans are deeply affected by, always, the things that they have experienced in the past or that have happened in the past that affect us, even indirectly, and then also the future. We have a sense that there will be a future and that we might have a better or worse future, that our actions now might affect the outcome. And for Christians, this sense of being caught between the past and the future is defined by our relationship to Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. Everything for us is shaped by the historical reality of the incarnation, the life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and session of Jesus Christ. Who the Son of God became and what he accomplished for us and for our salvation, it means everything to us. It's impossible to live faithfully as a Christian without a historical awareness of Jesus. And of course, there is a present reality of Jesus' work in our lives now. And we come to sort of benefit from the work of Christ as redemption, which was accomplished long ago in the midst of Christ's His first coming as that redemption is applied to us by God's Spirit here and now. So there is a present awareness of Christ and the benefits of salvation. But as a Christian, all of this is based on this fundamental historical reality of who Jesus was and what He did. It's the first thing that we teach people. And if we want to evangelize, there's no evangelism without teaching who Jesus is and what he did. You have to begin with, well, let's start with who Jesus is. We have to think about the meaning of the cross, what it means that Jesus did this thing in time. So there's this history and it matters profoundly. Some people try to define themselves by and to identify with their own traumatic experiences and sufferings, but Christians will not, while not discounting those realities, identify rather with the sufferings of Christ and identify themselves in relation to Him and what He has done on their behalf. That's the defining reality. In spite of all these other things that mark us, and characterize our own personal history. We choose rather to think of Christ and to identify with him. That's what it means that we have faith in him. is that through faith in Christ, through a trust, through a confidence in Him as we entrust ourselves to Him, we come to be united with Him and then to be identified forevermore as part of His body, as one among His people, as the recipient of His grace. And this overshadows anything else that we may experience and is our defining reality. but we too have a future orientation as we look ahead to the completion of the work in us that Jesus has begun and to the consummation of his kingdom which was initiated during the time of his first advent. Thinking rightly about the past, present, and future is essential to Christian faithfulness and this is the perspective that Christ gives his disciples in our text this morning. Here, the entire teaching that we find in this section is precipitated by the question that Jesus is asked in verse 20 by the Pharisees. What we read here is that they asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come. You have to understand that from their perspective, we sometimes hear the kingdom of God and we immediately spiritualize that. So all that that means is it means something internal It's an internal and spiritual reality for us. It's not, you know, if someone were to say, oh, kingdom of God, where is, is there a throne? Is there a city? Is there a military? We think, well, of course not, it's ridiculous. It doesn't have an external, outward manifestation. It's just, we're talking about the fact that God rules in my heart. That's the kingdom of God. And of course, that's true. But for the Jewish people, they had a promise that goes all the way back to the Old Testament when God made promises to David in 2 Samuel that David may not see the completion of the temple in his day, that his throne would not be eternal. That because of his sin, because of the bloodshed that characterized his life and his reign, that he was not going to be, although he was anointed as Israel's king, he would not be the anointed one. The king of kings, the king whose kingdom would know no end. who would bring a perfect and lasting peace and all of these things. But God did promise him that one from among his descendants would be the king to come, who would be on an eternal throne, whose kingdom would know no end, who would bring about not just a measure of peace, but would bring about perfect peace. and justice and righteousness and so they were anticipating that maybe if it wasn't David maybe it would be Solomon and then when it was clear that it was not Solomon maybe it was his son and on and on until eventually it was just a distant hope and a hope for reality but they in the future knew that God was going to make good on his promise to send not just another king but the king, the Messiah, the Christ That's what they're talking about. When is that going to happen? When are we going to be done with imperfect justice? When are we going to be out from under oppression? When will we know the reign of God in its perfect manifestation on earth as it is in heaven? It's a good question because we have to ask the same thing ourselves. Knowing everything that we know about the Bible and Christian teaching, I mean, is it not a part of our experience to be a little bit discontent with life in this world? This is the way the Bible talks about our experience now in relation to the future, is there's a sense of discontent. We are discontent with our experience of sin. We thought we were done with that. And of course, the controlling power and influence of sin was decisively broken when we were born again. Nevertheless, there is indwelling sin. We still have that trouble. We have to fight against sin. And it's a continual struggle for all Christians. And that leaves us saying things like, Maranatha, come Jesus, and come quickly. And we have Paul who's saying, to live as Christ, I know that there's good work to be done here on earth, but to die is gain, Paul will say. He can't wait to go on and to be rid of this body of death and to be with Christ in glory. There's a future reality that he awaits with some sense of anticipation. All Christians, I think, feel this. We're ready, we're weary of this world. At times we're very weary of our sin and our troubles. There's that old gospel song that I listen to a lot on Sunday mornings. I have a southern gospel playlist that I like to listen to. And it's, we'll soon be done with troubles and trials. If you know the song I'm talking about. We'll soon be done with troubles and trials. That's sort of this longing. expressed in song for a day when we'll be done with these things that we face. And so this is what the Pharisees are asking for. There may be some confusion in their minds, but nevertheless we can sympathize with their concern, and Jesus answers them. It may not be exactly the answer that they were looking for, but he does answer them. And first, As he answers them in our passage in verses 20 through 37 of Luke chapter 17, first we are taught the presence of the kingdom in verses 20 and 21. Jesus answers them, the kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed. Nor will they say, look here it is or there. They're expecting that the kingdom of God will first come in this usual way, this expected way. What is the way that we expect something like this to happen? Well, if it's anything like the way that any kingdom, any new political situation materializes, there's going to be a revolution. There's going to be a show of force. There's going to be a political party that gathers power or some charismatic figure who comes on the scene. And everything changes as they bring to pass immediately and powerfully this visible change that's manifest. And Jesus says it's not going to be like that. It's not going to come in ways that can be observed. Now, eventually, when he describes the coming of the kingdom and its fullness and power, you realize, well, in the end, it will be observable. And when the kingdom is sort of consummated, when Jesus comes again to establish it fully, yes, there's going to be a manifestation of the kingdom. It's not just going to be internal and spiritual, it's going to be physical, and there's going to be armies, and there's going to be an administration of justice. There will be an actual kingdom in the way that we think of these things. But the coming of it, the initial manifestation of the kingdom of God is not like that, Jesus says. And then he says in verse 21, 4, why is this the case? He says, Behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. Some of the older translations will translate this, and maybe if you have a footnote in your Bible, it says here... Actually, my Bible doesn't have a footnote for this. Oh, it does. Within you. or within your grasp, the kingdom of God is within you. So some people have understood this to mean that first of all the kingdom of God is within us, spiritually speaking, and somehow it takes up residence in our own hearts. Certainly that could be the case. Although the Bible doesn't really talk in this way, when you read about the kingdom of God, never does the Bible say that God's kingdom, outside of perhaps if we interpret it in this way, this one verse, does it say the kingdom of God is something that is within us, but rather that we are in the kingdom of God, that we are brought within the kingdom of Not that the kingdom is within us, necessarily. I think the meaning of this verse, 21, the kingdom of God is, as it could be translated, in the midst of you, is Jesus' way of drawing attention to himself. After all, he is talking to Pharisees. So if we do think about this, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for Jesus to say to the Pharisees, the ones who by and large have rejected him, and his claims at divinity to be the Messiah, for him to tell them that God's kingdom is within your hearts. Of course, in no way within their hearts, nor are they included in the kingdom of God. Nevertheless, the kingdom of God is in their midst in the sense that the kingdom is embodied in the king. Wherever the king is, there the kingdom is. And so we have the coming of the King, if not the coming of the Kingdom of God in its fullness, we have it being initiated with the coming of the King. I think this is very significant. This is significant to us because if we would think rightly about the Kingdom of God, We need to understand this is not something that can only be a future hoped for reality. It needs to first be something that we embrace here and now by embracing Jesus here and now. If we're awaiting God to bring the Kingdom of God to pass and to bring about perfect justice and peace and righteousness, but we ourselves have not responded to the King, then we won't be prepared for the coming of the Kingdom of God. It is surely coming. It is surely coming. As we go on, we read this. For example, in verse 23 and following, they will say to you, look there or look here. Do not go out to them. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. And then he goes on even to describe the way, the suddenness of the coming of the kingdom. Describing in terms of, again, lightning in verse 24, using illustrations from the days of Noah, Sodom and Gomorrah to talk about the suddenness of the judgment in those days. And this is to speak of the suddenness of the coming of the kingdom of God. But if you're not prepared for that, it's going to be sudden judgment. And it will be as terrifying for you as it was for those who were not on the ark, who were not with Lot as they fled judgment, but will be like those who were judged. And so we need to recognize the presence of the kingdom in the person of the king and put our faith in him. Well what did his presence represent for those who beheld him in that day? Well it represented a king who was willing to die for the sins of his people. who lived a perfect life of obedience to God's law and died a substitutionary, sacrificial death for his people that they might be given admittance into the kingdom. They might be made citizens. There's one way of thinking about salvation of no person whose sins are unforgiven. who stands under the wrath of God can be admitted into the kingdom of God. And so Jesus was present at this time. He came in the person of a human. man taking on human nature and doing everything that he did in order to welcome people into the kingdom as they trusted the king. And so we see first the presence of the kingdom and the person of the king. Secondly we see the promise of the kingdom. And as we've already read here that Jesus is warning about those who will false prophets and false teachers who will point to a hidden or secret coming of the Lord. He says it'll be manifest, it'll be obvious, it'll be sudden when it comes. And yet there's a promise that Jesus will come again, surely. But in this, there is for believers, as he turns in verse 22 to his disciples, what does his promise entail? Jesus has come in person, in the flesh. The King has arrived, but he's going to come again. He's going to bring the kingdom in its fullness, but what does this promise entail for them? And we see in verse 22, is that it represents for believers, it represents desire. And it ought to result in longing. The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. So he's referring to the time whenever he leaves earth. And before he comes again, we have the promise. And what does that do for us? to know what the future entails for us as believers. What does that do for us here and now? Well, it ought to fill our hearts with longing. This isn't true for everyone. Not everyone looks forward to the coming of the kingdom of God. Some people may fear the coming of God's kingdom. They have a sense that all of their wrongdoing has got to come up against judgment, that they won't be able to get away with it forever, that the shoe is going to drop. But many people just totally ignore or deny the reality of Jesus coming again, and their heart is filled with longing for material things, for life in this earth, and their focus is all on what's here and what's now. But for believers, we're never allowed to become so concerned with the things here on earth that we lose sight of heaven. of the coming of Christ. We ought to have a desire, a longing in our hearts for these things. Look at the warnings he gives and the way that they speak to us of this desire. And it's opposite in verses 26 and following. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark. What we know is that many of them had an opportunity to repent. They had an opportunity to look forward to the coming of God's judgment and to repent because Noah was a preacher of righteousness in his day. And yet rather than heed these warnings and look to the future, they were concerned with the here and now. And it wasn't just debauchery. It was everyday life. It was eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage. But they were so overwhelmingly concerned with a life in this world that they could not be bothered to concern themselves with a life that is to come. And so they desired the wrong things. They desired the wrong things. They did not long for the days of the Son of Man. In verse 28, Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But then we see sudden judgment. The flood came and destroyed them all. On the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. And Jesus says, so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. There'll be many people who, although we have the promise of His coming again, have not cared to be right with the person of the King, whose presence in their midst and whose presence in our lives represents our place, it indicates our place in the Kingdom of God. And rather than long for His coming again, we are concerned, overly concerned with life in this world, and we miss it. We miss what's truly important, and we're unprepared for His coming again. And so, finally, what does Jesus teach here about the kingdom? Well, there is the presence of the kingdom and the person of the king. We had the promise of the kingdom, and in our response, which ought to be one of longing, And then there is thirdly, preparation for the coming of the kingdom of God. And Jesus says here in verse 31, on that day, let the one who is on the housetop with his goods in the house not come down to take them away. And likewise, let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot's wife. He's encouraging us to have a sort of open-handed grasp on the things of this world. It's not that we shouldn't eat or drink obviously or marry and be given in marriage, but it's that we need to have a certain kind of relationship to these things to realize that they're not ultimate, that we're not going to cling to these things. The illustration is like someone who realizes that their house is on fire. It's nothing wrong with loving your house, your home, where you've lived, where you've raised your family with material possessions the Lord has gifted you with that have provided for your needs or filled your life with comforts. We can enjoy these things and give praise to God for them, but when your house is on fire, you don't run back in to gather material possessions for yourselves. You prioritize your life. And in the same way, Jesus is encouraging us to prepare for the life that is to come by not clinging so closely to material possessions that we put ourselves at risk for judgment. Remember Lot's wife, he says, who turned back. Whoever, verse 33, seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. That's how we prepare. By a willingness to lose our present life in order to gain life eternal. Verse 34, I tell you, in that night, there will be two in one bed, one will be taken, the other left. You see, there's a proximity here. There are some in proximity to us who will face a judgment. And it's so striking that two people who can be so closely aligned as they share a bed together, or they work alongside. We have two women who are grinding grain, who are working side by side, and yet one has such care for the present life that they're unprepared for the life that is to come. And in verse 37, they said to him, Will, what's implied here, where would they be taken? And the picture is graphically given at the end of verse 37, it's judgment. Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. I ask you this morning, are you prepared for the coming of the kingdom? Do you live in light of the past and what matters ultimately is Jesus Christ, the King, his presence, his person, Does that define you? Can you identify with Him by faith, trusting in Him alone and not at all in yourself, so that you know for certain where you stand with the King? And if that's the case, then of course you can have confidence for the future. Are you prepared for the future? Do you look forward to and long for the coming of Jesus' kingdom? So that this brief span of time in which we live in this world is enjoyed, we can give thanks to God for the good times, bearing up graciously under hardship, but ultimately, not counting this life as something that's ultimate, that is lasting because it is most definitely not, but looking forward to the life that is to come by trusting in Christ. desiring his coming again. Let's go to him in prayer. Father God we thank you you have revealed your son to us and God we thank you that you have sent the king not to judge your enemies but to first of all extend clemency mercy to offer a pardon against those who are guilty of high treason, and furthermore, to even make an offer of citizenship to those who will trust in Christ, to make us your people, a holy priesthood and nation And God, we thank you that you have been so gracious to us. And we pray that we would live faithfully as your people in this world, as we, God, think rightly about what you have done and have promised to do for us as your people. God, that we would think very carefully about what our identity is. residents ultimately of this world, but as those who are merely passing through, sojourners and strangers who have a better country. And God, we pray that as you've put eternity into our hearts, that our hearts would be filled with a longing for eternity, for eternal life, for heaven, for the one who makes heaven heaven, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. We pray all of this in his name. Amen.