What does the word eternity mean?… eternal, everlasting, evermore, forever?
It fairly easy to give a word definition…its tougher to get our heads around the idea.
What does the word driven mean…?..
If something drives you…that means it: Propels, guides, controls, directs… supplies the motivational force for…
Your car is “driven” …
1) by the power source ( the engine)
2) the steering,
3) and you (the controller…you!). (But driving isn’t limited to cars…)
We, as human being’s are driven as well. There are things inside of us, and outside of us, that propel, guide, control, direct us… Every day of our lives we are propelled along by the things we focus on…the things we consider important.
Over time – the things that “drive us” will literally shape our entire lives!
When I looked for an example of people driven by eternity…it struck me: “There’s no group of people more driven by eternity than the early Church. Why?
Let me try to spin a story… in this case a true one… about what drove…the people in the Early Church.
Jesus’ disciples are shocked! Their world had turned upside-down. For three years they had witnessed leprous stubs grow into fresh new feet, thousands of shekels of food appear out of nothing, and dead people brought back to life! But, six months ago, the momentum in their already insane new life had taken a startling shift, and now for this last six weeks they were, literally, living every moment of their lives in mouth-hanging shock!
The gears shifted last fall when their long-awaited, miracle-working Messiah, had announced that he was going to die! He had slipped it in at the end of a bizarre moment up in Caesarea Philippi standing in front of the pagan ‘gates of hell” grotto, where human beings were daily being sacrificed.
- ‘I will build my church, he had shouted, “The very gates of hell will not stand against it! The “Church,” my Church, he had said, will bind and loose on earth what has already been bound and loosed in heaven. What in the world could that possibly all mean, they wondered? (Matthew 16:18-19)
As if that hadn’t been startling enough for fisherman and tax collector brains to absorb – Jesus began to enlarge the fact… that once they got back down to Jerusalem, he was going to suffer terrible things at the hands of the religious leaders…and then be brutally murdered. (Matthew 16:21) “I will be killed,” Jesus had said, “but on the third day I would rise from the dead.” That last half phrase went right over their heads. It didn’t sink in at all. They were still so mentally absorbed by the “I will be killed” phrase!
Peter tried to challenge Jesus: “No way, Lord,” he had said. “That’s never going to happen to you!” Jesus gave him one of his deep-into-your-soul stares and said “Get away from me, satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things purely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” (Matthew 16:22-23) Everybody else shut their mouths… and tried to make sense out of what seemed senseless.
- Then he died! Jesus died, just as he had predicted! Hundreds of people watched his pale, bloodless, lifeless body being hauled down from the cross, and carefully packed into Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. Lots of people commented on how accurate Jesus’ prophecies about himself had been – nobody dared mention Jesus’ final “rising” line in Caesarea Philippi. To even repeat the line would require faith… and their faith was shattered.
- Then the sun rose Sunday morning! “When the disciples arrived at the tomb” they were greeted by two men, obviously, angels in dazzling robes asking them “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He has risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of sinful men… he will be crucified… but he would rise again on the third day!” (Luke 24: 5-7)
- And then… there he was alive! They saw Jesus with their own eyes, they talked to him, they touched him. His words reached deep into their hearts! The religious leaders had rushed around injecting “spin” about his body being stolen from an obviously empty tomb. But everybody knew it was a lie… because every personwho lived in and around Jerusalem had some friend or relative over the next five weeks who had literally seen, and heard, and touched the resurrected Jesus!
During Jesus’ last post-resurrection forty days on earth, He had hammered several eternal truths into his Follower’s minds:
- Remember, I told you I was going to die, paying the sin debt of the whole world, did I? Yes, Jesus, yes you did!
- Remember I told you I was going to rise again after three days. Did I? Yes Jesus, we lost sight of that with you being murdered, and all. Besides, what do we know about resurrections – the only three people we ever saw die and come back to life, were raised… from the dead… by you, Jesus!
- Jesus replied. I know how difficult it is for you to get your heads around things that you’ve never seen happen before, but I need to make sure you get this next part right, because I’m challenging you to teach it to thousands, even millions, of my followers: I AM GOING TO LEAVE YOU – BUT I WILL BE BACK!
- If you missed the part about me rising from the dead, I’m sure you missed the part about my eventual “Second Coming.” There can’t be a “Second Coming” unless I leave you after my “First Coming!” I realize that doesn’t fit your preconceived thoughts any more than my death and resurrection did, so let me reinforce what I tried to tell you all just last month” “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. There is more than enough room in my Father’s house. If this were not so, would I have told you that I going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you so that you will always be with me where I am. (John 14:1-3) “Do you understand this?” “No, No we don’t!”
Five weeks later, the Followers find themselves on a ledge of rock with some of the same dazzling angels. As they stare in disbelief, Jesus lifts up off the planet. The disciple’s mouths fall open a little wider. They keep staring until his body disappears into the clouds. The “dazzlers” seem to have yet more to say. It will set the stage for the rest of the Disciples lives.
As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!” (Acts 1:10-11)
What was driving these people?
- Four choices: 1) Yesterday, 2) Today, 3) Tomorrow, 4) Eternity
- Those are the same four choices that drive each of our lives yet today
As far as the Early Church was concerned…were they driven by:
1) Yesterday? – Yeah, to the degree that they remembered Jesus life and words… (I wrote about that part, but that’s not for here today) but only in that it pointed them forward.
2) Today? (No- intense persecution!
3) Tomorrow? Yes in that they were expecting Jesus to return, just “as they saw him go” but they also knew that Jesus, himself, had predicted in Matthew 24:
- 2) Do you see all these buildings? I tell you the truth, they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”
- 5) Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many.
- 6) You will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately.
- 7) Nations will be at war, there will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world
- 8) My followers will be arrested, persecuted, and killed
- 10-11) Many will turn away, false prophets will rise
- 12) Sin will be rampant everywhere, the love of many will grow cold?
- 14) The Good News about my Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come!
They knew all this stuff… they studied it every day of their lives. The Early Church was riveted by every one of these facts, and so many more – but their attention was always pulled to the “grand finale” of Jesus’ last message:
30) And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory….
But then something had to come after all of that… that’s why the Early Church was so electrified when they got the book of Revelation… Jesus Unveiled their future. Jesus’ Second Coming was not the end of the line…
There was more in their future than even just Jesus’ Triumphant Return – Something the Bible calls… Eternity!
So… back to the four choices of what “drove the First Century Church.” Which of these do you think it was?
-
- Before they got the book of Revelation they weren’t yet sure. They didn’t know what would bring the chokehold of sin crashing to an end. They didn’t know yet that satan was going to get his clock-cleaned by the returning Jesus and be finally put into the Abyss… after which all sin and evil doers, and even the curse itself will be purged forever off this planet!
- But once they found all these things out…and so many more… what do you think drove them to rush right into the face of persecution and death…to take the Gospel message to the ends of the earth?
- ETERNITY!
