WHAT REALLY MATTERS?
The Holy Spirit is good at getting right to the point. In his Bible that he had human beings copy down, the Holy Spirit doesn’t spend a whole lot of time dramatizing the scene or constructing elaborate sub-plots. He doesn’t waste a whole lot of paper on things that make no difference to the main thrust of the story and he never goes off on tangents. The Holy Spirit is concerned about what really matters. And so when he describes the crucifixion of Jesus, for example, in the book of Mark, he doesn’t get into the gory details of all the blood and the pain and nails and the screaming; all he gives us is a four word sentence: “And they crucified him” (Mark 15:24). And when the Holy Spirit tells us the story of Jesus’ birth in the book of Luke, he doesn’t elaborate on the uncomfortable and unsanitized surroundings of the barn or the length of the labor or how Joseph handled it all with being a first-time dad with no one else around to help him deliver the Son of God himself. All the Holy Spirit says in the middle of a sentence is, “…and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son…” (Luke 2:7). And so it is no surprise to us that when the Holy Spirit talks about Jesus’ 2nd Coming, his return to this earth on Judgment Day, he doesn’t dwell on too many of the details of the Lord’s grand entrance. Instead, he quickly gets straight to the point; the Holy Spirit wants to let us know what the bottom line is, what really matters.
“The Lord Jesus [will be] revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.”
He will come in blazing fire and with his powerful angels! And what else? We want to know more! We want to hear more details about this incredible event because it’s going to be unlike anything we have ever seen or experienced in our life before! What else is going to happen? What exactly is he going to look like in all of his glory? How much of the sky will all those angels fill? There are so many unanswered questions. But that’s not what the Holy Spirit wants us to be concerned about. He wants us to be concerned about what really matters on that Final Day. And so did you miss it? Did you miss what really matters here? The Holy Spirit says through Paul right at the end of our reading, “[Jesus will] be glorified in his holy people and… marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.” That’s the bottom line; that’s what really matters: you will be saved. When Christ comes again - whatever that may look like and however we may react and whenever that may be - you will be saved because you believe in what Jesus had done for your salvation in his life and on that cross and out of that tomb. In the end, there is nothing else that matters. In the end, faith in your Savior is the only thing that’s going to make a difference. In the end, God will grant you eternal life for free… guaranteed.
It’s hard to remember that, though. When you are just going about your day to day life, when you are in the middle of dealing with the difficulties and the problems and the schedules and the headaches, even when you are surrounded by the joys and the blessings of this life, it’s sometimes hard to remember what really matters. Our minds aren’t always focused on that one Day of Judgment because, quite frankly, we’ve been waiting for it now for quite a while and it hasn’t come yet and it doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to come in our lifetime and we have a lot on our plate to deal with right now anyway... And so instead of being driven by the joy of heaven on Judgment Day we are driven by what we can get in this world in the meantime and what we can enjoy tomorrow and what we can hold on to if we already have it. And when we start to lose sight of what really matters: faith in our Savior and the inheritance God will give us on the Last Day, suddenly those trivial and minor things in this life are really important to us. That day off at the end of the week starts to really matter a lot to you and you’re going to be angry if you can’t enjoy it in the way you intend to. And those couple stock market points really matter a lot to you because you don’t know how your retirement will go without them. And watching your favorite tv show really matters a lot to you and visiting that good friend this Thursday really matters a lot to you and that one thing that this one person said really matters a lot to you and that stain on the carpet really matters a lot to you…
Does that stain on the carpet really matter? Does that one thing that one person said really matter? Does the chance to visit your friend or watching that tv show or those few stock market points or that day off really matter in the end? Sometimes we lose our perspective. Sometimes we lose sight of Jesus’ grand entrance on Judgment Day and the salvation he is going to give to us who believe in him because we are too busy looking down at each one of our steps in the meantime. And that’s not a good thing. The Lord doesn’t want you to lose track of his promises. He doesn’t want you to become so enamored in this earthly life that you become angry and upset and frustrated and concerned and stressed out about things that don’t really matter.
Here is the only thing that really matters: on the final day the Lord will come with his mighty angels in blazing fire. And when he comes he will send those who do not believe in his gospel to hell; and he will bring those who do believe in the Bible’s testimony about him to heaven. That means you will be forgiven of all those mistakes you have made, not judged. You will be pardoned of all those sins you have committed, not sentenced. You will be released from all of those errors that are attached to your name; you will not be held accountable. Because what Christ did on that cross outside of Jerusalem will be finalized by what Christ does on that throne coming on the clouds. He will make the final decision about your eternal welfare not based on what you have done in this life, but on what he has done for you in his death. Judgment Day is the day you will finally receive all of the blessings made possible by that Good Friday and Easter Sunday weekend. Judgment Day is the day your salvation will be official and forever. Judgment Day is the day when God’s last and greatest promise to you will be fulfilled. That is what really matters.
And if that is what really matters, what should your life on this earth look like while you wait for that day to come? What should your motivation be to work the way you work and strive for what you strive for and say the things you say and how you say them? What should be the reason for the decisions you make or even the options you consider? Should you be driven by what can make you happy in this life or how many things you can get or what kinds of things you can accomplish? Or should you be driven by that one day, that Last Day, and the Savior whom you are going to see and the spiritual health of your faith through which you will be taken home?
And if that’s what really matters, let’s take it a step farther: When things in your life don’t turn out so well, when those things you strive for don’t materialize, when what you work for and long for and enjoy in this life doesn’t happen or it isn’t as great as you thought it was going to be or when the blessings in this life that you love so much are completely lost, then what? At those crucial times and in those difficult situations, what is really going to matter?
When Joseph was sold by his own brothers, falsely accused of attempted rape, and left in prison by a friend who said he would never forget him, what really mattered? Did his freedom matter? Did his good name matter? Did a nice relationship with his brothers matter? Or did his faith in the Lord matter and what his Lord promised to do? When the disciple John saw his brother, James, murdered by Herod, when the Christian Church of John’s day was scattered because of intense persecution, when John himself was exiled to the island of Patmos because of what he believed, what really mattered? Did his release matter? Did a comfortable life as a church leader matter? Did missed opportunities to bond with his brother who was now dead matter? Or did his faith in the Lord matter and what his Lord promised to do? When the congregation in Thessalonica that Paul wrote this letter to was troubled and afflicted by enemies in that town, when they were harassed and surrounded by false prophets, when their own congregation had a bad reputation because there were some people among them who were known as lazy freeloaders, what really mattered? Did their reputation matter? Did an easy life matter? Did pleasant neighbors matter? Or did their faith in their Lord matter and what their Lord promised to do? “God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God,” Paul told this group of Christians. And why would they be counted worthy? “Because you believed our testimony to you [about Christ].” And so you tell me: despite all of the persecutions and all of the troubles that this congregation had to endure, what really mattered in the end?
When I was attending Nebraska Lutheran High School I had a tutor and dorm supervisor there for a couple years who had been assigned from the Seminary. He was then called to serve as a tutor and coach at Martin Luther College at the time I went to school there. He is now a pastor of a congregation in Tennessee. But less than two weeks ago, on October 25th, he and his wife attended the funeral for their own two-year-old daughter. The mother had gone in to wake her daughter up from her nap and she didn’t wake up. What do you think really matters to that pastor and his wife right now? And on a day like today, as they are also celebrating “Last Judgment” Sunday like we are, as they are also singing hymns about heaven and reading about our salvation through faith in Christ, what do you think is on their minds? How to get a nicer house? When they’re going to take their Sunday afternoon walk? If they are going to wash the car this week? What to do with the electric bill they have to pay? Or do you suppose they just might be thinking right now about their baptized daughter in heaven resting in Jesus’ arms and the Lord’s promise to them that they will see her again?
Death sometimes bring things into perspective for us. And the death of a family member can force us take a step back and slow down a bit and consider what really matters. I hope that you have a good handle on what really matters before one of your family members dies. And I pray that the death of Christ himself has already made you take a step back, slow down a bit, and consider what things are the most important. Because that’s what really matters! His death, his resurrection, and his coming again. Look forward to that day. Keep his return in mind. Because as you wait patiently in this life for your Savior to show up in blazing fire with all of his powerful angels, know that when he appears you will be lifted home just as Jesus was lifted up on that cross. You will rest in Paradise just as Jesus rested in that tomb. You will rise to glory just as Jesus rose from the gloom of the grave. In the end, you will live with your Lord forever. In the end, no matter what troubles you’ve had to experience in this life, no matter what difficulties you’ve had to go through, no matter what catastrophes you’ve had to experience, in the end everything is going to end up perfectly. That’s what really matters. And that’s what is going to happen.
Amen.
“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come Lord Jesus.” - Rev. 22:20
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