Series: Celebrate Christmas (or Christmas Doubt) Week 3: I Doubt He Is Coming Back
Odds of a 3-peat. Many doubt that Jesus will deliver on a supernatural 3-peat.
TRUTH: Jesus is coming, He is coming back, and He’s coming back again … bet on the 3-peat.
300+ prophecies have been delivered by God ahead of Jesus coming and applying to multiple seasons of His life so that we would know it is a divine hand, not human chance.
Jesus is coming. That’s what prophecy told us: Bethlehem, Egypt, Ramah, and Nazareth point to signs that this is the King.
When God prophecies, it happens. And He said the Messiah will come. Merry Christmas, and He came.
2-Peat: He’s coming back. He came the first time at Christmas. But when He came, it wasn’t to set a holiday. He came to give his life and to rise again. The world says He isn’t who He says is, and they doubt it. Jesus told His disciples several times they’re going to take my life and bury me, but I’m coming back. In Matthew 12:40 … Matthew 16: 21 … Matthew 17:22 … Matthew 20:17-19 … Matthew 26:31 … Even Thomas doubted. In John 20, John records the moment when Thomas doubted.
Nothing costs so much as unbelief. There are things that God wants to do in your life, in my life that He cannot do, He’s not free to do, because of our unbelief.
In Luke 4, Jesus comes back to Nazareth … Isaiah 61. His hometown doesn’t believe Him. He’s been performing healings and changing lives and transforming people all around, but in Nazareth … They got used to treating Jesus as a commoner and they wouldn’t let Him grow up. We still do that, don’t we? You can let fear and unbelief take over and it unravels you and it limits what God can do and desires to do.
There are simply no remotely plausible explanations for all the evidence of the resurrection except admitting that it occurred. Here’s what God’s telling us. Jesus is coming, Merry Christmas—He did. Jesus is coming back—the Resurrection, and He did.
And Jesus is coming back again. 2 Peter 3:2-9
This is the heart of God. It’s not God’s heart to bring an end to the world and people be without Him for all of eternity. Know His deep love and compassion for us is that we would have the Christmas gift, the Easter gift of eternal life. And now that you know the end is coming, Peter asks how should you live? 2 Peter 3:11.
Peter asked the question if you know the end is coming, if you know Jesus is coming back, how should you live? The world says you should live like fools. Yolo, you only live once.
Peter responds, you ought to live holy and godly lives. Don’t live like a fool if the end is coming. Live wise. You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed it’s coming.
Peter is putting a telescope on the end times. What does a telescope do? Telescope takes things far away and it magnifies them. But we’re at risk of turning the telescope around. And what happens when you turn the telescope around and you look from the other end? It minimizes everything on that end.
We live in a world that says party like there’s no tomorrow as if there’s no heaven, no hell and no hope. Peter’s telling us turn the telescope back around and magnify… Eternity. Get things right in your life.
How about you? What are you magnifying? And what are you minimizing in your life? Peter would say get your telescope right. Bet on Jesus’ 3-peat. He’s coming back. What are you betting on? Peter would remind us to bet on Jesus.
How should you live? How do you live? Wise or foolish? And do you need to turn the telescope around?