Community Baptist Church
November 30 2025

      • Isaiah 2:3–4NLT

      • Romans 13:14HCSB

  • O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
  • Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus

      • Psalm 122HCSB

  • It Is Well with My Soul

      • Isaiah 61:1HCSB

  • In Christ Alone

      • Matthew 24:37–44HCSB

  • It’s That Time…Again

    It’s that time of the year and Andy Williams continues to remind us
    It’s the most wonderful time of the year
    With the kids jingle belling
    And everyone telling you be of good cheer It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
    It’s the hap-happiest season of all With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings
    When friends come to call It’s the hap-happiest season of all.
    There’ll be parties for hosting Marshmallows for toasting And caroling out in the snow There’ll be scary ghost stories And tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago
    One challenge for most of us is sorting out the difference between our traditions
    and the reality and significance of Jesus’ coming to this earth to enact God’s grand rescue plan to restore and reclaim humanity,
    Andreas J Kostenberger & Alexander E. Stewart The First Days of Jesus: The Story of the Incarnation (Wheaton, ILL.: Crossway, 2015), p 18.
    Before getting into Jesus’ promise in Matthew we can find two clues in Luke’s recounting of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus.
    A. A Throne Awaits
    Luke 1:31–33 HCSB
    Now listen: You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.
    This Jesus whose birth is the focal point of Christmas is destined for a throne - unlike any other ever known to humans!
    B. The Great Reversal
    Luke 1:51–55 HCSB
    He has done a mighty deed with His arm; He has scattered the proud because of the thoughts of their hearts; He has toppled the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly. He has satisfied the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. He has helped His servant Israel, mindful of His mercy, just as He spoke to our ancestors, to Abraham and his descendants forever.
    Mary’s response to the angel’s description of the baby to be conceived by the Holy Spirit, highlights that which God will do - reversing the curse that sin has destroyed.
    Some thirty three years later Jesus has left the Temple - for the last time (see Matt 23:37-24:1). He and His followers are sitting somewhere overlooking Jerusalem to the west. The entire section, beginning of Matthew 24-25 takes place in this location, thus often called ‘The Olivet Discourse.’
    A question from one of the disciples prompted this long section of teaching from Jesus.
    Matthew 24:3–4 HCSB
    While He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached Him privately and said, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what is the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?” Then Jesus replied to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you.
    Towards the end of the first section of Jesus’ words we hear Him say
    Matthew 24:36–44 HCSB
    “Now concerning that day and hour no one knows—neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son —except the Father only. As the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. For in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah boarded the ark. They didn’t know until the flood came and swept them all away. So this is the way the coming of the Son of Man will be: Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and one left. Therefore be alert, since you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. But know this: If the homeowner had known what time the thief was coming, he would have stayed alert and not let his house be broken into. This is why you also must be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

    HOPE: The Promise of the Father

    Jesus’s disciples - even in 2025 - want to know: WHEN?
    When is Jesus coming? What day, what hour will these events occur?
    Micheal Wear, a public intellectual in today’s Washington DC, writes:
    There are two dominant conceptions of hope in modern Western thought: the hope of human progress and religious hope, and specifically to our interest here, Christian hope.
    Wear, Michael R.. Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House About the Future of Faith in America (p. 194). (Function). Kindle Edition.
    Christian hope is rooted in who God is, His nature, His character. Jesus reveals a clue here in vs 36 by reminding His followers that some things are beyond our needing to know. We have to trust God. He has a plan, He is working His plan. Instead of obsessing about the details, accept that there are some things He knows that we don’t.

    HOPE: The Daily Pattern of Life

    Jesus draws from oan OT illustration - the days of Noah. Even after watching Noah build a monstrosity called an ark, even after listening to Noah preach for 100 years, people simply went about their lives as though nothing had changed.
    From their point of view, life continued as it had for generations.
    From God’s point of view, life was delicate, fragile, and soon to end for most of His creation.
    Noah and his family certainly lived in an expectation of God’s promised action. Those around them lived in a denial that God could or would take drastic action.
    I’m reminded of something Peter counseled those reading his letters:
    1 Peter 3:15 HCSB
    but honor the Messiah as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

    HOPE: Living In Anticipation

    Finally, Jesus reminds His listeners that hope that is rooted in God’s character, hope that sustains day to day life, is always be prepared.
    I don’t know for fact, but I doubt the Boy Scouts gleaned their motto from this passage, but its as good a guess as any!
    This, however, is Jesus’ instruction to all who live in hope:
    BE PREPARED

    REFLECT AND RESPOND

    This passage - as an introduction to Advent, also known as the Christmas season - struck me as a little odd.
    Advent is a form of the Latin word, adventus, which means ‘coming.’ As used in early Christian history ‘advent’ referred to the return of Christ - expressed in a Greek word, parousia - which is the word the disciples used in asking Jesus the question in Matthew 24:3 “While He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached Him privately and said, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what is the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?””
    If this is the most wonderful time of the year…

      • Luke 1:31–33HCSB

      • Luke 1:51–55HCSB

      • Matthew 24:3–4HCSB

      • Matthew 24:36–44HCSB

      • 1 Peter 3:15HCSB

      • Isaiah 11:10HCSB

Community Baptist Church
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5416799569
http://www.winstoncommunitybaptist.com
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