Christ Church Washington D.C.

Our first scripture text today comes from John 3, verse 17. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. And then 1 Corinthians 15, 24-26. Then comes the end, when Jesus delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.

for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. The word of the Lord and thanks be to God. Our Lord and our God, we thank you for your word, Holy Spirit of the living God. We pray that through this proclamation as a people, we will be strengthened, we would be matured and transformed into another degree of glory for the glory of Christ. And it is in his name that we pray.

Amen. Well, today we continue on in our cultural trusses series as I begin my time here as pastor, setting up some structural components that will shape and define and be integral to our life together as Christ’s church. And today we’re going to consider from the scriptures why we, as a church community, have a very optimistic, a surprisingly cheerful eschatology.

And eschatology, if that’s a new word for you, it’s the fancy word…

for the doctrine of end times or end things? Where’s the story headed? What’s the culmination of this story of earth going to look like? And as Christ Church, we have gone all in on hope for the ultimate trajectory for this world, the actual world that we actually live in right now. Or to put it, put a G.K. Chesterton frame around it. He once wrote,

There are two equal and eternal ways of looking at this twilight world of ours. We may see it as the twilight of evening or the twilight of morning.

That is, if you were placed in a moment when the sun’s only half on the horizon and it’s just muted light all around, you’d have to ask, is it dusk, meaning it’s only going to get darker from here, or is it dawn, meaning the story’s trending to a bright horizon?

Well, as a church, we believe it’s the twilight of the morning. More than that, indeed, I’d argue it is a chief ingredient in our happy warrior ethos. That oomph in our song, that hopeful glint in our eye as we labor.

as we labor even amidst a hostile culture, as we labor even amidst the griefs and struggles that the world and our life invariably will bring our way, we remain hopeful with a vigor and an expectation amidst it all. And we do so because Jesus said, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world.

but in order that the world might be saved through him.

We do believe this world will be saved. Now, to be clear, this does not mean we believe everyone will be saved in the world. We are not universalists. We are not all roads lead to God, adamantly so. We are not, it will all work out in the end for everyone. No, judgment is real. Hell is real. It is eternal. People will really be there. However,

Jesus says the world will be saved. Anyone who goes to hell is excluded from this great cosmic salvation that Jesus Christ is inaugurating in the world. Because if the Father sent him into the world to save the world and to not condemn the world, that’s precisely what he will do and is going to do.

or to hit that diamond with light from another angle. Since Jesus told us to pray that the kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven, when you pray, ask God that the kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven, we believe that’s going to happen. Why would he tell us to pray it? Except that he intended to answer that prayer, to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth. Now, you might say,

Well, yeah, but that’s a stretch to think that Jesus meant his kingdom would cover a vast majority of earth ultimately. Maybe some pockets around the world, but certainly he didn’t mean it would quest out through the entire world. Well, that’s not a stretch because that is exactly what he said. Matthew 13, 33. He told them another parable. The kingdom of heaven.

is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until it was all leavened. He also calls the kingdom like a tiny mustard seed, the most tiniest of seeds that ends up questing out through the whole garden until it becomes a tree in the center that joyfully dominates the landscape. So yes,

Jesus did speak this way. He did so explicitly. He did so repeatedly. So I have two goals in this sermon. We can spend an entire series on this. I’m not just this one sermon. Two goals, and it depends on where you are in your eschatological understanding. I know many of you have an optimistic vision of the gospel’s success in the world, what we typically would call post-millennial success.

Though I’m not overly concerned about the label, you can call it post-millennial, you can call it optimistic, amillennial, you can call it inconsistent, premillennial. Call it what you want.

All I want for us is to have a Bible-sized vision of the hope that Christ has put before us through the advancement and the success of his kingdom. If that’s you, my goal is to add wind to your sails, to stir you up by way of reminder, as the Apostle Peter says. But I’d have to imagine that there are some who are not there, who actually expect things to get darker and darker, with the elect being airlifted to safety as the sulfur starts raining down, and that a very small crew.

If that’s you, first, we are most glad that you are here and you are most welcome and we are in full fellowship together. This is not a primary doctrine. It’s an important one, but it’s not primary. But my goal is not so much to convince you. That’ll probably take more than one sermon. My goal is more modest. I simply want to challenge some assumptions that you might not realize you have held in

It could be because you inherited your eschatology more from the Left Behind series than the full scope of Scripture. And so I hope to perhaps provoke some curiosity in you. I hope that after this sermon, you will say, as some said to the Apostle Paul after the Areopagus, I will hear you again about this. That’s my goal for you. So you can listen in without feeling like this is a hard sell, though I do want you to believe it.

Okay, so why the optimistic thrust in our eschatology? Many ways we could go with this. I want to consider two glorious truths from Scripture that are absolutely foundational to grasping this, to seeing this from the text. There are more. These are the two that I chose. We are abounding in hope for this world, first, because of the abasement of Satan.

Because of the abasement of Satan. Second, because of the ascension of Christ. Because of the ascension of Christ. First, the abasement of Satan. Or we could call this the other thing the cross accomplished.

First, we know that on the cross, Christ became the propitiation for our sins. He absorbed the wrath that our sin had occurred. He drank it to the dregs. He exhausted it so that a just God could grant us full pardon while maintaining his justice.

The glorious phrase that Paul uses, he is both the just and the justifier. It is through the cross that he became that. He is the one who justified us by dying in our place and he maintained his justice.

by punishing and judging sin and evil as it must be if God would maintain his justice. So because of the cross, we have full assurance of our forgiveness because Jesus dealt with our sin problem. But our sin, our sin is not the only thing the cross dealt a blow against.

On the cross, Christ dealt Satan a mortal blow as well. On the cross, Christ dethroned him as the usurping prince over this world. See, there are many in the church, there

They downplay their own sinfulness, very much upplay the power and authority of Satan in the world, and functionally see him still as the ruler over the fallen world. But he’s not. He is not presently. He was, for a time, all under God’s sovereign power, the prince of this world. But on the cross, Christ deposed Satan. He cast him down from the stolen throne that he had usurped from Adam and Eve.

This is a vital and a clear teaching of Scripture that ought not be obscured. So I want to make sure you see this straight from the text. First, multiple times, as Jesus is seeing the shadow of the cross coming closer and closer to this, He made this very point, John 12, 31-32, just a few days before the cross.

Now is the judgment of the world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out. He will be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all peoples to myself.

Through the cross, the current ruler of this world cast out. I’m lifted up. I will draw all peoples to myself. John 16, 11. He says he won’t be speaking to them much more, but is going to the cross so that the ruler of this world would be judged. So that the ruler of this world would be judged. Matthew 12, 29 says,

Our Lord speaks of the binding of the strong man, namely Satan, that he may go and plunder his goods now, reclaim the world for God. Colossians 2.15, Paul says that on the cross…

Follow this closely. On the cross, God disarmed the rulers and authorities, and he put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Christ. You are not still in control of something if you have been triumphed over and put to open shame as the formal ruler.

Hebrews 2.14, it says, Jesus partook of flesh and blood that through death, obviously the cross, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil. I’m not adding that to it. That’s what the writer of Hebrews says. In case you missed it, Jesus died to destroy the power the devil had as he wielded death in

in the world. This was the genius behind the cross. Satan thought the cross would be the destruction of Jesus. That’s why he entered into Judas. That’s why he had him betrayed. But the cross was actually the moment of Christ’s great triumph over the devil. Because through his death, he destroyed the power of death as Satan wielded over humanity.

Like the White Witch in Narnia, she sought to secure her rule over Narnia by killing Asland, when in fact, she was relinquishing her rule over Narnia by killing Asland. As Lewis says through Asland’s voice, though the Witch knew the deep magic, there is a magic deeper still, which she did not know.

Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time, but if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness, the darkness before time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the table would crack, and death itself would start working backwards.

So here Lewis strikes on a great truth that fundamentally altered the reality of the world. Satan’s plotting demise of Jesus was actually the plotting of his own demise. So yes, to be clear, he is still active. He is still a rascal in the world.

Spiritual war is very real. He’s still seeking to destroy and distort and to kill. He still stands opposed to Christ and the church. We get a front row seat to that reality every week, but he’s no longer in charge in any meaningful way at all. He is not the ruling authority. He has no claim on this world like he did, in a sense, before the cross.

So that’s a key to understanding why we are so cheerful about the future. The abasement of Satan. The ruler of this world being cast out because of the work of Jesus Christ. The next truth is this. The ascension of Christ.

the abasement of Satan, and the ascension of Christ. I would argue that the pessimism that pervades many Christians’ expectation about the trajectory of this world is a direct result of

of a lack of emphasis and understanding about the ascension of Christ. What it was, what it is, what it means for us and for the world. See, we talk all the time about the death and the resurrection of Jesus, and right, we should. These are precious, these are central, these are first principles of the gospel. But after Jesus died, he didn’t just rise six feet up, namely to a standing position.

40 days after that, he rose much further up and he ascended back to heaven to take a seat at the right hand of the Father, which is the seat of supreme authority in the cosmos, in the world. Remember what he said to his disciples.

after his resurrection and before his ascension in Matthew 28. And we have to be careful when we read these very familiar texts because we may smuggle in understandings about them because they’re so familiar that actually aren’t what the text says or leads us to understand. So this is one of those. Listen to what he says, Matthew 28, 16 and 18. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. All authority in heaven and now on earth has been given to me. Without authority, go and disciple the nations. So the fact that Jesus says all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, and this is significant,

That means, in a sense, there was an authority he didn’t yet have on earth. You can’t be given something if you didn’t have it, if you already had it before. That’s what we dealt with in the last point. Satan had authority on this earth that he stole from Adam in Eden. And that’s why during his wilderness temptations, when Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, if he would bow down and worship him, what Jesus did not say is,

is you have no authority there, so you can’t even offer them to me. He did not say that.

And rather, instead he said, Scripture says you should only worship God alone. Because in a sense, Satan did have authority that he stole from Adam, but Jesus did not take the bait. He did not take the satanic shortcut to avoid the pain and to leave Satan with any semblance of power. He did it the real way, the hard way, through the cross. That’s why it’s after that where he says, all authority now both in heaven and on earth,

is my. This was his authority as the second Adam, the one given dominion over the created world. This was his authority as the greater Joshua to lead his church into the promised land of all the earth. And then he ascended to reign and oversee the success of the Great Commission. Here’s the fundamental question we must ask and answer.

Will King Jesus’ mission to save and redeem the world be successful? Will he accomplish his mission? Will he make his blessings known for as the curse is found, as Isaac Watts would have us declare in the beloved hymn? Or will he save a small minority of humanity before a cataclysmic, fiery end destroys the world?

Well, to ask the question is to answer the question. Of course, Jesus will be successful. Of course, he’ll be successful. Again, there’s many places we could go to add some biblical rebar to reinforce this reality. But I want to focus for a few minutes on Paul’s words to the Corinthian church, which we read at the beginning to do so. So in this section…

Paul’s combating false teachings that’s seeping into the church, a teaching that is rejecting or spiritualizing the physical resurrection of Jesus. There have always been liberal theologians trying to undermine the gospel in the church. And Paul’s explaining to them how the resurrection is the load-bearing doctrine of the gospel.

If you pull the resurrection piece out of the Jenga tower, everything collapses. All of our hope is built on the resurrection of Jesus. This is where he says, if he’s not been raised, we are pitiable folks with a worthless face who might as well party until we die. But of course, he goes on, Jesus has been raised. And so our hope is secure. So that’s the context. That’s what came before. But then from there,

Paul goes on to cast an inspired vision of how the story plays out. And note closely what happens when Christ returns. Again, this is 1 Corinthians 15, 24 through 26. It says, Then comes the end, the eschaton, when Jesus delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.

So Jesus is going to deliver. He is going to give. He’s going to present the kingdom, the great host of redeemed humanity, the church living under his lordship to his father. Now put a pin in that for a moment. Let’s go to Psalm 2 briefly to fill this out some. Specifically, verse 8. This is one of the clearest messianic psalms that traces the reign of the Son.

And the Father says this to the Son. Psalm 2, verse 8, So this is what the Son has requested. This is what he was purchasing on the cross. The nations, the ends of the earth.

And so the rest of human history is the father granting him that request in time and space, giving him the nations, the ends of the earth flooding into the church. He’s not going to shortchange his son. Going back to the first Corinthians text, it says when Jesus returns, he will then offer the kingdom, the nations back to the father.

So the father grants him the nations. Jesus turns around back, offers them back to his father. And then in verse 25 of 1 Corinthians, Paul goes on to say, and here he’s drawing from Psalm 110, for Jesus must reign.

until a very important word until he has put all of his enemies under his feet and then the last enemy to be destroyed will be death so don’t miss this this is huge this is huge for having a industrial strength confidence in the success of the gospel the final enemy that jesus will destroy

will be the enemy of death. So that’s it. After that, no more death in the world. At that moment, the fallen chapter will be sunsetted of human history. New heavens, new earth, fully established, consummated. No more sins, no more tears, no more death.

That’s after the last enemy is destroyed. But notice what Paul says Jesus will accomplish before he destroys the enemy of death itself. He says he will put all of his enemies under his feet on this earth. And note this. This will be primarily through conversion. This will be primarily through repentance and faith in Christ. And we know this because

Because it doesn’t say the nations will be annihilated under his reign.

It says they will become his heritage under his reign. They will be worshiping citizens under his reign. Psalm 22, 27, and 8. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.”

And notably, you may recall, this is the psalm that begins with, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Oh, that is glorious. Jesus, in great agony, shouted those words from the cross amidst his passion.

But while the enemy in that moment may have squealed in wicked delight, thinking he thwarted the promise to Abraham, that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed, oh, how wrong he was. He should have went back and kept reading Psalm 22, for if he had, he would have remembered that deeper magic of what Christ’s passion was purchasing.

of how the cross of Christ would be the bridge between hell and the kingdom of God, through which the ends of the earth would travel and flood in into the new Jerusalem to worship the ascended Christ, whose reign will pervade this whole world. And so, yes, beloved, we have great reason for optimism.

We have great reason for hope as we proclaim the gospel in our day, in our city. We have great reason to be a people brimming with hope as we labor for the Lord. Because as the great Puritan pillar John Owen wrote, the kingdoms and nations are at length to be possessed by the Lord Christ, his sheaf standing up, all others bowing unto.

Though the interest still, Owen, though the interest of Christ in the gospel may seem low and dry for a season, yet in the issue, it shall be exalted above them all. And amen. But Owen hits on one objection to the doctrine of optimism that I want to very briefly address in closing. You might say, well, this all sounds good.

I actually think the scriptural case is moderately compelling, but just look around. Our cultural condition can only be described as a rather impressive dumpster fire at this point. The dignity and the virtue and the courage that defined our founders is in woefully short supply. Our arts are not a bastion of beauty, but celebrate vice and glory and the profane.

Some of our highest judges, those that are supposed to be the most discerning in the land, can’t even judge what a woman is. And our churches seem to exult in immaturity. How can you say the kingdom is making unstoppable strides in the world? And that’s a fair question. The first thing to say is, as Christians, we take our cues on how to read the story, not from our Twitter feeds, but from the Word of God.

And God has said so, as we have seen. That’s the first thing. We ought to spend less time doom-scrolling, more time hope-scrolling in the Scriptures. Secondly, our perspective is wonderfully enhanced when we zoom out and trace the trajectory, not over the last hundred years, but over the last 2,000 years. Think about this. Truly, think about this.

After Jesus rose from the dead, he gave the Great Commission to a handful of ragtag, poorly equipped, under-resourced disciples who were presently under the iron hand of Roman authority. He said, now go and evangelize the entire world. I’m not sure if there’s ever been a mission with worse odds of success on paper. And look what Christ has done in just 2,000 years.

It’s so right in our face that we forget it. It’s crazy what Christ has done. From first century Palestine, the gospel has gone all over the world in just 2,000 years. I was struck by this especially. I did some sermon prep in the main reading room in the Library of Congress this week, and I looked up and I saw scriptures bannering around this glorious dome there. My favorite is over the science pillar.

It declared, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament above proclaims his handiwork. That’s amazing. And we forget. So don’t tell me the gospel has not been successful. Don’t tell me Jesus is not a good victorious king whose kingdom is questing out all over the globe. Do not tell me that. No, Christ’s reign is permeating the globe. Imagine that.

If the apostles could get a glimpse, all of them who lost their head, could get a glimpse of the success of the gospel. Paul, sitting in chains in Rome, is so much more optimistic about the success of Christ than we are, living in America. He’s in chains and saying, can you believe how much we’re winning? Like, we’re winning!

And here we are sipping our lattes, despairing as we send people to the moon and all these things and sit in the main reading room, which is decorated in God’s word. And here’s the incredible thing, beloved. We are church history right now. You are church history right now. We are Christ’s empowered plan A for the expansion of the kingdom another inch in this place and in this time.

Something we might need to reconsider is where we are at in the timeline. It could be when it’s all said and done that we’re actually still part of early church history. Maybe, right? He said his righteousness and faithfulness endures into a thousand generations. Well, generations, 40 years, a thousand, 40,000 years then, right? I know that’s not literal, worth considering. So I’ll just put that stone in your shoe and you can go about your week.

But I will say, let us go forth. I’m all over the place. I don’t even know where I’m at. Let us go forth with great optimism. Let us go forth with great expectation. Let us go forth with great faith and great hope. You want to be truly winsome in the world? Be cheerful. Be optimistic. Be abounding with gratitude for the goodness of God. Be full of hope.

at the expansion of Christ’s kingdom, declare the good news of the kingdom of God, the reign of a risen savior to our neighbors and our nation with great vigor, great faith, and with that happy warrior stride. For, as Revelation 11 says, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Our Lord and our God, we are so thankful for Christ and for his ascension, not just life, death, and resurrection. Yes, all amazing, glorious, essential, but also his ascension. And Holy Spirit of the living God, stoke our shared faith and joy in the gospel and in our expectation of what Christ is doing in our time. Now we would pray the way our Lord taught us to pray.

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