The Five Reasons For Christ's First Coming

We're currently, again as Dr. Ward mentioned in the announcements, we're currently in that season of the year when he read the scripture from the bulletin, a Passover-related scripture. We are currently full stride on our journey to Ward Passover, and I think it's an ideal time to ask a question, a question that's a meet and do season question. The question is, what were the reasons, plural, for Christ's first coming? Part of our culture, unlike most Christian religions, part of our culture is an automatic acceptance that a first and a second coming are of equal importance. They serve different purposes, but we look as much at the second coming of Christ as we do the first. But how often do we stop and consider the reasons, plural, for his first coming?

You know, as Christ said at his final Passover, we go through each year during our Passover services as we read the scriptures. We go over his conversation with his disciples, and as that conversation moves along, there's a transition point where chapter 16 of John ends and chapter 17 begins. And I've always been impressed by the fact that when chapter 16 ends, he has finished his conversation with his disciples. In chapter 17, they got an extremely rare opportunity because beginning chapter 17, he's talking to his father, and the disciples get to eavesdrop. And that chapter is all his comments directly to his father. And as he begins that chapter, he said, in earshot of his disciples, I finished the work which you've given me to do. What was involved in that work? Today I'll give you a structure and a title and make it very easy to follow. We're going to look at the five reasons for Christ's first coming. The greatest and most obvious we have already alluded to as we have moved into the introduction of this sermon, and I'd like to take you back to John chapter 17, and we will read the scripture that I referenced. As I said to you, John chapter 17 was the transition from conversation with his disciples to a prayer to his father. As verse 1 tells us, Jesus spoke these words, lifted his eyes to heaven and said. And what he said, if you happen to have a red letter edition which makes it easy to follow, took up the entirety of chapter 17 without a break. But it is in verse 4 that he says, I have glorified you on earth. I have finished the work which you have given me to do.

When Christ made that statement to his father, it contained an understood element. It contained the understood element that this was a generalization. When he said, I have finished the work which you have given me to do, he was speaking a generality. He was no longer going to be walking the roads of Judea and Galilee. He was no longer going to be eating and sleeping and traveling with his disciples as followers. That particular part of his task was finished. But the single greatest element of his job was still ahead of him, his death for the sins of all mankind. Less than 24 hours after the Passover meal, on the verge of death, Christ made another statement, and in this case, the statement was literal. If you'll turn a couple of chapters over to John chapter 19. Most people who are familiar with the Passover story in or out of the church are familiar with that point in time with the soldiers, extended to him on a pole, a sponge filled with vinegar which he refused. John chapter 19 gives that account. In John chapter 19 and in verse 28, and after this Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scriptures might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there, and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to his mouth. And so when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And bowing his head, he gave up the spirit or his spirit. At that particular point in time, it was literally done. The primary task which he had just finished can be described with three scriptures, one prior to the job, one looking back on the job, and one describing the effects of the job. John chapter 1, as the book of John begins, gives us a prelude, an introduction, a statement looking forward to a job that was just about to begin. John the Baptist was commissioned and sent to pave the way for Jesus Christ. And in John chapter 1, as John was baptizing in the Jordan River, Jesus Christ approached, and John began to make the segue from his mission to that of Christ. And in verse 29 of John chapter 1, it states that the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The Pharisees had been inquiring of John, are you the one? And they were asking, well, are you Elijah? Are you the one? Are you? And he said, no, no, no. And he said, I'm not really qualified even to unlace the sandals of the one who's coming after me. But now here in verse 29, he points and says, here's the one you've been inquiring about. Here's the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sins of the world. So here's our look, looking forward to the first of the tasks that Christ had. 1 Peter chapter 1 gives us another look. 1 Peter chapter 1, if you would turn to verse 17.

In 1 Peter 1 verse 17 it says, And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to everyone's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your sojourning here in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by traditions from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. So the Apostle Peter, in talking to the scattered people of northern and eastern Asia Minor, was rehearsing this particular role. The sacrifice that was worth more than all the silver and all the gold that you could amass, it was the sacrifice of the blood of a flawless Savior. The last of those scriptures, as we give a framework to the first of Jesus Christ's tasks, is found in Hebrews 10. Here in Hebrews 10, we find the description of the effect of the fulfillment of this particular role. In Hebrews 10, verses 5 through 7 are a citation of multiple scriptures. As the author is writing, he says, Therefore, when he came into the world, he said, and now he begins to quote from the Psalms, Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, you have no pleasure. And then I said, Behold, I have come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do your will, O God. Then after citing those scriptures, the author continues. And this is what he says in verse 10, By that will, this is the will he referred to in verse 7, By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. So as we head toward the Passover season, this is always our focus. We head into that season looking at the sacrifice of Christ. We look at a sacrifice worth more than all the physical treasures of the world. And we look at a sacrifice that is worth so much that it can be given one time, and in that one time cover every sin of every human being, past, present, and future.

Now that we've described the greatest of his tasks, we can ask, What else did he come to do? And I'll try to describe the other four tasks in a logical order. He came to depose the ruler of the world. You know, we can allow ourselves to think that since God is all powerful, he can do anything he wants. And this is true in the sense of his power, but it's not true in the terms of actions. God is the author of law. God lives by the rule of law. God has never been a vigilante. He makes laws, and he expects us to live by those laws, but he also lives by them. This is why on those occasions where God says, I can't swear by anything greater than myself, and because of my integrity, you Israel are not destroyed, it is because of the fact that he lives by his word. In Matthew 4, an event that we're all very, very familiar with, the temptation of Jesus Christ by Satan. By the time we arrive at verse 8, where we're headed right now, Matthew 4, and verse 8, by the time we arrive at verse 8, Satan has already thrown down the gauntlet. Christ has resisted already more. Already he has begun his resistance of the temptations. Satanist I tried twice, without effect. He has saved his trump card for last. And in verse 8, he says, after taking Christ up to a place where, as it says, up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. We obviously know there are no mountains anywhere in the world that are high enough to see all of that. So, now that we live in a day of high technology, and we can see things on screens, and we can speak to all parts of the world by the medium of the airwaves, we can, in our mind's imagination, assume that Satan played him a video, for lack of a better term. He displayed to him all of the best of the best that this world has to offer. And he said to him, all of these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. You know what I've always appreciated by looking at Satan's placing down his trump card before Jesus Christ, was that Jesus Christ never said, well you can't do that. And he didn't say that because he could do that. He had that right. He had that privilege. He had, for that time in history, that authority. So he simply said to him, away with you Satan, for it is written, you shall not worship, or you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. By the fact that he didn't challenge him, he authenticated his offer. I can't offer you this world. I can offer you anything and everything in this world. I can offer it to you as long as you breathe air. And when you stop breathing air, it all vanishes like a vapor, and you've lost everything.

While Satan ruled with permission, he nonetheless ruled only for a period of time.

I think all of us are familiar with 2 Corinthians 4, verse 4. In fact, I think we're familiar enough with it that I don't really even need to turn there. As Paul is talking to the Church of God in Corinth, he simply makes a reference to Satan as the God of this world. He simply acknowledges who he is. He acknowledges his sphere of influence. He acknowledges his authority, and he acknowledges the power that has been for a period of time given to him. Jesus Christ's task that we now look at is the task of deposing the ruler of the world. Let's go back to the period of time approaching the Passover season in John, chapter 12.

We have passed the point in time where Jesus Christ has raised Lazarus from the dead, the ultimate miracle that sealed his fate. The Pharisees now feeling threatened to the degree that they said, if we do not get rid of this individual, his influence and his power could cost us our position under the Roman state. And so his death is a sealed event. In John, chapter 12, he makes his triumphal entry. And we see in John 12, 12, the next day a great multitude that had come to the feast when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went out to meet him and cried, Hozana, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel. As I said, this was an intimidation that simply the leadership of that day and time could not tolerate. As it goes on from there, after the entry, Jesus Christ takes the opportunity to teach. And in verse 23, that teaching begins. Jesus answered them, saying, The hour has come that the Son of man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it, or will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, let him follow me, and where I am there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, him, my father, will honor. So he's giving a number of short statements.

He goes on to verse 27. He says, Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this hour. So he said, this was my job. Do I want to go through it? No. No, absolutely not. But it was the very reason I came. He said, Father, glorify your name. And then a voice came from heaven saying, I have both glorified it, speaking of how Christ had lived, and will glorify it again. So God has glorified both by how Christ lived, and He would be glorified by how He died. Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said, it had thundered. Others said, an angel has spoken to Him. Jesus answered and said, This voice did not come because of me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out, and I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. And so as He headed toward His crucifixion, He made it plain that in the direction that I am moving, there is an inexorable consequence, and it will be the deposing of the ruler of this world.

As we continue on in John to the Passover evening, you know, as Jesus Christ was preparing to die for our sins, it is obvious as we look at His conversations and His teachings that He had more on His mind than one thing. Not that this one thing wasn't great enough to consume all of His thoughts, but He understood the multiple commissions that He would be fulfilling. And so as He spoke to His disciples, He said to them in John 14, He said in verse 29, And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me. You know, there is nothing that Satan would have enjoyed more than to see Christ bail out.

In terms of a victory, it would almost be as great a victory as that third temptation, and Christ saying, I'll take you up on it. In fact, in some regards, I'm not sure that the end result would have been much different. But He said, the ruler of this world has nothing in me. This is not a time. This is a time of confrontation. It is a time where I am accomplishing more than one thing. He went on from there in chapter 16, so that you can see that it stayed on His mind that Passover evening. He said again in chapter 16, beginning in verse 7, He said, I go to my father, and you see me no more, of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

So, as I ask you, what were the reasons for His first coming? Following on the heels of dying for our salvation was deposing the ruler of the world. And as you can see from the snippets of his conversation as he made his triumphal entry, as he sat with his disciples in the early part of his conversations with them, and as he said to them literally just before he stopped talking to them and transitioned to his prayer with his father, he saw his death as moving Satan the adversary into the role of a lame duck, someone who would continue simply because the timeline had been set until his second coming. But he had effectively been removed from office. He was like a president of the United States between the November, the first Tuesday in November, in January, in that remaining basically two months as he continued to hold the title and the power, but with the knowledge that this was simply a function that was going to fulfill a ticking clock and then he would step down and be replaced by the man who had been chosen as his successor. He knew at the time that he said, as we read earlier, it is finished, that he at that point in time would make Satan a lame duck, waiting to be replaced by one qualified to rule for all eternity at his second coming. The third reason Jesus Christ came is part of the core and the fabric of everything we do as a church. It has been in our former life a part of our purpose statement. It is core to our purpose and value and mission statement today. It hasn't been that long ago. I quit putting dates to how long ago things are because every time I do it turns out to be two or three years farther back than I thought it was. But it wasn't that long ago that we spent virtually an entire year inside the United Church of God doing kingdom of God seminars. The third was to announce His kingdom.

You know, we are a kingdom-focused church.

We understand that Jesus Christ's first coming was to pave the way for His second.

That His first coming is the most awesome event in the world up to that time, but it is the precursor to an event unprecedented that will take place at His second coming. If you reflect on Christ's first reason for coming, it was focused on doing, living a sin-free life, and dying sinless. He did. He did the first purpose. His third purpose, coming now to His announcement of the kingdom of God, wasn't something He could do at that time. And so, He spent His time telling.

It's always a remarkable study to go through the beginning of the New Testament and go through the New Testament and see that the focus and the centrality of the New Testament is the proclamation of and the announcement of the coming of the kingdom of God. And while Christ's sacrifice was necessary to God and the Father, they saw that necessity as the precursor to what they were really looking for, bringing many sons to glory. So, as I said, His third purpose wasn't something He could do at that time. It was the very reason the Jews were so disappointed and disowned their Savior. They wanted a deliverer then. They wanted someone to break the yoke of Roman rule. They wanted someone, however they viewed it, however they saw it, they wanted someone to fulfill the messianic prophecies of the major and minor prophets then. I find it interesting every so often when those promises are distorted. I was walking one day out of the bedroom into the bathroom to get ready for the day. And at that point in time, I don't remember why because it hasn't been our custom. We had a little TV in the bedroom and I walked by the TV and there was somebody talking. And all I noticed was it was not a very handsome individual doing the talking. So I walked on by and then I stopped and I said, I know that voice. And I turned back around and walked in. I'm of the generation where one of our teen idols for my generation was Pat Boone. And I stopped because I heard Pat Boone's voice, but I hadn't seen him since he was a young man and he didn't age particularly well. And I stopped and I said, wow! Time has not been necessarily the kindest in the world. But I stopped and listened and he was seeking donations. And if you would give this amount of money, it would affect one person's life. If you gave this amount of money, it would affect two people's lives. And if you gave this amount of money, it would affect a whole family. And the effect was to take Jewish people, individual, couple, or family from Russia and relocate them into the state of Israel. And he was quoting all of the millennial return scriptures as the reason why that money should be given. And I thought, Mr. Boone, going to Israel today is a sorry, sorry, sorry excuse for what God is offering millennials. They're not going to, they're not going somewhere where the lion will lay down with the lamb. They're not going somewhere where swords will be beat into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks and neither will they learn war anymore. My mind went on to scripture after scripture after scripture that he simply didn't understand. And it wasn't the day and it wasn't the time. So among the things that Jesus Christ came to do was to announce the kingdom of God. And I think it would strike all of us to simply go back to the book of Matthew, and I think most of us have already done it. So when I say it would strike us, I think it has already struck us. That as soon as the account of Christ's temptation by Satan is over and he has regained his strength, what is the very first thing you read? The proclamation of the kingdom of God.

That's where he was headed. That's where he was going. He had to go, so to speak, through a bottleneck, the loss of his life, but after that his world would expand. As Isaiah says, it would lead to a kingdom whose expansion would never end.

Revelation 19.

Revelation 19 takes us to the place where what he talked about for three and a half years now moves from talk to action. As I said, for three and a half years he did what he needed to do to fulfill his first role, and that is to live a sinless life. The ability to arrive at crucifixion as the first and only individual ever to live a sin-free life. That's what he spent his three and a half years doing. But he spent that three and a half years telling that he was coming again to bring a kingdom. And in Revelation 19, voila, we arrive. Verse 11, And then I saw heaven open, and behold a white horse. And he who sat on him was called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except himself, and he was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. Obviously at that particular point in time, since we're familiar with that terminology at the beginning of John, John 1-1 and thereafter. And the armies in heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed him on white horses. Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword that with it he would strike the nations, and he himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God, and he has on his robes and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. The first couple of verses of chapter 20 actually merge his second role or the second function with the third function. Then I saw an angel, Revelation 20 in verse 1, and then I saw an angel coming down from heaven having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. And so we see at this particular point in time, in bringing to pass what he proclaimed during his ministry, he also brought completion to the second of his functions, the deposing of the ruler of the world.

You know, God intended that his kingdom should be publicly announced beginning with the ministry of John the Baptist. And so John was preaching the kingdom of God as enthusiastically and as feverishly as Christ did. I'm sure in part that brought about some of the questions from the Pharisees and led also to his saying that I'm simply the forerunner. I'm setting a stage. And once I've set the stage, then I will turn and onto the stage will walk the one who you really need to focus on. And he will continue what I have been saying to you.

When Jesus Christ finished his ministry, the apostles picked up the banner with the same enthusiasm and continued to the very end of the New Testament.

You and I are the current generation's banner carriers and continue to do so, carrying the banner of the proclamation of the coming of the kingdom of God. You and I are not looking at heaven as our reward. We have abandoned however many years or decades ago that God called us into this church, a fear and a belief of a torturous ever-burning hell. We look to the return of Jesus Christ to this earth and we look forward to ruling and reigning with him. The last statement takes us into the fourth of his purposes for coming. And the fourth of those purposes was to prepare a leadership for his coming kingdom. I would at this time, brethren, take you back to a concept that I mentioned earlier when I was talking about deposing Satan and the difference between the power that God has and the power that he exercises. We live in a world that doesn't understand God in the way that I know you do. And so it looks at God almost like a genie, that whatever he says, whatever he wishes, whatever he proclaims, poof, it happens. But God doesn't work that way. When he came, he came as a part of his function. When Jesus Christ came, he came as part of his function to prepare a leadership for the very kingdom that he was proclaiming. So he was proclaiming something that would come with him, but he came to prepare leaders to sit with him. If you depose the present king, you obviously have to have a king to take his place.

It's appropriate that this king should announce his coming and his intentions, and it's further necessary to prepare a leadership corps in advance of the arrival of that kingdom. If you walk through the Old Testament, there are a few key places. Jeremiah chapter 30 is one of them. Two places in Ezekiel are two more of them, where scripture allows us to begin to see, as it were, the hierarchy that Christ intends to install. If I may go sideways a moment, it wasn't that long ago that we were sitting in a Sabbath service, and the speaker at that meeting was referencing with sort of a chin stroke, wondering what all was behind this statement. But there is a statement in Daniel, where Daniel is prayed and fasted for answers, and the angel comes to him and says, I would have been here earlier, but I was I withstood by the prince of Persia, and I had to call in reinforcements, and 20 some days have passed between the time that I started toward you and I arrived here. And you stop and say, whoa, something's being described about a world that is totally and completely beyond human understanding comprehension. In fact, if you hadn't been given that little window into it, you wouldn't even know those things. Logic says that Satan has structure to his government. I'm not surprised there was a prince of Persia. I expect there's a prince of Russia today. I expect there's a prince of China. I expect there are princes all over the place. I expect that all of the hierarchical structure is there under his management, as it would be in any sensible management. When Christ returns, all of that will be replaced by righteousness. One of the windows that we get is in Ezekiel 34.

As I said, I could take you just as easily to Jeremiah 30, which is a millennial scripture. But once we get into this section of the book of Ezekiel, we have entered a millennial focus. In Ezekiel 34, in a section in my particular Bible that begins in chapter 11, talking about the true shepherd, it says beginning in verse 20, Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them, Behold, I myself will judge between the fat and lean sheep, because you have pushed with side and shoulder, butted all the weak ones with your horns, and scattered them abroad. Therefore, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be a prey. And I will judge between sheep and sheep, and I will establish one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, my servant David. He shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David, a prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken.

When the kingdom of God comes, leadership is necessary. Yet he spoke here of one individual by name, and the function and the role that he will have under his God. Matthew chapter 16. No, I'm sorry. Matthew chapter 19.

You know there are places in the Bible that always strike you with a certain amusement. This is one of those because of the candor involved in it.

Peter, we know, was a direct individual, a man of action. And in Matthew chapter 19, one of his actions was to approach Christ and say, look, I've been looking at life.

I've given up everything to follow you. What's in it for me?

Now, you could judge Peter mentally at that point in time for not being necessarily super humble. But he was being realistic. And I would say for every individual who lives a Christian life, there are times in life where you're asking, what are the benefits? So, in verse 27, Peter said to him, he said, look, or see, we, that means all of us, we've left everything and we followed you.

And I use the vernacular today, well, what's in it for us? Now, Jesus didn't scold him and say, well, shame on you for being carnal. You know, there's a reality in life. When you give your whole life, you give your whole effort, you give everything you are to something, you do hope there will be a benefit. Obviously, if you're doing it only for benefit, then you're on the wrong track. But Christ didn't see it wrong in Peter asking, what are the benefits? And so he said assuredly, I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

Here and there in Scripture, we find a few, not very many. It leads to those kind of speculative conversations that are fun to enter, but when it's all over, you sort of smile and you close the Bible and you go on. Because you can ask, well, I wonder what Abraham will be doing? I don't know. I mean, I can't assign to him a particular title. Mr. Stewart was talking about Daniel. I know Daniel has a high, high place in God's kingdom, but I don't know what it is. And so I see all the people in Hebrews 11 whose lives he touched on. And you know, you know these are individuals that God called and prepared, and they will sit in positions of responsibility. We touched on the role of those in the last generation of life. If you saw it, or if your mind went that direction as we cruised through Revelation 20, verses 1 and 2, Jesus Christ came to establish the foundation of leadership for the kingdom that he was announcing. I'm not just announcing a kingdom. I am setting up the necessary structure so that when that kingdom comes, I will have all of the leadership that I need for that kingdom to function well.

And of course, I am talking to part of the leadership right now. It's always interesting, as long as I have been in the Church of God, members in general ask the question, what am I qualified for? And over the years, as I've either been in conversation or I've eavesdropped on conversation, the wheels turn and somebody comes up with, well, this is my vocational training. And maybe I can work in this area in the kingdom because this is how I've spent my life vocationally.

Give you an opinion of that and whatever a cup of coffee costs today will buy you a cup of coffee. But I think God has in store for you much, much greater things than simply being an overseer of whatever vocation you did. Your value was determined and is being determined by Christ and by God the Father in the vein of Mr. Stewart's sermonette, not in how many years you were in this trade or that trade. An attitude and a spirit of faith, a humility, a perseverance. These qualify for jobs that are so much higher than any mechanical job that they don't compare. I'll take you a step sideways even from that with this comment. I remember Mr. Armstrong when I was a young man in Pasadena saying, I did not want a theological seminary when I started Ambassador College. I wanted a liberal arts college. I didn't want people who were trained narrowly only in theology. I wanted them to be trained in life.

I don't know how many times I've seen young men and young women come out of Ambassador College with a liberal arts degree into a vocation where the employer said, I'm not looking for somebody who already has a set opinion on how to do something. I'm looking for somebody I can train, but somebody who has enough breadth that they will give value to the position that I'm training them for. You right now are getting a, for lack of a better term, a religious liberal arts education. You're being trained in faith. You're being trained in patience. You're being trained in brotherly love. You're being trained in perseverance. You're being trained in, and once you're trained in those in God's kingdom, he can put you in all sorts of places.

He started with these 12 who said, what's in it for us? And he said, well, you know, you have been with me day and night, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for over three years. I have sized you all up, and in the regeneration, because of your experience side by side with me, you're going to be quite capable of being over an entire one-twelfth of all of the nations of Israel. Revelation 20.

As I said, there are many offices and responsibilities that will be in that kingdom, and you better believe that God has already figured out what they are, and in his training program has trained accordingly. I misspoke a moment ago when I said if your mind had gone sideways from what I was reading, you would have captured one of them. Actually, that's not true. I read Revelation 20, verses 1 and 2, and in talking about you, it was verse 4.

Judgment is committed. I don't know anyone who is more competent to judge rightly than someone who is schooled in the Word of God and has chosen to live it for a lifetime. What better training can you get? Four years in college, two more years advanced, two more years advanced in internship. I'm looking over a group of people where face after face after face has been here 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years.

Positions are there, and you'll fulfill them. You know, Paul lamented when he talked to Corinth, and Corinth was a new church compared to how long you and I have been in the Church of God, and they were having their squabbles. Again, I don't need to turn there. 1 Corinthians 6, verses 2 and 3, if you want to write down the location. But he's upset with the Corinthian Church because of their squabbles that are going on. And he says, I'm your pastor, but I'm not there. And so, as a congregation, you're having to work some things out yourselves. And he said, I'm not happy with you. Squabble, squabble, squabble, squabble. He says, don't you know that you will judge angels? Can't you figure out some things right now in your congregation? But the little window, you know, as he's telling them, I'm not happy with the fact you can't solve your squabbles inside your congregation. He goes to the, oh, and by the way, and I don't know of any other place that makes that exact same statement, and it's bred a lot of conversations over the years in the Church. He said, don't you know that you will judge the angels? I don't know which angels you and I will judge. I don't know the ultimate consequence of the judgment of angels that we will do. I don't know these things because I haven't found a verse that gives the exact answer to it, but I know one of the functions. You know, here we are. Here we are, puny, physical, air-breathing, 60, 70, 80, 90-year lived beings who, in the biblical record, when any of them happened to see an angel, fell flat on their faces, scared totally out of their wits, who were one day going to judge them.

So we got another window into what Christ was doing. You know when He said, the gates of hell will never prevail against my Church, He was fundamentally saying, the training begins with you 12, and the training is not going to stop. In terms of this role that I came for, I simply came to start the chain of dominoes falling. And that chain of dominoes will not stop falling until the seventh trump blows and I return, and it's time to actually make it happen. The book of Revelation begins by acknowledging that you and I will be kings and priests.

And there are different ways of reading that. Kings and priests, a kingdom of priests. You know, it really doesn't matter how you read it. The net effect upon the individual who will be there remains the same in terms of what I'm describing right now. If there are some who see in the term a kingdom of priests, that basically you're doing priestly functions, which is fine. But to anyone who understands what the priesthood did in the Old Testament, their function was not simply religious.

They were the supreme court in the judicial system. They were the supreme court of the land. There are nations, even to this day, Iran has a history of having a physical governmental structure, president and all the rest, but a religious leader, Anaya Tola, whose word trumps all of the stated political offices.

And so, whether you're kings and priests or a kingdom of priests, you will still reign and rule with Jesus Christ. The song that is sung by the angels, they get to sing it. The lyrics are about us and talks about Christ being the one who will bring about a body of kings and priests.

The fifth and the last of the functions that he came to fulfill the first time around, the first of those functions is where we started services today. When the song leader stood up here and said turn to paint so and so, and you look behind you on the screen, and the very first hymn we sang was that fifth function, to build a family.

The fifth function can be stated in this manner to formally start a family. And I underline the word formally. And I underline the word formally because again, if I go back to Mr. Stewart's sermonette, we all know that God from the very beginning of time called individual servants to fulfill a function and a mission. And he has assured them eternal life. And so we, chronologically speaking, we hear the chronology begin with righteous Abel, and we hear the name Enoch who walked with God. And we hear Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and we hear Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And we hear down the line. And we know all of them will be in the kingdom of God. But they are a man of a generation, sometimes a man in a generation that has no one before him or after him. And that's why I use the word formally. Because now it's not just a one-off here and a one-off there, but it is a formal function.

As I mentioned a moment earlier in Matthew 16, 18, Jesus Christ said, I will build by church. The word church never appears in the Old Testament. Israel is referred to as the congregation of Israel, the gathering. And they were. They were the gathered people. They were the congregation of Israel. They weren't the church of Israel. They were the congregation of Israel. Because the word church has a meaning that fits with a Savior coming, a Savior leaving and saying, when I leave, I have to leave because I will send the Helper, a Savior leaving, and on the day of Pentecost following His departure, the Holy Spirit falling upon the disciples and upon progressive thousands of people, three thousand the first day, and then thousands and thousands more within the weeks that followed.

And a church was born. But a church, by definition, is a body of called-out ones. Yes, if we talk academically, Israel was a called-out body. But you and I are something that has never happened before the time of Jesus Christ. I have thought many, many times and still think occasionally as I visit, well, not as much here because I've known some of you from the time I was 13 years old. But when I go to a congregation that I have not been to before, I think, you know what?

I'm walking into a place where I'm immediately at home. The minute I start talking with people, I am talking to friends. And yet, I'm talking to people who I'm immediately connected to and I am friends with that I would never in my entire life ever have crossed their path, except for one reason, a common calling. Without that calling, most of the people that I go to the Feast of Tabernacles with, I would never have met. I would never have any reason to be in the same place at the same time in an entire lifetime. Now they're brothers and sisters. We have a common vocabulary. We have a common experience. We have a common background. We have a common destination. They're more family than my family members.

That's the church. That's the ecclesia. That is the body of called out ones. That is the system used, if we can be more clinical in our choice of terms, the system used by God and Christ to build a family. You have to have some mechanism. We're not born of the same family. Our bloodlines don't come from the same parentage. As we walk around the world, we sing the hymn, Go ye therefore into the world. The people I keep the feast with in the Philippines or in Hong Kong or in Africa were not from the same ethnic body. But we're more brothers and sisters than I am with people who ethnically are exactly of the same bloodline as I am, whose DNA would say, well, you come from the same whatever country I would come from and they would come from. Hebrews chapter 2, as the writer of Hebrews, is trying to sell to a Jewish audience the superiority of this new way to the way that he came from or that she came from or they came from. Among the things that he wants them to understand is this family that Christ came to formally start.

Hebrews chapter 2, speaking of Christ, it says in verse 10, For it was fitting for him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. What was his job? His job was to bring many sons to glory. I love the scripture that says, I don't know what I'm going to look like after the sound of the seventh trump, but I do know that I will look like Christ. I'm putting that in my own words, but that's what it says. What are you going to look like? What am I going to look like? I don't know, but I know one thing. Whatever Christ looks like, that's what I'm going to look like, because that's what scripture says. Glory has all sorts of meanings. I really didn't appreciate one of the meanings of glory until I spent a couple of years in England. In all the gray and the foggy of the winter, when spring would come and you'd have a day like this outside and an Englishman would look outside and he'd say, what a glorious day! I thought, yeah, when you had a gray lid over you for a month at a time and it's cold and it's wet and it's gloomy and then one day it parts and the sun comes out, you understand glory. So when he brings many suns to glory, there is even that material glory of brilliance, of light, of shining. Hebrews chapter 2 continuing in verse 11, For both he who sanctifies, that means to set us apart, and those who have been set apart, and who are the set apart ones? It's the church of God. The ecclesia, being set apart and being called out, are one and the same. For both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason he's not ashamed to call them brothers, brethren, saying, I will declare your name to my brethren. In the midst of the congregation, I will sing praise to you. This is an older brother who's taking a great delight in being able to share things about his father with his younger brothers. That's what it's talking about. I'm going to tell them. Do you fully understand the one you pray to every day? You know, every day you bow your head and you say, Father in heaven.

Do you fully grasp, fully understand? No, not even remotely. He says, I'm going to declare him. Have you got your list of 20 questions you're going to ask in the resurrection? He's got the answers to those and all the rest you can come up with. Ephesians chapter 1.

I'm always fascinated by Ephesians. It's the most flowery and the most effusive of all of the epistles in my personal opinion. And in that effusiveness of praise, we read in the first chapter of Ephesians starting with verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love, having predestined us to adoption, you know, that's been his goal, I have predetermined that I want children, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will.

This is our fifth.

So as you head toward the Passover this year, brethren, I hope you will spend the roughly month a little bit more as we move toward looking at why Christ came the first time in its fuller sense. His focus will always be, and as Passover arrives, that focus will always be his perfect life, his sin-free death, and our salvation. But he came as a man with missions, and in that first coming he fulfilled multiple missions to the nth degree, and will be fully prepared and ready to continue on when he comes again at the sound of the seventh trump.