Current Reality
Fact: Jesus reigns over all. And right now.
For our first Advent sermon on Sunday, we’ll be going back to Hebrews 2:5–9. It’s definitely a passage that highlights the humanity of Jesus, but it starts with his supremacy. Following the main point of Chapter 1, the writer settles his argument that Jesus is superior to angels. Jesus is enthroned as the risen and reigning Lord of all, the eternal Davidic King, and the world to come has been subjected to him.
That is to say, nothing is outside of his control (2:8). And that is current reality. Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18–20). Jesus is real and that is true, and we should live like it. And without doubt, as true as it is, it’s also the exact thing that the world rejects.
About 15 years ago …
… I was working for Desiring God when their offices were off Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis. I sat by the front door and answered the phone, spending most of the time shipping Piper books to callers who asked for resources. Every now and then we’d have a visitor drop by.
One this particular day, a gentlemen poked his head in and asked, “Is this a Christian ministry?” I said it was.
He then politely went on to say that he had recently been working on a project to blend together the teachings of Jesus, Muhammed, and Buddha. He told me that all three spiritual leaders basically taught the same thing, something to the effect of love for everyone and save the trees. Truth is relative, he said, and we should just all get along. He was very kind, soft-spoken and neighborly. I was also genteel, but told him that Jesus is very different from every spiritual leader there ever was, because Jesus is God. Then I handed him a copy of What Jesus Demands from the World by John Piper, and I told him he would find it relevant to his project. He was thankful and promised to read it. He left and that was it.
The next week, the same guy came back by the office, red-faced and less mild. He handed me the book and said — and this is verbatim what he said — “You have this back and I’d like to teach a thing or two to John Piper!” He stormed out before I could give him The Justification of God. He didn’t seem interested in getting along anymore.
Why?
It’s because he was confronted with reality … the reality that Jesus is King …
And he didn’t like that.
Many don’t. But that doesn’t make it less true.
If one there is one thing I want for us this Advent, it’s that we live even more like Jesus is King … like he is real and his reign is current reality … a reality that we happen to love.
His reign come and his will be done, here on earth just as it is in heaven. And let it start in our hearts.
