Living in the Shadow of Eternity; Luke 21:34-36

Delivered during the Sunday Morning Worship Service, 6/22/2025. Jesus wraps up His "discourse on the things to come" with a sequence of poignant exhortations to His disciples (of all time frames). First, to avoid the snares of the world, because they burden and therefore deaden the heart to spiritual things; second that His Parousia will come suddenly when least expected and therefore to be ever-alert; and third to turn to God for the strength to endure and ultimately stand before Him victoriously. All three exhortations have the same underlying message-- that whether we realize it or not, the present (meaning the life we live now) is dominated by the future (the very fact of the Eschaton and that judgment is imminent). The mindset of a humanistic world at enmity with God is that "man is the measure of all things" and that we determine the future by what we do in the present. Christians, on the other hand, are instructed to live for the present, but with a watchful eye upon the future. In other words, as ambassadors of Christ, we will "live and move and have our being" in the shadow of eternity.