For those of you who don’t memorize all of my blog posts, let me remind you that StrengthsFinder calls me a futurist. That means I’m always thinking about what’s next. I think God knew about my futurist tendencies when he decided to begin calling me toward relationship with him. Not many people know this, but my spiritual journey actually started when I heard a pastor preach on Mark 13 about the “signs of the end of the age”. I was fascinated by what the Bible said about the end of the world, and that led me to begin opening the Bible on my own, starting in Revelation (an interesting place to start, I know…but God totally used it). Then I went back to read the rest of Mark, and upon reading Mark 2:17, I understood for the first time that Jesus wanted a relationship with me and offered me a great journey, calling me to follow him. But my fascination with the end of the world continues today.
So let’s talk about the future then. As a Christian, my greatest hope for the future is that Christ would return to earth and establish his Kingdom, and the Bible says that is going to happen once the Church brings the Gospel of the Kingdom to all nations (Matthew 24:14, Mark 13:10). Combine this promise with my futurist tendencies, and you might soon realize that I live much of my life mentally pre-occupied with what’s next for the Church in her process of fulfilling this promise.
I wanted to let you in on my future-obsessed brain and tell you about what I think is a “sign of the times” in the Church today. You see, I’ve heard quite a few sermons on Jesus’ return and how we should be watching for signs and waiting in expectation, but there’s one sign of Jesus’ return that I think the Bible teaches that I’ve never heard mentioned in a sermon. Or by anyone, for that matter. Perhaps because you have to do some digging around and piecing together in the Bible first. Are you ready? Let me take you there.
I believe that the Bible teaches that the future situation surrounding Jesus’ return will be marked with an unprecedented movement of Church unity. And if we’re looking to be alert and keep watch for these signs (Mark 13:33-37), then I want to put this one on your radar, because I think it’s big.
Let me begin in Genesis (another obsession of mine is starting in the beginning and telling the whole story through). In Genesis 11, all human beings have the same language, and assemble to build a tower in honor of themselves. God sees that his little image-bearers have become quite powerful, and in honor of that power, have begun to worship themselves. Knowing that such self-worship runs contrary to what He designed them to do and will only serve to destroy them, God, in his relentless grace, decides to confuse their language and scatter them so that they might not so easily go down this path of self-worship leading to self-destruction.
And from that day of scattering, it seems that God has been working out a plan to re-unify human beings back into a place of communication and collaboration. God’s plan is to be patient in returning (2 Peter 3:8-10) until all nations have heard of his great work in bringing the Kingdom of heaven to earth in the form of Jesus, his Messiah and Son. But in order for all nations to hear, there would first have to be some way of getting this message to all nations. God had a plan to re-connect humanity, and it’s being executed to this day at ever-increasing rates.
But let me talk about the Church. You might think that Jesus’ last words regarding the Church that would come after Him might reveal his plan for the future. And I think you’d be right. In Jesus’ only recorded prayer for us believers today, Jesus prays that the Church might be brought to complete unity so that the whole world would know the Gospel of the Father’s love for them (John 17:20-23).
Think about that for a second.
Jesus is leaving the world and he’s praying for the future Church in order that they might reach the whole world with the Gospel. And what one thing does he spend his time praying for?
UNITY.
That is the prayer of our Savior for the Church. That we would “be brought to complete unity”. Because then we will reach the world. You can almost hear echoes of Genesis 11:6: “If they’re all on the same page, then nothing will be impossible for them.” It’s been the lesson from Day 1 after the Flood: A movement is effective only insofar as its people are unified. No wonder Jesus said Church unity would be the one thing necessary to bring the gospel to the world.
So what are we to look for as a sign that the end is coming? The Gospel will go out to all nations. And how will it do that? The Church will need to be brought to unity. Take a look around at the Church today and tell me we aren’t more unified than we’ve ever been. Hillsong United writes a song, puts it on an album, and overnight, thousands of churches on every continent are singing it. The Willow Creek Association puts on a leadership conference that reaches 65,000 church leaders in North America and an additional 46,000 overseas in 114 cities in 50 countries, and those numbers are growing every year. All hearing the same message. Being brought to complete unity. This wasn’t even possible 20 years ago. And it’s only accelerating. Be watchful. Because as the Church unifies, the Gospel will go out in power. And we all know what comes next…
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Totally agree. Way to bring Babel into it. This has the ring of truth to me.
hmmmmm that is quite thought provoking… I think I like it. I never would have thought that looking and working toward church unity would play that big of a role in reaching the world and ushering back in the kingdom of God. Thanks for sharing
Very interesting. When you started to mention unity I started to wonder if Jesus was EVER going to come back, ’cause sometimes it seems like the body of Christ is all over the place. Good points, though, about how unified we are. Very cool.