1 Peter 1:20 “He (that is Jesus) was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.”

We are a pragmatic people. We like things to be practical. We don’t like to be bored with things that we already know. I know from personal interviews that this is why some don’t come to church more often. One person once told me she isn’t coming back at all if we insist on preaching about how Jesus saved us from our sins every Sunday. She feels that her time is too valuable to waste like that.

God hasn’t gotten bored with the work of our redemption for thousands of years. That God has redeemed us from our sins is not just one of many teachings found in the Bible. This is the one great work that has occupied our Lord’s attention across the great sweep of time, and even before time began. It has been the point of all human history. It is truly the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, of all Bible teachings.

It was so important to him that, even before he made our world, he had already made his plans for redeeming us and chose Jesus to carry those plans to completion. It was so important to him that Jesus did not fail to come and carry out our redemption in these last times. And these are the last of times. There is no greater revelation of God and his love to be made in this world before Jesus returns to bring this world to an end. If the careful execution of his plan to redeem us has so occupied the attention of our God throughout the ages, perhaps we can learn to value it as he does.

Generations of Christians past have learned to do so:

I love to tell the story,
For those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting
To hear it like the rest.
And when in scenes of glory
I sing the new, new song,
‘Twill be the old, old story
That I have loved so long.
I love to tell the story;
‘Twill be my theme in glory
To tell the old, old story
Of Jesus and his love.
(Arabella Hankey, 1834-1911)