Summary
Jesus is Coming—Look Busy
The familiar bumper sticker gets one thing right: Jesus is coming. Scripture leaves no doubt about that. As Matthew 24:36 declares, no one knows the day or the hour, and the Lord himself warns, "you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour" Matthew 24:44. His return is certain. The problem is what the bumper sticker tells us to do about it.
"Look busy" is a terrible motivator. It treats Christ's coming the way a child treats a parent's car pulling into the driveway—scrambling to appear productive so as to avoid trouble. Applied to judgment day, it says: if I work hard enough, do enough, pile up enough good deeds, perhaps God will accept me. But what counts as enough? When do we get to stop glancing over our shoulder? The honest answer is that we never reach the top of that ladder. We cannot out-work, out-do, or out-busy our sin. There is no such thing as justification by busyness “Jesus is Coming—Look Busy” 7-9-23.
Paul cuts straight through this anxious striving in Titus 3:4-5: "When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy." That little word when matters. At exactly the right time, the Father sent his Son—the embodiment of God's own goodness and kindness—and through that kindness he saved us. God's kindness is not a cattle prod driving us to work harder; according to Romans 2:4, it leads us to repentance.
Christ did not live perfectly because he was busy; he lived perfectly because he was pure, holy, and righteous. On the cross he traded his righteousness for your sin, so that the sacrifice has already been accepted, the punishment already exacted, and the sin debt fully paid. Your salvation is not waiting on one more good deed from you. It has been done.
Titus continues: "he saved us… by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit." Baptism saves—not according to anything you bring to the table, but according to what God has done. The waters of baptism drown the old self described in Titus 3:3—foolish, disobedient, enslaved to passions, hating and being hated—and bring you into the restored, pristine state for which you were made. This rebirth is bound to God's own promise that your sins are forgiven and that eternal life in Christ is yours. When the devil accuses you for what you have done or left undone, stand tall and answer: I am a baptized child of the Lord. No power in heaven or earth can snatch that promise away.
This is what frees the Christian from the treadmill of looking busy. Your baptism has swallowed up your busyness. You are no longer scrambling to earn God's favor; the Holy Spirit dwells in you, and the good works that follow are his good works done through you. So when someone asks what you did today, the truest answer is not a list of accomplishments but a confession: I lived this day as a redeemed and baptized child of the Lord. That answer becomes an open door to share his kindness with others. The bumper sticker only needs one small edit—cross out "look busy," and let it read: Jesus is coming. Hallelujah!
Video citations
- “Jesus is Coming—Look Busy” 7-9-23 — If you would please open your vivals to Paul Bledert at Titus, it's on page 190 in the New Testament. If you're using the Pew edition of the Bible, we'll be in Titus chapter 3. Our bumper sticker…