Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 12:35-48
- Chairman's for leading us in worship this morning. Tyler's out of town, went to a wedding. Listen to Corey on our podcast this week. Did a good job. It was good mowing, listening while I mowed this last week. So, and I could hear you over the mower. It was, it was good. It was good. We just plugged right along last week in the Gospel of Luke. And this morning we're in chapter 12. So find Luke chapter 12. We're gonna look at verse 35 to 48, 35 to 48. There's an outline in the bulletin if you'd like to follow along with that. Passages or the verses, the passage that we're gonna look at this morning are about eschatology. And that's a big fancy word that you need to know what it means. And so I put this on your outline. Eschatology is the study of last things. That includes for you and I as followers of Jesus Christ, but is not limited to topics of death, the kingdom of God, the perucia, which is a fancy word for the second coming of Jesus that takes up less space than the second coming of Jesus. So the perucia, tribulation, the millennium, the resurrection, the final judgment, heaven and hell in the new creation, eschatology. The study or the doctrine or the approach of learning about last things. That's what Jesus is talking about this morning in this passage. You may realize it or you may not realize it, but you live in a society that is obsessed with eschatology. How many of you knew that? You know that? And I'm not just talking about crazy guys at the Christian bookstore. You can find a whole shelf of a nutty guys. I'm talking about just sort of everyday pop culture. Our society is obsessed with this idea of the end of what is gonna come last. Let me give you some examples from Hollywood. I'm gonna show you a bunch of movie pictures. I'm not endorsing these movies. I haven't seen all of these movies, but I've heard of all of these movies and I know the general idea of what they're about. So this is not go home. Preacher said go watch this movie. You understand that? Independence Day, the end of the world because aliens show up. That's the story. Last things because the aliens are coming and they're gonna blow us all up. Interstellar is a newer movie and the idea there is that global warming has made this planet unlivable and so we need to find another planet that is livable. So it's over here. The last has come and we need to find a new beginning somewhere else. So there's a couple of movies. Water World was a big deal when it came out. It's kind of silly looking back on Water World, but the idea is that the oceans rise and life as we know it ends, right? Life as we have come to know it comes to a screeching halt and it's all ocean everywhere. The Matrix, computers take over. In the end, the computers win or the humans win and it's this big battle. It's a story of eschatology. How will it go down at the end? Here's some other examples. Planet of the Apes. You can take the old one or the new one or the newest one or the not so newest one. There's a bunch of them, but the idea is in the end, the monkeys win. The monkeys take over and we lose. That's eschatology. They're saying in the end, evolution catches up with the monkeys and we sort of go the opposite direction. However it happens, there you go. How about disease? Remember the movie Outbreak? Newer movie is I Am Legend. I Am Legend is like the cooler version of Outbreak with zombies, right? Outbreak was cool in the 90s. People just get sick and die, but we got bored with those movies. So now you don't get sick and die, you get sick and you become a zombie. And so that's I Am Legend. And these movies say the end is gonna be when we all get sick. We're all gonna get some illness and it's just gonna wipe us all out or we're all gonna get some illness and it's gonna turn us all into zombies. That's how the story ends. So again, we're talking about eschatology. Mad Max, old one or new one. We ran out of gas. We ran out of water. That's the end. And this is what happens at the end. That's the story. They're talking about eschatology, the last things. San Andreas, big earthquakes. I've not seen this. I don't even know if it's out yet, but the rocks in it. So I'm sure there's lots of action. Big earthquakes, here comes the end. Natural disasters. Armageddon, the same thing. Meteor, the size of Texas. Flying at us from outer space. The end is coming. This is the last. Movies about eschatology. 2012, you remember the Mayan calendar stuff? The Mayans had the calendar, the big circle thing that went to 2012 and everyone said, that's when it ends. 2012, the Mayans had it figured out. We just end. And so they made movies about that. And here we are, 2015. Booker Eli is about the world after nuclear war just destroys the whole planet. Nuclear war devastates everything on earth. That's the end and there's just a few people trying to hang on there at the very end. Look, I could give you all kinds of movies. I could give you TV series. I could give you books. When you look at all these movies and you think about how much money we spend to go see these movies, it's almost like deep down, we know something big comes at the end. It's almost like you could say deep down, we just have this God-given sense that in the end, something apocalyptic happens, something cataclysmic happens, something massive and big and life-altering happens at the end, eschatology. You look at these movies, you say, we're obsessed with it. These are big blockbuster movies. They make millions and billions of dollars and we're going to watch movies about the end. The interesting thing is the Bible tells us a lot about the end. Doesn't tell us everything we might like to know about the end, but it does tell us a lot and the Bible says that history comes to an end as we know it when Jesus returns to this earth. There's a lot of things that people debate when it comes to Jesus coming back to this earth. Here's a few things that you can't debate, right? You can just say thank you 'cause I filled in all these blanks for you, okay? Jesus' return will be unexpected, personal, visible, bodily and victorious. You take the afternoon and look up the verses for yourself. Those things are non-negotiable, not debatable. When Jesus comes back, it will be like that. Unexpected, personal, visible, bodily and victorious. Those things are going to happen. That leads us to an interesting place. When you look at a lot of Christians today and when they think about eschatology, what a lot of Christians think about when they hear the word eschatology is, I need to get my chart out that diagrams the events in the last days and my calendar out so I can fill in some days on the calendar and I need to start watching current events really closely so I can decode what I see on the news and try to fit it into my favorite Bible passages and then I have some idea of when Jesus is coming back. You understand that that sort of mindset is completely absent from what all of the Bible has to say about eschatology. That's never the point, never, never, never the point. These things are clear, these things are non-negotiable and in our passage this morning, Jesus is talking about eschatology. He's talking about the last things and here's the big idea of the verses that we're about to read. Are you ready? The Son of Man will return and he expects his people to be ready. He will return and he expects you, if you claim to be one of his people, to be ready. That's the big idea of this passage. It's not dates, it's not current events, it's not filling in your calendar, it's not predictions, it's not prophecy charts, it's not any of that. He is coming back and he expects you to be ready and so we're gonna talk about what Jesus has to say on those issues. Look in your Bible, Luke chapter 12, beginning in verse 35, Jesus says this, "Stay dressed for action. Keep your lamps burning. Be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes in knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table and he will come and serve them." He comes in the second watch or in the third and finds them awake, blessed are those servants. But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready for the son of man who is coming at an hour you do not expect. Peter said, "Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?" And the Lord said, "Who then is the faithful and wise manager whom his master will set over his household to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, "My master is delayed in coming." And he begins to beat the male and female servants and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful. And that servant who knew his master's will that did not get ready or act according to his will will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given of him much will be required. And from him to whom they entrusted much they will demand them more. This is the word of God, let's pray. Father, we live in a society that obviously is interested in the end. And we know deep down that something is coming. Help us to understand the truth of how things end. Help us to understand what you want us to understand and not to be concerned about the things that are not ours to know. Help us to understand this morning what it means to be ready, to be faithful servants and faithful managers. We ask for wisdom. We ask that your spirit would convict us where we need to be convicted. And we pray that you would be honored in our response this morning. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Three parables in these verses. The first two go together. They teach the same basic idea. The third one stands by itself and we'll separate them that way. We'll talk about the first two and then we will talk about the second. So this is on your outline. Let's talk about the first two parables. The parable of the servants and the master, that's verse 35 to 38. And the parable of the master and the thief, 39 to 40, remind me to be ready. First two parables that Jesus tells, he tells so that you and I would know we need to be ready. And so just look at the text and let's talk about some of the things that Jesus says here. Verse 35, I'm reading out of the ESV. Jesus says, stay dressed for action. What he literally said, some of your translations may reflect this. What he said is, gird your loins. Keep them girded. How many of you did that this morning? Got your loins girded up, okay? Probably not. The idea is you take your outer robe, this big long garment and you tuck it into your belt so that you can run. Gird your loins, be ready. Don't be the guy that when you need to run says, wait, let me gird my loins. Nobody wants to be that guy. Have them girded, tucked in, you're ready to go, right? Stay dressed for action. Verse 35, keep your lamps burning. Don't get caught off guard. Don't let your lamp go out when the master could be coming home. Verse 36 says, the master is returning from a wedding. Now, you and I read that and we think, well, weddings, you know, they start at five and they end at six, so he should be home by six thirty. Not in this day. Wedding could last a day or two or three or a week or more. You had no idea how long the feast might last. It just sort of depended on how the party was going. And so he's saying, the master's away at a wedding. They're having a good time. It might last a couple of days. It might last a week. It might last a couple of weeks. But you don't know when he's coming back. He can't call you on the cell phone. He can't send you a text message and let you know. So you, the servant, need to be ready to open the door and to have things in order when the master returns. Verse 38, he might come at the second watch. He might come at the third watch of the night. The Romans divided evening time into four. They had four watches of the night. The Jews had three. People can debate and argue about what Jesus means. Is he talking Roman time, Jewish time? He's talking about the middle of the night. If he comes at the middle of the night, even when you least expect him, be ready. Verse 38. And then the second parable, verse 39 to 40, he talks about this thief coming. The thief doesn't give you a heads up. He doesn't wear a T-shirt that says thief. He doesn't send you a text message and say, I'll be there at two o'clock. Make sure you leave the garage open. He comes when you least expect him. And Jesus says, in a strange parable, God is kind of like that, kind of like the thief. He's not gonna give you a heads up. Don't sit there and try to decode the news as if there's some sort of hidden message in the events and the natural disasters and the wars and the this. It's not there. That's not what he's going to tell you. He's just going to come like a thief when you least expect him and you need to be ready. Verse 40 sums it up. Look what Jesus says in verse 40. You also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. I don't know how much clearer that could be when you read all the thousands of prophecy books that want to tell you when he's coming back. Jesus says, you don't know when he's coming back. You don't know. You've gotta be ready. Be ready. You don't know when he's coming back. Now, again, I've alluded to this. A lot of Christians say, okay, be ready. And they hear be ready and what they think is I need to know when he's going to come. If I'm going to be ready, I need to know when he's coming back so that I can be ready then. And so they come up with all sorts of charts and timelines. Let me show you a few that I found this week. Okay, that's pretty simple compared to a lot of what I found. All sorts of lines go in different ways, different things in the timeline, the perspective of prophecy. Look at the next one. This one's a little more complicated. You're not only moving left to right, but you're moving up and down. And it looks like you can get down there in hell and then there's a few ways out. I don't really know what that means, but that one's a little more complicated. Look at the next one. That one's got a lot of stuff on there. And there's a lot of words to fill in and you're looking at that and you're like, be ready. Does that mean I have to have that thing memorized? That's a lot of blanks to fill in on a test. Look at the next one. I have no words. Look at the last one. This is the best. How's that for a flow chart? And a lot of people think if I'm gonna be ready, I gotta understand that in the yellow arrow, in the brown arrow, in the black, in this and that and don't forget it. Listen, when Jesus says be ready, I promise you, he's not gonna show up when you least expect him, which he will, but he's not gonna show up and hand you a blank version of that and ask you to fill it in. That's not what he's talking about. He doesn't want you to memorize all this stuff, or that's not the point of being ready. The point of the parables that he uses is you have no idea when he's coming back. That means you need to always be ready. We think of get ready and we think, okay, get ready by like nine o'clock, get ready by like 10 o'clock. My Sunday school class, we don't start Sunday school at nine, Sunday school starts at nine, but they think I need to be ready by 9/20. We start at 9/20, so they show up. That's not what I'm talking about. Jesus is saying be ready. Now, tomorrow, the next day, all day, every day. It's not a matter of decoding the Bible or current events. Here's how you get ready. Two simple things, are you ready? First, I'm ready when I have repented of my sin and trusted in Jesus. If you have not done that, you are not ready. Look, 1910 says the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. He came to rescue you and his demand on your life is very simple. Repent of your sin, lay aside anything and everything that would keep you from following Jesus and believe the truth about him. Repent of your sin, believe in Jesus. You must do that if you want to be ready. And if you're here today and you say, you know what, I've been to church a lot and I've said a lot of prayers and I've sang a lot of songs and I even have Christian radio programmed in on my dials in my car. And I got a little book. I got on the bestseller shelf at Mardell. It sits right by my nightstand. I really don't read it much, but it sits right there with my Bible. That's not ready. The first step in getting ready is repent of your sin and believe the truth about Jesus. Here's the second thing you do to get ready. I'm ready when I focus on following God's will for my life. And even as I fill in my own blank and put that on the screen, it makes me cringe a little bit to think about what you might be thinking and hearing when I say God's will for your life. Let me tell you what I don't mean. I don't mean that you turn into some sort of a naval gazing, introspective, paralyzed by fear. Can't make any decision saying, well, should I live in Odessa or Midland? What is God's will? Odessa or Midland? I'm really in a season of prayer about this. Odessa or Midland? I want to be where God wants me to be. Or should I work for this company or this company? I just don't know. Should I work for this school or should I work for this school? I'm not talking about the particulars of your everyday life. Should I wear a blue shirt or a brown shirt this morning? That's not what we're talking about when I say be focused on what God's will for your life is. I'm talking about the simple, clear, obvious things. And sometimes we get so confused with this. We just foul it up in our heads thinking, I want to know what God's will is. And what we mean is I want God to tell me what to do every minute of every day and just sort of guide me every step along the way and I know exactly what comes next. That's not how life works. When I say, I'm ready when I focus on following God's will for my life, here's what I mean. Are you a good steward of the things that God has entrusted to you? That's His will, that you would steward those things well. Are you a good influence on your family? Do you influence your family for the kingdom? I promise you that is God's will for your life to influence your family for the kingdom? Are you doing that? Are you a good steward of the money that God has given to you? Some of you God has given a lot of money. Some of you God has not given a lot of money. That's really not the point. The point is with the money that God has given to you, do you steward it well? It is His will for you that you are a good manager of what He has given to you. The Bible says very clearly in some places, it is God's will that you suffer well. That when you're suffering, you do it the right way. If you're in a season of suffering, are you wasting the opportunity that God has given you in the midst of your suffering to point people to Jesus and say in the midst of my suffering, Jesus is still enough for me. It's His will that you do that, are you doing that? We could go on and on. The Bible says in Thessalonians, it is God's will for you that you abstain from sexual immorality. That is God's will for you, period. You want to know what God's will is? Don't cheat on your spouse. Don't do things before you get married that you don't need to do. And don't look at junk on the computer you don't need to look at. That's God's will for you. There's no investigation there. There's no deciphering or decoding. That's His will. These simple things I'm ready when I focus on following God's will for my life. Look at verse 41. I've been amused with verse 41 all week. Verse 41 is kind of like the comic relief and a heavy passage, right? Jesus talking about some serious stuff. And then verse 41, Peter pipes up. If you have children or grandchildren or you've ever taught children in school or Sunday school, you get these kind of questions, right? Jesus is talking. He's preaching, he's getting fired up. Peter, excuse me. Are you talking to us? Who are you talking to right now? And you can just, if you're Jesus you probably just want to slap Peter. Yes, Peter, yes, he doesn't even answer the question. Does he? Peter pipes up. Jesus, who's supposed to be taking notes right now? Are you talking to us or are you talking to, is this for everybody? What are you doing? And Jesus just keeps going. He just says, yes, Peter, I'm talking to you. Pick it up right here. Here we go. In the next parable begins in verse 42 and here's what it teaches you. The parable of the manager, it's verse 42 to 48, reminds me that stewardship results in accountability. Stewardship results in accountability. When God gives you things to steward, to manage, to be in charge of, he will hold you accountable for those things. That may be dollars in your bank account that he wants you to steward well. That may be a job that he wants you to steward well. That may be influence with other people. That may be neighbors and opportunities that he gives you to share the gospel. That could be a million different things. That could be gifts, spiritual gifts that God gives you and expects you to use for his glory and for the good of the church. Whatever God gives to you, and the Bible says every good thing you have came from God, whatever he gives to you, he expects you to steward it well and that results in accountability. Meaning at some point in time, you're gonna give an account for how you stewarded it, what he gave you. Did you use it well? Did you use it correctly? Did you do what I wanted you to do with my stuff, with my family, with my church? Or did you waste all of that opportunity? Jesus talks about servants and managers. Look at verse 45. He's talked about the faithful servants, the faithful managers. In verse 45, he says, some of these guys say to themself, my master is delayed in coming. This is spiritual procrastination. Have you ever done it? Of course you have. I do it. We all do it. It's sin. We say to ourself, I know that there are some things the Lord would require of me. There's some things he would want me to be doing, but I'm really busy right now. Work really has me tied up. Practice really has me busy. My responsibilities to my children or my responsibilities at work or my responsibilities in my community, my responsibilities, life is so busy. I know that I am not doing some of the things that I ought to be doing. I'm just gonna say I can't do 'em all right now, I'll get to it someday. When I get to a season of life that is less busy, maybe I'll be able to do some of those things that I think God is wanting me to do. The master's away. He's not here yet. We don't have to give an account today, so we do this. We push it off to tomorrow. I'll get to that later. I'll read my Bible next week. I'll begin memorizing Scripture next year. I'll be more faithful in serving in church next month. I can't do it this month. On and on and on. We punt the ball down the field because basically we're saying the master's away. I have time, I'll do it later. Jesus says this is a really bad plan for you. This is not something that you want to make a regular part of your life. And I want you to look in the text. He describes it playing out three different ways. Verse 45, he says there's some people who ignore the master's will, right? So they're not doing the positive things the master wants them to do, but they're also using the opportunity to pursue sin. And in the story, it looks like beating the servants, getting drunk, using the master's stuff for your own gain. There's some people who say, not only am I not concerned with what the master wants me to do now, but I'm gonna pursue anything and everything whatever I want to do now. And Jesus says it's shocking when you get to this point of the parable, when the master comes home, that guy, what happens to him? He gets cut into pieces. Verse 47, Jesus says there's other people, and they're not getting drunk. They're not beating the other servants. They're not pursuing open sin, but this is the people in verse 47, they're not concerned about what the master wants them to be doing. You understand, this is a lot of Christian people in Odessa, Texas. You look at their life outwardly and you say, well, they don't seem to be strung out on heroin. They don't go to the bar every night. They're not wasting all their money with loose women. They're not doing this, they're not doing that. They look pretty respectable. I don't think that they're stealing from their employer. They look pretty good. Well, that's fine. But that might just put you in the verse 47 category. And Jesus says that might be you. You may not be chasing sin, but if you're not chasing the master's will, when the master comes back, you get a severe beating. And then there's verse 48. Jesus talks about people who don't even have a clue what the master wants them to do. They don't even know what they ought to be doing. So of course, they're not doing it. And we think, well, fairness would be if you don't even know what you're supposed to be doing, Jesus isn't gonna hold you accountable for that. Yes, he is gonna hold you accountable for that. No one gets to plead ignorance in the end. And Jesus says even this one who had no clue what he was supposed to be doing, and obviously didn't do it, when the master returns, he will receive a beating, a light beating, but a beating. Here's what it means. When the master returns, the faithful servants will be served by the master. I'll give you the good news first. When the master returns, faithful servants will be served by the master. Verse 43, Jesus says faithful servants are blessed. Verse 44, Jesus says they will receive more responsibility. Verse 37, back up to verse 37 with me 'cause this verse will knock your socks off. Luke 12, 37, blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he, that's he the master. The master will dress himself for service and have them the faithful servants recline at the table. And he, the master will come and serve them the servants. That's backwards, right? The master's just been on a long trip. Think about the last long trip you went on. For me, it was last week, we went to Oklahoma. Maybe for you, it's a vacation. Maybe it's a mission trip, whatever. You go on this long trip. Maybe you drive, maybe you fly, but it's a long trip so you take a lot of stuff with you. And typically, when you get back for a long trip, what do you wanna do? Take a vacation, right? Relax, your beat, you're exhausted, all your clothes are dirty, nothing is put away in your house. And you get back from this long trip and you just wanna lay down and take a nap. You don't want to serve anybody. And Jesus says, here's how this story goes. The master's away on a trip. And when the master comes back, there is gonna be some whip cracking, but get this. The master is gonna take the faithful servants and ask them to sit down and he is going to serve them. It's backwards. You say, wait a minute, Jesus, you got that mixed up in your head, right? You meant to say the master comes back and he starts barking orders and telling the servants what to do again, right? No, no, no, that's not how the story goes. And our story, the master serves. It's grace, right? It's God giving you the opposite of what you deserve. This is Luke 19, 10. The Son of Man, right? We read about the Son of Man. We meet the Son of Man for the first time in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. And he's on a throne and all of the kingdoms of the earth are bowing in front of him. That's where we meet the Son of Man. And then Luke says the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. You say, wait a minute, the master, the guy on the throne shows up to be a servant. That's exactly right. Our master serves his people. That's grace. When the master returns, he sits his people down and he serves them dinner. It's amazing. The Bible talks about it in the last chapters of Revelation. You can read it for yourself. That's the good news. Here's the bad news. When the master returns, unfaithful servants will be punished by the master. No way around it. When he comes back, the unfaithful servants are punished. And clearly there's degrees of punishment and degrees of accountability. So if you look at verse 45, the ones who knew the master's will, they did not do the master's will, and they pursued sin. Those are the guys who get chopped into pieces in the story. And then in verse 47, the guys who knew the master's will, they didn't pursue sin, but they just didn't do what the master wanted. They're beaten severely. And then in verse 48, the clueless guys who have no idea what the master even wants them to do, even they are held accountable with a light beating. Now it's interesting. I'm reading all my commentaries this week and I'm reading what the really smart guys say about Luke. And they're talking about these three punishments, right? Some of these guys get cut into pieces. Some of them get beaten severely, and some of them get beaten lightly. And there's a debate. And the debate is, are some of these people going to hell? Are all of these people going to hell? Are some of these people going to heaven, but they're losing their reward? Are some of them in and some of them out? Are they all in or that? And there's this big debate. And here's my conclusion after reading all the sides in this debate. I have no idea. I don't know. Here's what I do know after reading all the sides in the debate, okay? Are you ready? I don't want to find out firsthand how it goes down for these three who are punished, okay? I don't want to be cut to pieces, whatever that means. I don't want to be beaten severely by the master, whatever that means. And I don't want to be beaten lightly by the master, whatever that means. I want to be at dinner, where the master serves as people. I want that for me, I want that for you, I want that for our church, I want that for your family. I don't want any of us to get to that day and say, "Well, I wasn't ready." So now I found out the hard way, what the preacher didn't know. That's a bad ending. And your story does not have to end that way. Be ready. Ask yourself this morning, have I repented of my sin entrusted in Jesus Christ? Because if you have not done that, you are not ready. And then ask yourself, if you have done that, am I following the master's will for my life? Not figuring out details of what he wants you to do. I mean, my goodness, make a decision. But am I doing the clear things that Jesus has called me to do? To love God more than anything else. To love my neighbor as myself. To take care of my family. To share the gospel. To make disciples of the nations. To manage my money well. To build up and be a part of my church family. Am I doing the things that Jesus wants me to do? Let me pray for you. Father, we love you, we're grateful for your word. We thank you that it is true. We thank you that in the midst of a society that is so confused about the end that we have answers. And we don't have all the answers and you know that. We don't need all the answers. Father, help us to believe what Jesus has said to us this morning in his word. Father, help us to honestly examine our lives. To know whether or not we're ready for him to return. Father, forgive us when we get concerned with things that have nothing to do with being ready. And when we ignore the plain, obvious, simple things that you call us to do. Father, as we sing together and as we respond in prayer and as we do it individually and we do it together, we pray that your spirit would guide us, convict us, move us to our response and to a position in our hearts where we are honoring you and seeking your will. Father, we love you, we're grateful for your word. We pray that you would receive our worship as we sing and we pray in the name of the Son of Man who came to seek us and save us. Amen.