Live Ready

We are coming up on the Christmas season, November 1st seems to mark the officially sanctioned day when we are allowed to put lights up and the Hallmark Channel is allowed to start its incessant movie marathons. One of my favorite Christmas movies of all time, a true classic does not come on the Hallmark Channel.

It is a Charles Dickens, a Christmas Carol, the one with George C. Scott, not Mickey Mouse, by the way, although that one is good also. But the gist of the movie is that Ebenezer Scrooge is a greedy, heartless man. He is a workaholic. He is a miser. He scrimps on paying his workers and he looks down on the needy.

He despises Christmas because he thinks of Christmas as a sentimental holiday for freeloaders. He transforms him. With that one vision, he gets a glimpse of the impact of his selfishness.

He hears how people regarded him. His grave is abandoned and the only emotional response that comes from his death is a poor couple who are actually elated that he is gone. I know some of you are sitting there like, well, now you just totally spoiled the whole movie for me. Listen, the story has been out for 180 years, okay? So don't tell me like, oh, I was going to go home and read it for the first time tonight. That is not my fault.

I take no responsibility for that. But the movie illustrates the power of pressing fast forward in your life occasionally so that you can see things from the vantage point of the future. Things in the present look different from the perspective of the future.

We know this, don't we? That shouldn't be anything brand new. Ever seen a really suspenseful movie for the second time? Your experience watching the movie the second time is so much different than the first because you know what's going to happen. Or how many of you saw the really gripping documentary, Free Solo, about a man who scales mountains with no ropes or harnesses?

I remember being so nervous as he scaled one of those mountains that I actually paused the documentary, jumped online to see if he was still alive, and then returned to watch the movie in a much calmer state. Pressing fast forward was helpful. It helped me reinterpret what I was seeing in the present. Well, see, I share that because in Luke chapter 12, Jesus tells his disciples to press fast forward for a moment and think about their present lives from the vantage point of the end. So if you got your Bibles, and I hope you do, take them out, open them up, turn them on, whatever, we're going to jump into Luke 12 and pick up where we left off last weekend.

Write this down as you're doing that. It is only by thinking clearly about the future that you will live wisely in the present. It is only by thinking clearly about the future that you will live wisely in the present. That's probably why Jesus talked about the future so much. Did you know? Did you know?

But you didn't. Did you know the second coming of Christ is the most talked about doctrine in the Bible? I know that is a big, huge statement, but it is true, just by the numbers. Of the 260 chapters we have in our New Testament, there are 318 references to the second coming of Christ. That means that roughly one out of every dozen verses is about the second coming of Christ. For every one prophecy we have in the Bible concerning the first coming of Christ, there are eight that talk about his second one. We're getting ready to celebrate an entire holiday that is devoted to his first coming, but we barely even mentioned the second one. Furthermore, New Testament writers use the second coming to motivate obedience to almost every single moral command found in the New Testament. In other words, they understood that you would gain the strength to obey the commands by reflecting on how close eternity is and how imminent Jesus' return is. Now, the church I grew up in when I was a boy was a little, I think I can say it, obsessed with the second coming. We talked about it all of the time. We had our rapture board games and our rapture bumper stickers on our car. In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned. And we made rapture jokes like there was no tomorrow.

Our annual prophecy conferences were the best attended events of the year. And for special Sunday night services, we would watch the Billy Graham movies about the tribulation. On our Sunday school walls, we would have posters of timelines with dates and pictures of dragons that were matched with names of contemporary politicians. And you think that I'm making this up, but I assure you, I am not. My pastor would often end our services by saying, Maranatha, Maranatha, which is the Hebrew for the Lord is coming. And then he would say, and brothers, sisters, it might be today.

And I believed it. I believe that as a kid, I lived in a perpetual state of anxiety about Jesus coming back and me not being ready. So if for any reason at all, I called out to my parents and they did not respond, I would run through the house in a panic, just positive. I would find my mom's clothes somewhere falling neatly into a pile on the floor as she had ascended to be with Jesus.

And I'd been left behind. Now, we might've been a little on the overboard side, but I will say this. My church had something that I think we lack in ours. And I would say might even be lacking in this entire generation of Christians. And that is the earnest expectation of Jesus' return. It could be today. It could be today. Do you think that?

Have you even thought that yet today? Listen to how Jesus instructs his disciples in Luke 12, verse 35 is where we'll begin. Stay dressed for action. By the way, this is the first of four images that Jesus is going to communicate a posture of readiness. If you are taking notes, write this down.

Stay dressed for action. At least that's what it is in English. Unfortunately, our English translations do not translate the Greek literally here because what Jesus says is so much more colorful in Greek. The Greek reads literally keep your loins guarded. In those days, men wore robes, which of course were comfortable and stylish and breezy, but not at all ideal if you were going to work or run or fight.

So on those occasions, men would put on these belts that would tighten things up down there, so to speak, so that they were ready for action. And Jesus said, let that be a metaphor for how you live. Do not live in a posture of leisure.

You need to live in fight mode or think of it like this. Kids, how many kids we got in the house? Where whatever came at you?

I raise your hand. All right, kids. It's sort of like that game musical chair. Some of you don't remember that because I don't think we play it post-Covid because one of many violent games that we've had to put behind this now that Covid has started. But the basic gist of musical chairs was this, right? You get a group of kids or group of people and you set out some chairs and there's always one less chair than there are people. And then you play some music. When the music stops, you've got to scramble for a chair. And it always ends up in some violent shoving match between a couple of people.

Right? The point is, if you're going to win this game, you've got to walk around these chairs in a posture of readiness. And if you're in a posture of leisure, then you're going to be left out. Musical chairs is based on the idea that the music is going to stop. That is certain.

But you don't know when it's going to stop. And because of that, you've got to walk around in a posture of readiness. That's basically what Jesus means by keep your loins guarded. Here's the second image continuing on in verse 35.

Verse 35. Keep your lamps burning. Keep your lamps burning and 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 and knocks. Right?

No delay. 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.

If he comes in the second watch or in the third watch and finds them awake, blessed are those servants. In those days when a rich man went to a wedding, none of the servants knew exactly how long he would be gone. And that's because in those days you never knew how long the wedding was going to last. People coming to the wedding might be delayed in getting there so they get there a day or two late. Anyway, the event could last one day or it could last several days.

You would find out when you got there. And of course, because they didn't have cell phones back then, they couldn't text or call their servants. These masters couldn't do that when they were on their way back home. So the servants just had to keep the house ready all the time because the master doesn't want to return home to a dark, cold house with all the servants asleep in their pajamas. You should also, he says, live like that, Jesus says, verse two, and keep your lamps burning, excuse me, number two, keep your lamps burning, verse 35, ready for me to return at any hour.

So that's your second image, which leads us to the third image, verse 39. But know this, that if the master of the house had known one hour the thief was coming, well, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Number three, right, like a posh, like you're watching out for a thief, verse 39, like you're watching out for a thief. Thieves, as a general rule, do not schedule their break-ins. You're never going to get a notification on your phone from some app that says your thief is on the way, right?

Their goal is to surprise you. So if you know that a thief might be coming sometime in the night, you better stay up all night to be ready for him. Same thing is true with me, Jesus says. The point here, of course, is not that Jesus is some sinister, ruinous villain, just that he might come when you're not expecting him. And if you are not ready for him when he returns, then you will be ruined.

It will be like having a thief come and destroy your house. Now, verse 41, Peter asks an absolutely fantastic question. Lord, Peter asked, are you telling this parable to us?

Are you telling it to other people? In other words, Peter wants to know if Jesus is directing this warning only to outsiders, or if there's also a warning in this for the disciples. That's a very important question because it's one of Jesus's big themes in the book of Luke. Listen, is the dividing line of judgment, the dividing line of judgment, is it between those who are Christians and those who aren't? Or are some Christians also going to be caught unprepared and swept away in judgment?

In other words, does just becoming a Christian, so to speak, make you prepared? Or is Jesus talking about something more? Is this a warning that he would direct toward people who are active in the church? And you will notice in the next few verses that Jesus doesn't actually answer Peter. Instead, he tells Peter another story to help him and the other disciples self-diagnose whether they are living ready, which is Jesus's answer. He is saying, Peter, this most definitely applies to you because a lot of my so-called followers are going to be caught unprepared and they're going to face judgment because of that. Again, y'all, this is a consistent theme in the book of Luke. We've seen it now two weeks in a row.

This is the third week. Not everybody who calls themselves a follower of Jesus actually is. Followers of Jesus are only those who live ready. And a lot of church-going people are going to find themselves coming up short on judgment day.

So just because you call yourself a Christian and just because you're active in church doesn't actually mean that you are. Watch this, verse 42. Verse 42, and the Lord said, 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 that servant over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, well, my master is delayed in coming and 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 at an hour that he does not know, and he will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful. And that servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will, that servant will receive a severe beating. Here is your fourth image as stewards who do not want to be caught idle.

Like stewards who don't want to be caught idle. Because these servants forgot their boss was coming back, they started to commandeer their master's stuff for personal use. So they started to throw parties for their friends on his dime. They started to drink all of his really good wine. They started to wear his clothes. They even forced the other servants to tend to their needs, went in and took over his office and put their feet up on his desk.

So when the master comes back, he's going to say, what are you doing? These things aren't yours. I didn't give these things to you for your personal use.

I entrusted them to you for you to continue on with my purposes. In fact, the word that Jesus uses in verse 42 for the servant is the word oikonomos, which literally translates as manager or steward. It literally means steward. A steward is not just somebody who owns the assets. A steward is not somebody who owns the assets. A steward is somebody who manages those assets for somebody else. When you're a steward, it doesn't belong to you. You have control of it, but it's not yours to use for your purpose. It's something that the master gave you for his purposes.

So you've got four images that all communicate the exact same thing. You should live ready. You should live in anticipation of your master's return, very busy about your task, very busy about your task. And if you live that way, Jesus says, if you don't live that way, you're not really my disciple. Do you notice the wording of verses 46 and 47? If when the master returns, he doesn't find you ready, you will be cut in pieces. And he will put you with the unfaithful.

I mean, how much clearer could he get? You're going to get the exact same judgment that the unsafe person gets. See, all this is serious stuff.

Again, Luke seems very concerned that you realize that a lot of people think they're followers of Jesus, but actually aren't. And that's demonstrated by the fact that they just don't live ready. So what does this look like, practically speaking? What's it look like to live ready, practically speaking? Let me give you three things, three characteristics you can glean from these stories about the lives of the ready. Number one, you will be awake to your task. You will be awake to your task. Verse 37, blessed are those whom the master finds awake.

You can read there, active at the task when he comes. What is that task? Well, what is the specific task that Jesus has given to us before he left? We call it the great commission, right?

Well, we are commissioned to do. Matthew 28, 19 and 20, go into all the world, all the nations, and make disciples of all the nations. We call that the great commission because it is Jesus' marching orders for his church.

This is the task for the church right now. Our mission is to make disciples from every nation. By the way, the Greek word for nations there in that verse is not a reference to the 206 nation states that are in existence in the world right now. The word in Greek, pantata ethne, all the nations, is a reference to the different ethnic and language groups. You can see that in the word ethne. Pantata, all the ethnicities, the different cultures and ethnicities.

Sociologists say that there are a total of 17,442 of those ethne in the world in existence today. Our task is not finished until there is a thriving church planting, disciple making disciple movement among every single one of them. You want to know what God is mostly doing in the world right now, that's it, right? It's what he wants us to be doing.

Luke records it this way in Luke 24, 47. He says, for as it is written, this gospel of repentance must be preached. This forgiveness of sins has to be preached in all nations beginning at Jerusalem. Y'all, you wonder why we talk so much at this church about global missions.

It's not because we like to travel, it is because it's what we know the master has given us as our great task. So the question you've got to ask yourself is, are you doing anything personally with that? Are you giving? Are you praying? Are you going? I've had a thousand of you, by the way, go on short-term trips here from the summit church in the last couple of years.

Have you gone yet? You see, when it comes to the great commission, it's like John Piper says, you've only got three options, to go, to send, or to disobey. That's one of our tasks. Here's another one I think this passage points to, and that is meeting the physical needs of the people around us. Did you notice that in verse 42, in verse 42 Jesus describes the faithful and wise manager as the one who gives others their portion of food at the proper time. I think you can deduce from that that the faithful servant is the one making sure the physical needs of people around them are met.

He is using his resources to make sure that other people get fed. The unfaithful servants in this parable are those who, verse 45, began to beat the male and female servants and to eat and to drink and get drunk. In other words, they use, they commandeer what God gave them to bless others to take care of only themselves. And I'm sure they're like, well, this is mine. A lot of people today in our church, in any church, look at their money as their own.

They're like, well, I earned this. I worked for it. It's mine. I can do whatever I want with it. I mean, yeah, I'll give God his little tax and everything, but if I want to use all this stuff to buy a bigger house, better clothes, nicer stuff, that's my prerogative.

Whose prerogative would it be? It belongs to me. I worked for it. But, friend, realize that is not how God sees your resources. Yes, you worked for it. And, yes, God wants you to enjoy it. But the master said, who is the one who you think gave you those talents, who gave you the opportunities?

You understand there's a huge difference between walking through a door of opportunity and creating that door in the first place. That mirror that you breathe, those talents you employ, that health you enjoy, the earth you walk on. Where did all that come from? God says, I gave you all that. I gave you the ability to multiply money. I gave it to you with the responsibility to use it for my purposes. But you commandeered all of that and turned it inward on yourself, and you got besotted with the world's pleasures and thought only about your needs, and you got drunk on the world, and you were asleep at the task.

Do not miss this. God considers us not using our resources to bless others as an act of grave injustice. It's not just a failure to be generous. It is an act of injustice.

I've shown you this before. But the apostle Paul talks about our failure to share the gospel with the nations or the people around us. He talks about it in terms of injustice. Romans 1 14. Paul says, I am a debtor. I am under obligation to people that have never heard the gospel. You have to ask, why would he be under obligation to those people?

He never met most of them. Why does he say I'm actually in debt to them so that if I use my resources and my opportunities not to get the gospel to them, I'm actually reneging on my obligations? Why would he say that? It's because he understood that with the privilege of hearing the gospel comes the responsibility to share it with those who have never heard. And Paul's like, it's not like I was a less bad sinner or it's not like I was more deserving of grace than anybody else when God showed me kindness and let me hear the gospel.

That came with it. The responsibility to share it with those who have never heard. And for me not to do that is to fail at my task. It's to live unjustly. Friend, do you want to live justly? Do you want to walk in a just way before God? Then you got to use what you have to help meet the physical needs of others and make sure that they've had a chance to hear the gospel.

You got to wake up to the task. Summit Church, there are still 7,413 unreached people groups in the world today, which is a group of at least 10,000 people or more united by a common language and no viable Christian witness to speak of. They represent 3.23 billion people. 1.7 billion of those have never even heard the name of Jesus.

They say that if you lined up all those people that I just referenced in rows, five across, five feet apart, that group would circle the globe five times. I need you to imagine a throng of people marching headfirst into eternity with no chance to hear. And every single one of those is just like you or me.

It's me, he or she is made in the image of God just like you. Every single one of them knows what it's like to be lonely and afraid and lost and going to hell for them is every bit the tragedy that it would be for you or for one of your kids. I think of a place like Northern Yemen where we're praying about trying to get people, Summit families, members there. It's got a population of 8 million. It's almost the size of North Carolina. Guess how many believers there are in that entire nation?

28 million size of North Carolina, 20 believers total. Are they worse sinners than we are? Is it fair for us to know so much about the gospel and do so little to get it to them?

So we would say we owe it to them. Blessed are those who are active at their task and active in it, awake to their task and active in it when the master comes. What about you? Hey, do your friends know about Jesus? When Jesus comes back or you or they die, are they gonna look at you one day and say, why did you never tell me? Is Jesus gonna look at you one day and say, what were you waiting on?

Who were you waiting on? I remember hearing the story of two junior devils who were talking to Satan. This is obviously not a true story, but they're talking to Satan about how to destroy the church. And one says, I know, I'll tell them there's no God. And Satan said, yeah, that's not gonna get that many of them because instinctively they all know that there's a God. The other one said, well, I know. I'll tell them there is no hell.

So there's nothing to be afraid of. And Satan said, well, you're not gonna convince that many either because most know instinctively there's gotta be a punishment for sin. Satan said, no, no, no. If you want to really ruin the church, don't tell them there's no God. Don't tell them there's no hell.

Tell them there's no hurry. That's the church that I would say, that is the question I would say is most applicable to our church. You live in a state of readiness as if eternity is real and the gospel is true.

Your friends know? How much are you yearning to get the gospel to the nations? How are you spending your money? Do you really want to be caught hoarding money that he gave you for his task? Don't let him find you with all kinds of money stuffed in your bank account that he gave you to help relieve people from suffering and to hear the gospel now.

I knew a very wealthy man here at the Summit Church who was also very generous. And I asked him one time, I'm like, what? Like, you just are so crazy generous. What motivates you?

I'll never forget. He looked at me, he said, my goal is to bounce my last check. Right before I die, I want to bounce my last check. I said, well then would you please make sure you write your second to last check to the Summit Church, okay? But you understand the kind of what he's thinking, right? He's like, I don't want to go into eternity with a bunch of stuff that God gave me for the blessing of the nations. Number one, you're awake to your task.

Number two, you'll be confident in his return. Y'all the servants who got in trouble were those who were either unsure of his return or they just forgot about it. When you're sure Jesus is coming back, see, you start to look at everything differently. You start to look at sacrifice differently, don't you? You can endure sacrifices on earth if you know that life is temporary and short and eternity is forever.

But if you think of life as forever, then you're not gonna be able to sacrifice. Today, it's really popular to talk about bucket lists. You know what a bucket list is? It just means a list of things that you want to do before you kick the bucket. Things that you feel like if I don't do them now in this life, I'll never have an opportunity for them to do again. So going to a Bon Jovi concert, climbing Mount Everest, shaking Nicholas Cage's hand, at least those would be what were on my bucket list, okay?

One of the questions that I asked in this book I had that just came out called What Are You Gonna Do With Your Life? is does a bucket list really make sense for a Christian? I mean, think about it.

Just think logically. You see, the Bible teaches us that when Jesus comes back, He's going to restore the earth. He's gonna bring a new heavens and a new earth, which scholars say means renewed. In fact, in Matthew, when Matthew records the same teaching of Jesus that we're looking at, Matthew 19, Jesus introduces it by saying that when He comes, He is going to bring the renewal, Matthew 19, 28, of all things.

Literally the word is the regenesis. He's going to recreate everything and He's going to renew the earth, watch, and He's going to take the curse out of it. And that means that where we're going and where He's taken us, there's going to be a much better version of everything we love down here.

All the pleasures of the world with none of the curses. And that means that anything that I miss out on down here, I'm going to get to experience an abundance up there. So if you never make it to the earthly Hawaii, you're going to have your own ocean front mansion in the heavenly one. And you think the earthly Hawaii is awesome. I can't wait to get my eyes on the heavenly one if the earthly cursed one looks like it does.

And when I bite into a ribeye steak here and I think, man, this ribeye is still part of the curse creation. I can't wait for the heavenly one. And if I never get to fly on a spaceship to the moon, which is pretty likely, in heaven, I will get to fly myself there.

So I don't think the bucket list really makes sense for the Christian, do you? And if we really believe that Jesus is coming back, because if Jesus is coming back, then YOLO isn't true for the Christian. YOLO, you only live once. YALF is true for the Christian.

You actually live forever. And that means that anything I miss out on down here, I can experience an abundance out there, except for one thing. There's one thing, only one thing that I know of that I can do down here that I can't do there. And that is tell people about Jesus. So why would I not prioritize that with my time, my resource and my opportunities?

If you're gonna have a bucket list, put that in the bucket. One of my missionary heroes has always been Adoniram Judson, if I need my son after him. Adoniram Judson wanted to marry a girl named Ann. And so he wanted to ask her dad for permission to marry her. Right, so he writes this dad a letter. I share this story and what are you gonna do with your life? Let me read you the letter, or at least an excerpt of it.

I have now, this man's name was John. I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring to never see her again in this world. Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life, to every kind of want and distress, to degradation, insult, persecution, and probably a violent death. Can you consent to all of this for the sake of him who left his heavenly home and died for her and for you, for the sake of perishing immortal souls, for the sake of the glory of God. Can you consent to all of this and hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory with a crown of righteousness, frightened by the acclamations of praise, which shall resound to her savior from the lost who were saved through her means and her sacrifice from eternal woe and despair.

Now first, dads, what would you say if you got a letter like this from a young man trying to date your daughter? John Hasseltine said, yes. And Anne and Adoniram got married and went as America's first missionaries across the seas to Asia. They went to Burma and now Myanmar, of course. And get this, every single one of those terrible things that Adoniram predicted and many more came true. Why could Adoniram and Anne and their father-in-law John, why could they endure these things? Because they believed time was short. They believe earth was nothing, that eternity was real and the master was coming back soon. My challenge to you is that you live in a way that only makes sense if Jesus is coming back soon.

Because that's what it means to live ready. Number three, last one here, faithful to your charge. Most sobering in this parable to me is how Jesus describes the fate of those who neglect their master's return. They are, verse 46, given a severe punishment and assigned a place with the unfaithful. Now you need to note that these are not overtly evil people.

They're just servants who were asleep at their task. By the way, this is not the only place where Jesus taught this. Later in Luke, Jesus is gonna tell another story about a master who goes away and leaves different sums of money with three different servants. Five talents, which is a unit of money, five talents with one, two with one and one with one. Well, the guy who has five invested, multiplies it, turns it into 10. Guy who has two multiplies it to four.

The guy who has one is scared, doesn't wanna lose money so he digs a hole and he buries it. Master comes back, guy with five turns it into 10. He's like, hey, here it is. And he's well done, good and faithful servant. Guy with two does the same thing. Well done, good and faithful servant.

Guy with one digs it back up. He's like, here you go. I was scared. What's most arresting to me about this parable is what Jesus says to that servant. You wicked servant. I read that and I think what wicked thing had he done? It's not like he took the money and blew it on prostitutes or gambling. He didn't steal the money. He gave 100% of the money.

He gave it back to the master. What wicked thing had he done? The only conclusion is there's more than one way to be wicked. You can be wicked by breaking all the commandments.

You can also be wicked by keeping all the commandments but not using what Jesus gave you for his mission and the way or for the purposes that he gave it to you for. And I have to wonder if we got a lot of people who sit in churches like this one who have lives that basically look good. They keep the commandments. They go to church. They even pay their tithes. But when Jesus comes back, he says, you wicked servant.

Yeah, you kept all the rules. You didn't have all these egregious sins but you didn't take what I gave you and use it for the purpose I gave it to you for. Something that we live in a land of abundance and that is God's gift to us. But it is so easy for us to become besotted with the benefits and pleasures that come from success that we forget why God gave them to us in the first place.

C.S. Lewis famously said, wealth has a way of knitting a man's heart to this world. We forget that God gave us what he gave us for eternal investment, not temporary pleasure. Have you ever asked yourself why Jesus gave you what he gave you? Are you faithfully invested at college students, young professionals? Have you ever offered your career to him? High school students, you ever said, Lord, what do you want me to do? If Jesus were to come back tomorrow, would he say to you, why are you doing that? Did you ever even offer this to me and ask me what I wanted you to do with it? What resources, talking to everybody now, not just college students and young professionals, what resources do you have that if Jesus came back, he would look at you and say, why are you holding on to that? Didn't you even ask why I gave you that?

Have you ever even asked me, why did I give you that? What are you doing with your life? Obviously, you know I've got a book that came out by just that title, and it's a question I think every Christian should consider, especially if you're in college or high school or starting your career or nearing retirement.

It's something you need to ask. Are you wasting your life or are you fulfilling your purpose? Blessed are those, blessed are those who are awake to their task and active in it when the master comes. And maybe you're sitting there, and you're like, well, this all sounds great. I'd love to live this way.

This is a lot easier said than done. Hey, listen, best part of the message. In this parable, Jesus tucks in a couple of amazing things that actually give you the motivation to do this. For example, verse 37, I'll give you one of them. Blessed are those servants who the master finds awake when he comes, watch this, watch, watch, watch. Truly I say to you, that master will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come, the master will come and serve them. Hey, what is the master doing serving the servants?

That's crazy, nobody ever does that. When the master comes home, the servants serve him. Now you've got a master in this parable who's gonna come back, and he's gonna get dressed for service, and he's gonna feed them food, and he's gonna watch their feet, and he's gonna take care of them.

See, this is the kind of master we're talking about. This is the gospel. Our salvation is not about our service to him, it's about his extravagant gift to us. This is a master who served you at the cost of his own life, though he was in the form of God. He did not consider equality with God something to be held onto, but he divested himself of it and took upon himself the form of a servant and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. That's the gospel, it's right there in this parable.

Plus what he offers you is extravagant. Look at verse 44. Truly I say to you, he will set that servant over all of his possessions.

All of them? By the way, truly I say to you, that little phrase, that's a little clue. Whenever you're reading Jesus' words, Jesus didn't have to say, truly I say to you because he was in the habit of telling lies. He didn't have to stop and be like, hey, now I'm actually being serious. No, whenever he says that, it's because what he's about to say is so mind-blowing that you're not really gonna believe it unless you turn your faith actively on. Jesus is like, this is really true what I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna put that servant in charge of all my possessions. Y'all, I'm not even sure exactly what that means but God has destined you to rule. He's not talking about promoting you to a higher class of slave or servant. He's talking about making you a co-heir with Jesus, part of his family.

We're not talking about promotion, we're talking about adoption. Behold what manner of love the father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God, not the slaves of God, but the children of God. See, you might read this parable as threatening.

Oh, this master's coming back and I'm gonna be cut to pieces but consider this friend, undoubtedly every single one of us, me included, deserves the punishment of that wicked servant. What punishment were they supposed to receive? Did you see verse 46? They were supposed to be cut in pieces and given the domain of the unfaithful.

Isn't that what happened to Jesus when he came? He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. The punishment of our peace was upon him. He was numbered with the transgressors so that by his stripes we might be healed. Friend, I don't fear the coming back of my master, not because I'm totally worthy, it's just that I know that he came and was cut into pieces for me and the first time he came, he came to serve me.

That's why he came not as a ruling king, he came as a servant who would die in my place by living the life I was supposed to live then dying the death that I had been condemned to die and I know that if he served me the first time by dying for my sins when he comes the second time, he's gonna serve me by establishing me as a co-ruler and a son. So how marvelous, how wonderful and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful is my savior's love for me. Friend, doesn't that make you want to be generous? Doesn't that mean you can trust Jesus with your life? We can guard our loins and serve others just like he guarded his loins and served us.