"Ready for Jesus' return"

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Luke 12 starting at verse 35. Be dressed, ready for service, and keep your lamps burning. Like servants, waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet so that when he comes and knocks, they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly, I tell you he will dress himself to serve, will make them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.

It will be good for those servants whose mask defines them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or towards daybreak. But understand this. If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, He would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready because the son of man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Peter asked, lord, are you telling this parable to us or to everyone?

The lord answered. Who then is the faithful and wise manager? Whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time. It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. Truly, I tell you he will put him in charge of all his possessions.

But suppose the servant says to himself, my master is taking a long time in coming, and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, 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 is not aware of, he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. The servant who knows the master's will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the 1 who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be be beaten with few blows.

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded. And from the 1 who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Thank you, Jackie. Please keep the passage open in front of you. So page 1045.

And let's pray together. Heavenly father, we need your help as we come to your word. Thank you that you have spoken that we have your word to open up so we can know you. We can know what you're like. And we can know how we are to respond to you.

You teach us. And so help us to be ready to listen now and to respond to what we read. Oh, man. So we're in a series of sermons, as has been said, we're in Luke's gospel, but we're picking out, stories on the road, lessons in following Jesus. So these are stories that Jesus told.

We're particularly focusing on a section loop 9 to 19. I hope maybe you're following through that on the sort of reading plan that we put on our prayer diary. And as we go through that section, we're just, like I say, picking out stories, which are primarily about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And today, we come to a story which is all about Jesus' second coming. Now our problem with thinking about Jesus' second coming is that some him may feel well, it's just a slightly embarrassing topic because in general, the people who believe in Jesus' second coming and make a deep big deal of it might well, it feels like they might be the fanatics.

That they are the mad street preachers who shout about Jesus' return. You talk to them and they have a kind of deranged look in their eye. And so when it comes to this topic, we kind of wanna brush over it maybe because we don't want to be associated with that kind of person. But that gives us a problem. John Lenox, who's a a Christian and a professor in mathematics at Oxford University, he said, I saw a little short video of him.

It was an interesting little video. And he said, the 2 big doctrines that have come under the most attack over recent decades have been where we come from So the Christian doctrines that have come under most attack and where we come from, in other words, creation, and where we're heading. But that gives us problems because if we don't know where we come from, we don't really know who we are. And if we don't know where we're heading, then we lose hope. So both of those things are very important, not just as doctrines to say, yes, I believe in those things, but actually they make a difference to our everyday lives.

These are very important truths. And the truth of Jesus's return, and Jesus speaks a lot about his return. In the passage that we looked at, Jesus says, not only do you need to believe in it. Not just tick the box to say, yeah, I believe he's coming back. You need to be ready for it.

Christian discipleship means living as those who are ready, ready for Jesus' return. And so we're gonna look at the passage that was read, and the passage splits down into 2 parts. First half, second half, all of it is about Jesus' return. The first half is aimed mostly at well, is is aimed at everyone, is aimed at all Christians. The second section is more I think it's more aimed towards there's some debate in commentaries, but I think it's aimed more towards church leaders, but we'll see that when we come to it.

We're gonna spend a bit more time on the first section, though. So first point, be ready. The master will return when you don't expect him. Have a look down again verse 35. Jesus says, be dressed, ready for service, and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet so that when he comes and knocks, they can immediately open the door for him.

Well, here's the story Jesus is telling. It's a very simple 1. He says, imagine a household. The master has gone. He's gone off to a wedding.

Now for weddings for us are pretty predictable things. They may feel like they go on for a long time, but they only last for a day. Whereas for them, weddings could last much longer. They could last days. And so this master who's gone to a wedding, the servants don't know when he will return.

And the images of these servants dressed ready for service with their lamps burning so that when the master returns, As soon as he knocks on the door, they can open it. Immediately, no gap between the knock and the response. And Jesus is saying to us, that is how you should be. His command, be ready. The command is there at the beginning of verse 35, isn't it?

Be dressed. Ready for service. More literally, that is gird your loins, which sounds like a great old English way of expressing it, but actually relates back to the their day. The servants in their day, if they were servants of a a wealthy household would wear long robes, which may look good, but actually aren't very useful when it comes to doing work. So when it came to doing work, they would put a belt on and they would tuck their robes into the belt.

They would gird their loins so that they're ready for service. And Jesus is saying be like that. Not that you've gotta go out and buy robes and a belt, but be ready. Have your lamps burning so that if Jesus comes day or night, you're ready. Be ready.

Now you know what that's like. To be ready, if you've got a day where you know that something is coming, maybe a delivery is coming. Someone's coming to do some work on a house you're in. You know what it's like? You've gotta be there.

You make sure that's a day when you're in. And that you're alert. You're ready. Alert for the doorbell. And there are some jobs maybe you don't do.

Maybe you don't you don't hoover the house because the doorbell might go. Or you don't our house, you might not put the fan on above the hob because it makes a noise. You might not hear the doorbell. Maybe you don't even go to the loo during the day because you don't want to miss that ring of the doorbell. You're ready.

You're alert. Because what you don't want is then to come to the front door and get 1 of those little bit cards that says we call while you were out. Certain amount of bitterness. We call while you were out. And we've chucked the parcel over the fence.

You're saying be ready all the time. Now for that to be the case, of course, that means we need to have in our minds the fact that Jesus will return. And yet it's very easy for that just to slip and us not to live in the light of that, isn't it? Because we get so absorbed understandably with the things of today with sorting out your workplace, problems there, maybe, or your family, or a whole load of things, or church things where you think, right, we've got to sort these things out. And therefore we don't live in the light of the fact that Jesus is coming back.

But yet, Jesus says there is incentive for being ready. Do you notice that? Jesus says verse 37, It will be good. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. He'll be good for you.

If you're there, ready. And I think the second half of verse 37 is amazing. This wouldn't have happened normally. This would, as the people were listening to Jesus, their ears would have pricked up and they'd go, Really? Seriously?

Do you see what it said? Jackie read it really well, actually. To get the meaning out. I missed it first time I read it. But did you notice?

He says, truly, I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will make them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. Now first time you read that, you might think the person serving, well, that's the servant. But it's not. It's the master returning from the the wedding. Isn't that incredible?

It says, so the he here is the master. Truly, I tell you, he will dress himself to serve will make them, the servants, recline at the table, and we'll come and wait on them. This is saying when Jesus returns, he will come and serve you. And me. And as I was preparing this, I thought, no.

Is that really right? Is that what it is that what it's saying? It is what it's saying. And, yeah, we shouldn't be surprised at that, should we? Because when Jesus first came, he was born in Bethlehem, then came a minister among us, it says that he came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

He came as a servant. That was his love. And his self giving love doesn't stop just at the cross. He goes on loving us and serving us and will incredibly after he returns continue to serve us and love us. But the thing is we don't know when it's going to be.

And that's the point of verses 38 to 40. Have a look again. I'll read them for us. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night, or towards daybreak, but understand this. If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.

You also must be ready because the son of man will come and an hour when you do not expect him. He say the big point there is you don't know. You don't know when Jesus will come back to stick with that image of the house and the servants. He's saying it could be the middle of the night. Could be early in the morning.

You just don't know. And the point about the burglar thing, that's saying, well burglars don't tend to tell you when they're gonna come and burglar your house. So they said we're gonna arrive this afternoon, 5 o'clock. You'd be ready. You'd have some big guy.

Not me. You'd have some big guys there ready to stop them or you'd have the police there ready to arrest them. But the whole point is burglars don't do that. And you don't know when Jesus is gonna return. Jesus says, you also must be ready because the son of man will come at an hour when you do not expect.

This isn't a be ready just in case he comes. He is coming. You just don't know when. Therefore, Don't be fooled by people who say they know when Jesus is coming back. They don't.

Jesus says it will be at a time when you do not expect. Now there are some other things just to take on board with that. That does mean Jesus is not saying live every day assuming today is the day when he will come back because he says you don't know. Yes. You've gotta be ready in case it is today, but don't live today assuming, oh, it's definitely gonna be today.

I think sometimes we can slip into thinking that's what Jesus means. But that's not what he means. Otherwise, every day, you'll get or go it's today. Don't know what you do there for, but but, you know, it's gonna be today, sell everything, you know, what and therefore, when it comes to bedtime, you go, oh, it wasn't today. I'm really disappointed.

Next day. The same and at some point, you'll get fed up. You'll give up. She said, no, don't be like that. Don't assume it is today, but be ready in case it's today.

But also, some Christians, and I think have conversations with Christina fairly frequently where christians will say they're looking around the world, seeing what's going on in the world, and saying, well, it feels like it's gonna be soon. As if, you know, there's this sort of build up, and we're going, well, it could be any day. Because look at the world. And I think what people are looking at is they see sort of more wars in the world, maybe more instability in the world. Pandemic that came.

They look at those things and they go maybe we're building up to something here. Jesus says it will be at a time when you do not expect. Now I think people, when they when they say that, though, They might be thinking of other verses in the Bible. Maybe, we won't turn it up, but Mark chapter 13 could be a chapter that they might be thinking of where Jesus does say, you will hear about wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and things like this. And they they hear that, and then they look at the world and they go, yeah, that's what's going on.

Maybe maybe Jesus is coming back. But actually, the point in March 13, it is a slightly complicated chapter. But part of what Jesus is saying is He says, these things must happen, but the end is yet to come. Before that, he says, don't be alarmed by those things. In other words, Jesus is saying, those things, wars, rumors of wars earthquakes, that kind of thing, That that's what characterizes this age, this time that we're in.

So don't don't let them panic you. Don't be disturbed by that. That's what's gonna happen. But the end is yet to come. So don't be fooled by that and don't be troubled by it, but that means we've gotta be ready at all times.

Still gotta be ready because we don't know when he'll come. Now what will that look like? What will it look like for you and me to be ready for Jesus' return? I I just want us to think about, 3 things because it it doesn't mean staying up all night by your front door, girded loins lamp, you know, it it that's not what you've gotta do to be ready. I don't think Jesus is telling you what to do to be ready.

He's just saying be ready. So what's that gotta look like? Let me give you 3 things from elsewhere in the Bible, fairly briefly, just as things to go. Okay. Yeah.

This is what it means to be ready. First is trust in Jesus. You are not ready if you're not if you've not put your trust in him. For forgiveness, for life. You've not ready if you're just living for yourself.

Put your trust in Jesus because he's the only way to be forgiven. And if you have put your trust in Jesus, you do not need to fear Jesus' return. Paul talks about this in Romans 5. If you're making notes, you could, look up Romans 5 verse 9, later on, which says this. Of Christians, it says, since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from god's wrath through him?

So Paul is saying, if you put your trust in Jesus, you've been forgiven your sins. You've been justified. That is, by Jesus' blood. He says how much more shall we be saved future when Jesus returns? How much more shall we be saved from god's wrath?

Through him. So if you're justified, if you're a Christian, if you put your trust in Jesus, you do not need to fear Jesus' return. But you're not ready if you've not put your trust in. That's the first thing. Have you done it?

Have you put your trust in Jesus? Second thing. Godly living. Godly living. Often, when the second coming of Jesus is talked about, the teaching then is to say, therefore live godly lives, not to try to get in with God through godly lives, but as those who are gods, as those who trusted in Jesus live godly lives.

So Paul says in the book of Titus, I put this 1 up on the screen. He says, for the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people, It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self controlled upright and godly lives in this present age. While we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ. So long past long quote there, but what Paul is saying is, what should we be doing as we wait for the appearing of Jesus? Live godly lives.

Give yourself to godliness. So that means we are not ready for Jesus' return if we are just throwing ourselves into ungodly living. If we're involved in ungodly relationships with people. If you're sleeping with your boyfriend or girlfriend or, if you're involved in other, immoral relationships, or if you're giving yourself to drunkenness, getting drunk. Imagine he returned while you're drunk.

He'll arrive at a time when you don't expect. Or if you're watching porn or if you're gossiping about people or could be a whole load of things where we say, actually, they are ungodly. Don't engage in them. Like we say, not to earn your way into god. Now this is the grace of God has appeared.

It's his free gift to us. To rescue us. But now as those who've received his grace, live a godly life, knowing that Jesus will return. Trust in Jesus, godly living, and last 1 there. Oh, I I just thought I would bring in something from the context of the passage that we're looking at from Loop 12 because we had good challenges over the last couple of weeks of not living for money, not living for possessions.

And if that's what we're doing, if we're living for this life, for just gaining more and more things, more and more possessions, more and more luxury, if we're trying to build heaven on earth, we're not really ready. Living for money, living for possessions. Now Jesus says live for the kingdom. Be ready. Are there things you need to change in the light of Jesus' return?

Our danger is we become sleepy. Maybe that's a danger you've got right now. But our danger is as Christians that we become sleepy, that we don't take seriously that Jesus will return. What do you need to change? That's the first part of the passage.

Second part of the passage, which we will go through quicker, is be ready. The master will return when oh, no. That's still the first 1. I spotted it. Hope you did too.

Second point, leaders, be ready, fulfill your master's command. So like I say, I think that there is a switch here. Peter asked the question in verse 41, lord, are you telling this parable to us or to everyone? And Jesus responds not with a direct answer, but with another story. So he says verse 42, who then is the faithful and wise manager whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time.

So this, I think, gives you some of the responsibility of church leaders, which is to serve fellow servants by providing food. Here's the expectation of leaders that we will serve and will provide food for fellow servants by preaching and teaching. And that will bring out food at the proper time. I think there's a a responsibility here. It's just a little hint of it that there's a responsibility on church leaders to bring out the right thing at the right time.

You're not just bringing out sandwiches when it's a feast, and you're not bringing out roast dinner when it's breakfast time, but you're bringing out the right food at the right time. Now it's always the word of god. But we need to be wise as elders to say when when should we bring out? When should you have a feast of Romans? When should you have the delights of the psalms?

When should you have food, which is maybe a little bit harder to to get at, you know, like eating mussels or crabble, whatever it is. You know, when you when should you have something like leviticus? When it's just more of a challenge? For how long? How many years should you have a series in leviticus for?

That kind of thing is a question for elders to have a think about. And there's, again, the promise of reward, verse 44. Truly, I tell you he will put him in charge of all his possessions. Would you remind me that when Jesus returns, it's not gonna be that we're all just sitting around. No.

There'll be things to do. There'll be responsibilities. And then verse 45, things get, very serious. And this is quite a chilling point in Jesus' teaching. So far, the servants have all been happy.

It's been sort of like down to Nabi and 1 of their, you know, servants balls, if you know, down to Nabi, and everyone's just enjoying it. But now it gets very serious. First 45. But suppose the servant says to himself my master is taking a long time in coming, and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. Here's the horrible situation, the servant, is abusing his fellow servants, beating them, and indulging himself.

Now can you see Jesus is saying he knew this kind of thing was gonna happen? That church leaders could become abusive. Would take their God given positions and hurt others. And you don't need me to tell you that there have been church leaders who have done exactly this. And whose abuse is maybe have come into the news, who've damaged people and have brought the name of Jesus into disrepute.

And it's sickening when it happens. And there'll be others whose deeds have not yet been exposed. Jesus knew it would happen, and he says verse 46, this is chilling. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him. And at an hour he is not aware of, he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.

Severe punishment. And being assigned a place with unbelievers because that is what they are. And isn't it good that Jesus hates the abuses of church leaders? More than we do, and 1 day he will deal with them. And the warning continues verse 47, the servant who knows the master's will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.

But the 1 who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. That's just saying that the amount of punishment, the degree of punishment will depend on the amount of knowledge that those people have. They know what they should do and know that what they're doing is wrong, that then there'll be some more severe punishment. And this is a warning, isn't it? For church leaders?

I don't think we have in view here church leaders who are trying their best, trying to serve the master, but maybe are doing so, you know, stumblingly, you're trying to do their best, but actually it's hard and they're struggling. I don't think we've got that in view here. Nor is Paul talking about those who are just a bit weak in leadership who who find it hard. No. The issue here is the abuse and neglect of fellow servants.

He he does include there verse 47, those who know the master as well does not get ready or does not do what the master wants. You've gotta do what the master wants as church leaders. Serving god's people through feeding them. And therefore, can I ask you to pray for the elders of Hope Church? Please would you pray for us?

I mean, please take that seriously to pray for us because we're in danger if we think this could never be us. How do leaders become like this? How do leaders become those who abuse others? Well, sometimes it can be more obvious that's just what they set out to do, but sometimes it can be in subtler ways. And I just wanted to let you know about, a book that we're reading as elders.

We've only read the introduction and first chapter, but he's been very helpful by a guy called Paul Tripp, who has helped other churches where they have, gone off the rails where things have gone badly. He's helped other churches to try to sort things out. And his book is very helpful because 1 of the things he's doing is to say, what is the culture that you need to have in the leadership of a church? So that you don't go down this path. And 1 of the challenges well, the big challenge in the first chapter is, to have achievement in the right place.

Of course, as leaders, you want to be achieving things for god, You want to set things up, set up ministries. You want to see people coming to faith. You want to see new people coming in, and you want to achieve those things. And you can want to do so. For good reasons, you say, Lord, I want to serve you in doing these things, but Paul trip wisely says, Be really careful that achievement doesn't become the main thing on the agenda of the elders or as a church.

Why is that a danger? Because if achievement is the big thing, then church members, fellow servants, become either tools for achieving what we want or obstacles getting in the way of what we want. Those who can help us and can help us achieve our goals, We spend time with, we value, and those who can't help. Maybe they're struggling, become obstacles in the way and aren't really spent time with. Paul Trek saying be really careful because you go down that road, and you as leaders start becoming demanding and uncaring and abuse it.

And we felt, you know, we need to be careful on this as elders that we are doing that we have got in our minds, not what are other churches doing? We ought to be doing that. What what are other churches in our past been doing, we ought to be doing those things. But rather that we have our eyes on, what does the lord require of us as his servants? And that is that we are loving and serving you.

Giving you food that is right for you. And if Jesus returns at that point, while we're doing that, we're okay. But please pray for us. And the final verse, we just touch on it, at at the end of the final verse, it just broadens things out, I think, where Jesus says, from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded. And from the 1 who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

Yes. That's leaders, but I think that's that's all of us. Isn't it? I mean, we've been entrusted. We've been given much, haven't we?

We've got much, yeah, possessions, but also maybe you grew up in a Christian home. You've had good teaching. In the past, past churches where you've received a lot of good teaching. We've received much, haven't we? Well, much will be expected from us?

Who are you helping? Who are you helping grow in the faith? With all that you have been given. Well, the question for us this morning is not just whether we believe that Jesus will return, but are we ready for it? Oh, lots of people believe Jesus will return, or at least they say them.

They believe Jesus will return. I was speaking to someone who's not a Christian. You say, yeah, I think Jesus is gonna return. And the question for them is, are you ready? I mean, if you think that's really gonna happen, are you ready for it?

And for us, in this room, Are we ready for Jesus' return? Are we dressed? I can see you're dressed, but are you dressed and ready for service with your lamps burning? Is that us? Let's pray.

Heavenly father, we, pray, please that you would help us to be ready, taking seriously that Jesus will return, that he will come back, and therefore help us to live ready looking forward to that day that we would not be caught sleeping. How they help us to put our trust in Jesus, to live godly lives, and not live for money or possessions, but help us to live for the day when Jesus will come back and to look forward to it. And we pray, please, that you would help the leaders of Hope Church as well and other churches locally that we would be ready, doing what you command us to do, serving your people. Father help each 1 of us to be ready. Oh, man.