March 26, 2023 - Just Informed Talk - Craig James
13:51
| 
| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Hi, welcome to another God's Grace is Greater segment. | |
| Today we're talking about Luke. | |
| We're doing a deep dive into the Gospel of Luke like we've been doing. | |
| We're in chapter 12. | |
| We're picking up where we left off. | |
| Yesterday we talked about Jesus giving us this cure for our anxiety. | |
| And the way he essentially told us to cure our own anxiety was to Understand that where our treasure is that is where our heart will be so we should focus on building our treasure in heaven and not focus on the things of this world and Going kind of straight from there into these next set of verses We're picking up in verse 35 and we're gonna read all the way up to verse 48. | |
| And this is Jesus telling us that It's not just in the way that you may think. | |
| his return, but not just how to prepare for his return, as we know he will someday return to judge the living and the dead. | |
| But more importantly, it's telling us how to understand what that looks like. | |
| And it's not just in the way that you may think. | |
| It's in a way that is told through a parable, and a parable about a master returning and what his slaves are meant to do. | |
| And this is fascinating. | |
| And, you know, a lot of people, when they hear the word slave, automatically have a picture that they draw on their mind. | |
| And slave is not necessarily the picture that's been drawn in the 18th century rendition of the term itself. | |
| But historically speaking, a slave would have basically been a servant, if you will, is a better way to put it. | |
| And this parable talks about what a servant is meant to do while the master's away. | |
| And that is the parable that is going to be giving us the idea of how to prepare for Jesus's return. | |
| So let's just go ahead and read through these verses here. | |
| We're starting in Luke chapter 12, verse 35, and we'll read to verse 48. | |
| So let's read. | |
| It says, Be ready for service and have your lamps lit. | |
| You must be like people waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet so that when he comes and knocks, they can open the door for him at once. | |
| Those slaves, the master will find alert when he comes, will be blessed. | |
| I assure you, he will get ready, have them recline at the table, then come and serve them. | |
| If he comes in the middle of the night or even near dawn and finds them alert, those slaves are blessed. | |
| But know this, if the homeowner had known at what hour the thief was coming, He would not have let his house be broken into. | |
| You also be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect. | |
| Lord, Peter asked, are you telling this parable to us or to everyone? | |
| The Lord said, Who then is the faithful and sensible manager his master will put in charge of his household servants to give them their allotted food at the proper time? | |
| That slave, whose master finds him working when he comes, will be rewarded. | |
| I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. | |
| But if that slave says in his heart, My master is delaying and is coming and starts to beat the male and female slaves and to eat and drink and get drunk, That slave's master will come on a day he does not expect him, and at an hour he does not know. | |
| He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. | |
| And that slave who knew his master's will and didn't prepare himself or do it will be severely beaten, but the one who did not know and did things deserving of blows will be beaten lightly. | |
| Much will be required of everyone who has been given much, and even more will be expected of the one who has been entrusted with more. | |
| Now, I love these verses because there's a story and there's a principle that we can use in our lives today. | |
| There's several principles, actually. | |
| The first one is about being prepared. | |
| Because what does he say? | |
| In the first sentence of these verses, the first verse 35, the first thing he says, be ready for service and have your lamps lit, meaning be prepared. | |
| And he says you must be like people waiting for the master, their master, to return from the wedding banquet so that when he comes and knocks, they can open the door for him at once. | |
| Now, for those of you who don't know, wedding banquet in those days would have been quite an affair. | |
| It would have been a party, if you will, that would have gone on for probably at least a few days, maybe a week. | |
| And in that Example what Jesus is telling us is that just as the servant who is left in charge of the compound or the house, the home, Doesn't know at what time the wedding banquet's gonna end, and when the master's gonna come home. | |
| That's the same way we are as Christians waiting for Christ's return. | |
| Because we know, what do we know? | |
| He came, He died for our sins, He was resurrected, and He went to heaven to be with the Father, but that He will come again to judge the living and the dead. | |
| But we don't know when that day is. | |
| I mean, no matter what we do, no one will know when Christ is coming. | |
| I mean, The Bible doesn't give us a date, and there is no way to really calculate it. | |
| Anybody who tells you that they know the date is lying, because we can't know that time when Jesus is going to come. | |
| So what are we meant to do? | |
| Well, we are meant to be prepared, always. | |
| And in a lot of ways, these parables that Jesus gives us here, these examples, the story that he tells, is very true for us in our lives. | |
| Right? | |
| He tells us first about the slaves that are blessed when the master comes home because they're alert and they're ready and they will be invited to recline at the table and come and serve them. | |
| But if he comes in the middle of the night and doesn't find them alert or aware, that they will be punished. | |
| And again, Jesus then says that if the homeowner had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. | |
| If we knew at what time Jesus was coming back, well then, I would probably guess a lot of people, maybe not all, hopefully not all, Not even a majority, hopefully, but some people would say, all right, well, I guess we can just party and have a good old time until Jesus comes back. | |
| And then I'll just, I'll, I'll repent and say, I'm sorry. | |
| And then everything will be fine. | |
| But because we don't know, that means we must be prepared. | |
| And are you prepared? | |
| Is the real question. | |
| Are you prepared in your life? | |
| If Jesus came today and he walked in the door, wherever you are, would you be prepared? | |
| Now, I know it's something that I struggle with. | |
| I don't come here as a preacher who preaches down. | |
| I come here as an evangelist who wants to share this gift and this gospel that was given to me. | |
| I can say for myself that I do my best to be prepared. | |
| I pray every day. | |
| I try my best to live a good life, to not be sinful, to not break what I know God expects of me and of us all. | |
| But of course we all fail sometimes. | |
| So I'm not talking about if you are at that one moment where you slip up and make a mistake, but I'm talking about in your general day to day life, would you be prepared? | |
| If on a Tuesday at, uh, you know, four o'clock or five o'clock, six o'clock, he walked right in. | |
| I mean, these are questions that Jesus is telling us to ask ourselves, because if you're not, then what does Jesus tell us to do? | |
| He says, prepare, be ready. | |
| Because he says, the Son of Man's coming in an hour that you don't expect. | |
| And then Peter asked him, are you telling this to us or to everyone? | |
| So what do you think that Peter meant when he asked that question? | |
| Well, I think what Peter meant was simple. | |
| There was always a power struggle within the disciples. | |
| They always were seeking who was the greatest among them. | |
| There's countless examples of this through the gospel. | |
| One of the big ones was when I believe it was John and James' mother asked Jesus who is basically, which of her sons would be at his right hand, essentially. | |
| And they all were kind of always jockeying for position as to who was going to be in charge. | |
| Because they saw Jesus as Somebody was going to come and build an empire on earth. | |
| He was going to be a king, a ruler, and he was going to need people to be at his right and his left hand to be his servants, but to be his high, high servants that would oversee lots and many or much of the world. | |
| What they didn't realize was that Jesus was telling this, not just to them, but to us all. | |
| As an example for how to build, and just like we talked about before this, about building our treasure in heaven, and not to focus on the things of this earth, when Peter asks this question, he's essentially asking, well, are you telling us that we need to be on guard because you're going to build your kingdom immediately, and we need to be ready to be your right-hand man? | |
| What does he say? | |
| He asks a question. | |
| He says, who then is faithful and a sensible manager? | |
| Who is the faithful and sensible manager his master will put in charge of his household servants to give them their allotted food at the proper time? | |
| He's asking him the question. | |
| He's saying, well, okay, so you guys expect that when I go, who's going to be the one that is the top dog after I leave, is essentially what Peter seems to be asking, and Jesus responds with that question. | |
| He says, that slave whose master finds him working when he comes will be rewarded. | |
| So he kind of just gives him the answer of, if you keep doing what I've taught you to do, then you will be rewarded. | |
| He says, I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. | |
| But if that slave says in his heart, my master's delaying and starts to beating the male and female slaves and eat and drink and get drunk, then guess what? | |
| The slave's master will come on a day he does not expect him, and he will cut him to pieces and assign him to a place of unbelief. | |
| That means he'll be going to hell. | |
| And so again, being prepared is the general message that Jesus is getting across. | |
| But then there's another part here that's fascinating. | |
| It says, And that slave who knew his master's will and didn't prepare himself or do it will be severely punished. | |
| But the one who did not know and did things deserving of punishment will be punished less severely. | |
| Isn't that fascinating? | |
| So if you know, what Jesus expects of us. | |
| If you know the difference between good and evil and right and wrong, and you choose to do the opposite, to do the bad thing, to do the thing that is against God's will, against what Jesus teaches us, there's a more severe punishment, as opposed to somebody who doesn't know. | |
| And that's outlined here very, very well. | |
| And finally, and that is really a point of understanding that with this The expectation with us as Christians is even higher than it is for the unbelievers and the people who don't know yet. | |
| That means we have to live to an even higher standard, which is more difficult. | |
| But in this example, and what Jesus teaches us in this parable will be much more rewarding. | |
| And we know that it will be with the eternal salvation we've already been given. | |
| And finally, Jesus says much will be required of everyone who has been given much. | |
| So if you're given the greatest gift of all, our eternal salvation, then you're going to have a lot required of you. | |
| And even more will be expected of the one who has been entrusted with more. | |
| So understand that we've been entrusted with the biggest and greatest gift ever given. | |
| That is our eternal salvation through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. | |
| Are you going to be ready and prepared when he returns? | |
| We're going to say a prayer. | |
| I want you guys to think about that and then we'll wrap it up. | |
| Lord and Heavenly Father, we pray that you'll help us prepare our hearts, prepare our lives, prepare a way for you, Lord, that though we don't know the day and the time at which you will come, Lord, let us live lives that are preparing a way for you into our hearts so we can help others find you as well. | |
| And Lord, whatever your will, let it be done. | |
| Help us honor you with all we have as we thank you most of all, for our eternal salvation in Jesus name. | |
| Amen. | |
| Alright, well, I hope you enjoyed that. | |
| I love those. | |
| It's words to live by. | |
| Be prepared. | |
| We don't know the day or the time. | |
| We must be prepared. | |
| So I'm going to leave it there. | |
| I want to say thanks for watching. | |
| We'll catch you guys on the next one. | |
| Until then, make sure you like, share, subscribe. | |
| There's links in the description if you want to help support this channel, donate, all that stuff. | |
| It helps out big time. | |
| Also links to all my other social media and other platforms where I post, rumble a bit, shoot, YouTube, whatever. | |
| Go check that out in the description below. | |
| I want to say thank you for watching. | |
| We'll see you on the next one. |
Export Selection