35 “Stay dressed for action1 and keep your lamps burning,36 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.37 Blessed are those servants2 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.38 If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants!39 But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he3 would not have left his house to be broken into.40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
41 Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” 42 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?43 Blessed is that servant4 whom his master will find so doing when he comes.44 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.45 But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk,46 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.47 And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating.48 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 the more.
Not Peace, but Division
49 “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!50 I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!51 Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.52 For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three.53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Footnotes
[1]12:35Greek Let your loins stay girded; compare Exodus 12:11 [2]12:37Or bondservants [3]12:39Some manuscripts add would have stayed awake and [4]12:43Or bondservant; also verses 45, 46, 47
35 “Stay dressed for action1 and keep your lamps burning,36 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.37 Blessed are those servants2 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.38 If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants!39 But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he3 would not have left his house to be broken into.40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
41 Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” 42 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?43 Blessed is that servant4 whom his master will find so doing when he comes.44 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.45 But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk,46 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.47 And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating.48 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 the more.
Not Peace, but Division
49 “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!50 I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!51 Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.52 For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three.53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Footnotes
[1]12:35Greek Let your loins stay girded; compare Exodus 12:11 [2]12:37Or bondservants [3]12:39Some manuscripts add would have stayed awake and [4]12:43Or bondservant; also verses 45, 46, 47
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:
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. Blessed are those servants whom the faster 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 and finds them awake, blessed are those servants.
Joel Brooks:
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 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 father who his master will find so doing when he comes.
Joel Brooks:
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 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 in 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 but 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.
Joel Brooks:
And from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more. I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled. I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished. Pray with me. Lord, we ask that you would bring clarity where there is confusion.
Joel Brooks:
This is a message I've just struggled so much putting together this week. There's so much there. I ask that you would organize my thoughts, that you would speak clearly and powerfully, Lord. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord Lord, your words would remain, that they would hit their mark, and that they would change us.
Joel Brooks:
I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Now I made an assumption when preparing this message that I I hope is true. I believe that neither the rapture nor judgment day came during y2k, that that you guys didn't miss it. That's an assumption that I I'm I'm gonna hold to.
Joel Brooks:
I don't I know there's a lot of talk, but I don't believe it happened. I can remember one time because people love to talk about the end of times. One time when I was in high school, the wrestling coach got me and he took me down and he asked me to talk about the end times to the PE class before we were having about the start of the Persian Gulf War. And he asked me questions like, is, you know, Saddam Hussein the Antichrist? And I was like, I I don't know.
Joel Brooks:
That was the answer for everything is, I don't know. But everybody wanted to know, is this the end of time? When's it gonna happen? Now in preparation for this sermon, I, binged, I no longer Google, I I binged, end of time. And the first website that I went to, it was this scriptural website, and it says that the Bible clearly teaches us that Judgment Day is coming May 21, 2011.
Joel Brooks:
So you have a little over a year to get ready. And of course there was these Mayan prophecy sites, you know, in the Hollywood made wood film is made popular that the end of the world is coming December 21st, 2012. I actually came across a, app that you can download that counts down until judgment day in case every time you need to pull out your phone, you can look and just get the countdown going. And you know, I know part, you know, we know that nobody knows the day. The Bible tells us nobody knows the day or the hour, but part of me thinks if God wants to be really tricky, he could pick a day somebody's already chosen.
Joel Brooks:
Since we know it really won't be the day, so you never know. Maybe it will be May 21st. Jesus, he taught a lot about the end of his return. Especially about the end and his return. Especially in the last week before he was crucified.
Joel Brooks:
But the point of Jesus's teaching is always ethical. It's not the point of his teaching is not for us to try and find out the day of his coming. The question is always posed, how is that day gonna find you when it comes? What are you going to be doing? How are you going to be living?
Joel Brooks:
Scripture is not about trying to, you know, work out the calculations and figure out exactly when Christ is coming. No. It's when He comes, how is that day gonna find you? How would Jesus find you? What would you be doing?
Joel Brooks:
I love that quote that's on the front of your worship guide that says, when it comes time to die, make sure all you have to do is die. From Jim Elliott. Make sure when the Lord comes, all you have to do is go. You're living life in such a way. Luke 12 is all about the kingdom of God.
Joel Brooks:
We started looking at it last week, in the fear not little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, the kingdom. And this kingdom of God, it's it's when Christ comes physically, Christ comes suddenly, and he establishes a real kingdom on this earth, and he will reign as king. And you could point to a lot of different places in scripture. One of my favorite places to turn is in Matthew 19, in which Jesus, he describes this coming kingdom by using unusual Greek word, palagenesis. Palagenesis.
Joel Brooks:
And it's a Greek word that was used by the philosophers of the day. Greek philosophers, they they thought that the end of time would be the palagenesis. It's when the earth would come at the end of its cycle, and it will be burned up, and it would be purified, and then it would start all over, be reborn, regenerated. Jesus actually uses that term, but he doesn't say that this is going to be a palagenesis. He says that when he comes, it will be the.
Joel Brooks:
There will not be any others. There is not a cycle. He will come and he will purify. He will regenerate the entire world once and for all. The kingdom will come, and it will come when he reigns on his glorious throne.
Joel Brooks:
And this text here says that, we need to live in light of that day. We need to keep watch. And and in the context of this passage here, I know that usually when you think of keeping watch, you're thinking of all night prayer vigils, you know, and, and all that. But in context here, it's talking about how we use our resources. This is a continuation of the message we looked at last week.
Joel Brooks:
If you're not little flop for it is your father's goodwill to give you the kingdom, sell your possessions, give to the poor. One of the ways that we live in light of the coming day of our King Jesus is by being rich towards him now. Generous towards the poor. Now. Jesus didn't move from a sermon on possessions to a sermon on watchfulness.
Joel Brooks:
This is the same message here. It's a continuation of it. And I gotta confess as I was studying this text, I really didn't want to preach from it. I was like, gosh we talked about that stuff, some of this stuff last week, and the week before, and I don't really want to have to talk about possessions and money again. And I looked at some of one of my favorite pastors had preached on it, and actually they almost all skipped it.
Joel Brooks:
Every one of them. They just kind of jumped over. Maybe they were sick of the same thing. But then I thought, you know, Luke has it in there for a reason. Jesus kept preaching this for a reason.
Joel Brooks:
If you remember when we started Luke, I said that the audience that Luke was writing to was middle class, educated, somewhat removed from the events of Jesus's life themselves. Basically, he he wrote the the gospel of Luke to people like us, And he knows that possessions and money is something that we are going to struggle with. And so he keeps bringing up Jesus's teachings on this. Jesus's heart for the poor. Now, in this text here, one of the images that Jesus uses to describe his return when he comes to set up his kingdom is the image of a master going away on a journey, and then he returns to his house at an unknown time.
Joel Brooks:
And since the servants don't know when their master is gonna return, you have to be prepared. This would be like if you were in school and your professor says you have one final in which your entire grade is based and I'm not telling you the day. And so you have to live in this constant state of readiness, not knowing when you'll get the grade. Now throughout the Bible, Jesus, he uses a lot of images that talk about his return. Go back and look at him because you'll find over and over again that he comes at night.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus comes at night, that's, that's when He comes here. He comes at night, it's why they have to keep their lamps burning. You know the story of the 10 virgins waiting, they're, they're, they're keeping their lamps burning, they're waiting at night. And over and over again, you're gonna find that he comes back at night. And I think one of the reasons that he uses this imagery is because he wants us to think about what happens at night.
Joel Brooks:
And night is when we enter into our dream world. When we go to sleep, our dreams become our reality. We think they are real. Sometimes the dreams are good. Sometimes they are nightmares, But when you're dreaming them, you think this is really happening.
Joel Brooks:
This is really life. When Lauren and I first got married, for those of you, you know, who newlyweds, I'm sure you know, it's hard to sleep at night. It's just it's unusual getting used to sleeping next to somebody next to you. And and after probably a couple of months, I woke up to somebody gouging my eyes out. I mean, just absolutely gouging.
Joel Brooks:
And and so I I very calmly sat up and, said something like, what the heck are you doing? And Lauren was still asleep and she said, I am playing the piano. And she just thought she was, I don't know, doing, you know, Beethoven's 5th or something. She was just neg gouging my eyes out, but that was what she thought was actually going on. Not that she was trying to kill me.
Joel Brooks:
And by using this imagery of night, Jesus is saying, that we live in a world that is more influenced by our dreams, than by reality. And so there's a danger in going to sleep. We live in this dream world where we think our money is ours. We could do with it whatever we want. We live in this dream world where we we value the opinion of our boss or our neighbors more than we value what God says about us through his word.
Joel Brooks:
We live in this dream world where we think happiness is achieved through the latest fashion or through sex or through something like that, instead of through God himself. And and God says, alright, wake up those of you who are asleep. And those of you awake, be vigilant. Stay awake. You're gonna find this over and over again in scripture.
Joel Brooks:
Luke 21, He says, stay awake. Don't let that day come on you like a trap. Stay awake. Matthew 24, stay awake for you do not know the day of the Lord's coming. Paul says in Ephesians, awake oh sleeper, rise from the dead.
Joel Brooks:
Because he knows that just normal life lulls us to sleep. And we cease to know what is real. And we are to keep lamps burning. We're to stay awake. And one of the ways that we do that is we dress ourselves for action.
Joel Brooks:
Which is verse 35, stay dressed for action. Literally gird yourself up. Get ready to work. We don't sit around and we just kind of wait for the Lord's return. We're doing something.
Joel Brooks:
We're working. Our heart is pumping, we're not getting sleepy. Verse 43 says, that blessed is a servant whom his master finds doing work when he comes. And this is the work that we're supposed to do. In this context here, the work we're supposed to do is take the possessions, the things that god has given us, and we are to to distribute them to those in need.
Joel Brooks:
In verse 42, it says, 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 the 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 begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, Master of the servant will come on a day when he does not expect him. So we're to be awake, we're to be dressed for action, and we are to be freely distributing the things that the lord has put in our care.
Joel Brooks:
We are not to use people for our own gain. That's the abusing the servants there. We're not to think that God's resources are only for us and for our pleasure. That's the eating and drinking and getting drunk there. And if we're gonna live this way, we we have to focus on 2 things.
Joel Brooks:
I'm just gonna pull out 2 things here from the text that we need to focus on if we're going to be watchful people and not go to sleep. We have to look towards our future joy, and we have to look towards a future judgment. A future joy and a future judgment. Look at verse 37. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.
Joel Brooks:
Truly I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. Now this is one of the most astounding verses, if not the most astounding verse in all of the Bible. And I mean this. It goes against everything you know about masters and servants. Here it says, when the master returns, if he finds his servant waiting for him, ready to serve him, Jesus then actually gets that person, his servant to sit down at the table, and then Jesus becomes the servant.
Joel Brooks:
The master becomes a servant, girds himself up, and he serves his servants. No master does this, but Jesus is not like any other master. Jesus, you will see, He'll later demonstrate this on the night before He is crucified. And I love it in John 13 when he says that, knowing that the father has given him all things, says he got up, he girded himself, he got a towel, and he went and he served every one of his disciples, even Judas, washing their feet. We serve a king who serves us.
Joel Brooks:
Here, Jesus says he tells the disciples that when he returns, he is going to work for their joy. He's going to put all of his effort and their happiness and their joy. And if the reality reality of this actually hits us, and it's hard, but if it actually hits us that one day our king is going to work for our joy when he comes, he will sit us down and he will serve us. If that hits us, it it ignites something in us. There were all of a sudden we could become very generous serving people in this life.
Joel Brooks:
This also enables us to deal with all the darkness that surrounds us. When we look at all the evil in this world, all the darkness, and all the sin, and all the sadness, we just have to look forward and say, hey, one day our king is coming. He's gonna recline me at a table, and he's gonna serve me. He's gonna work for my joy. And the wonderful thing about being a Christian is we get a foretaste of this.
Joel Brooks:
Now when we come to know the Lord, he puts his Holy Spirit inside of us and we get this taste. And it's just a foretaste of the joy that is to come. When Blaise Pascal died, a note was found actually sewed in the inner lining of his coat. It was dated November 23, 16, 54. This note was ripped out of his journal.
Joel Brooks:
Something he wrote down in a night when he experienced the joy of the Lord unlike any other time in his life. And it read this, from about half past 10 in the evening till about half past 12, all caps here, fire. God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and not of the philosophers. He just starts writing one word, certitude, certitude, feeling, joy, peace. And he wanted to always remember that, and so he actually sewed it in his coat.
Joel Brooks:
That experience of joy. D l Moody, the famous evangelist who lived during the late 1800s. He wrote in his journal about an experience that he had one time when he was when he was walking home, he couldn't make it home, and so because he was praying and he just felt the the Spirit of God pressing in on him, and so he went to a friend's house, went in his friend's room, locked himself in, and he wrote this in his journal. One day in the city of New York, oh, what a day. I cannot describe it.
Joel Brooks:
I seldom refer to it. It is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for 14 years. I can only say that God was revealed to me. And I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand.
Joel Brooks:
And later when Moody was talking about this experience, he said, I was being filled with so much joy, I had to cry out to God to stop because I thought I would die. Joy. It reminds me of when Paul writes to the Ephesians that we have to pray that God will strengthen our inner being, that we can know the love of God that surpasses all understanding. Unusual text, but God says, Paul says, you have to pray that God will give you strength to be able to endure the amount of love that God is gonna pour in you because you will not be able to take it when he pours his love out into you. So you pray that he would strengthen you.
Joel Brooks:
It's one of the reasons we have to have a resurrected body because we cannot contain the amount of joy that the Lord has waiting for us. Our current bodies can't take it, but we still can get a foretaste at times. We still can get drops at times. I like the the kind of picture I have of this world is, we're just this teeny little ball, and, it's full of sadness and grief, sin, but it's, it's the only teeny little ball that's like that in, in the entire universe, Which is filled with the joy and the love of God. We're the only teeny little ball like that.
Joel Brooks:
And and the joy of the Lord is pressing in. Smothering it. The world's trying to keep it away, but it's just pressing in. In occasion little drops start breaking through, and we get to taste some of those drops. And someday when Jesus comes it's gonna all burst forth.
Joel Brooks:
And it will be a joy that we cannot imagine. That's the biblical picture of the kingdom of God. Let's go back and look at the second thing we need to have an awareness of if we're to live a watchful life, and that is divine justice or judgment. A day is coming when God will judge this world. Jesus says when the master returns and he finds, you know, his master or the servants basically slacking off, he cuts them in half.
Joel Brooks:
It's pretty strong language here. Says the master is gonna hack his servant into pieces when he returns. And I know that there's some who would point to this text, those outside the church, and they would say, you know, we serve just such a bloodthirsty God, and worshiping a God like that leads us to be aggressive and violent people. And nothing could be further than the truth. Believing that God will someday come and judge, that is what enables us.
Joel Brooks:
So when we are hit to turn the other cheek, we know justice will come. When we are oppressed, we don't have to strike back because we know God will judge later. Vengeance doesn't have to be ours because it will be the Lord's and it actually enables us to. It gives the world hope. Future judgment gives the world hope.
Joel Brooks:
Hope for peace. There's one problem though in this whole idea of judgment Is, we always think it's the other people who are gonna be judged. And anytime we always think about divine judgment coming, we're like, that's right. They're gonna get it. Yet, we have just as much sin.
Joel Brooks:
We have just as much junk in our lives. So what do we do with this? This judgment that's coming. I think to understand this, this is where this text really gets good. Man, I wish I had like an hour.
Joel Brooks:
To understand this, you gotta go back to the beginning of the Bible. You gotta go back to when God makes a covenant with Abraham. God makes a covenant with Abraham, and he says, I'm gonna bless you. I'm gonna knock your socks off with just so many blessings, and give you such joy and prosperity, and I'm gonna be your God. It says, I'm gonna make a covenant with you.
Joel Brooks:
And in Genesis 15, He makes this covenant with with Abraham and, you know, when we make a covenant, we kind of shake hands or maybe sign something or like, hey, let's agree to do that. When they made a covenant, they hacked animals in half. And so they they cut animals in half and and they would spread them out and they would make this hallway in between the animal halves. And what would happen is, they would walk through the animal halves and say, may this be done to me if I break this covenant. If I'm not faithful to this covenant, may this be done to me.
Joel Brooks:
Now do you see where Jesus is pulling in this imagery of the master coming back and hacking his servant in half for unfaithfulness? Something about covenant faithfulness here. This servant has not been faithful to the covenant and so, it's gonna hack them in half. But here's the interesting thing. In Genesis 15, Abraham, he he makes his covenant.
Joel Brooks:
He separates the animal halves and he's waiting for the Lord to show up so he can walk through these halves to the Lord. But instead, the Lord causes a sleep to fall on Abraham. And so Abraham just lies absolutely cocked out and the Lord himself comes to Abraham. The Lord walks through those pieces and says, if this if if there's covenant unfaithfulness, I bear the judgment. Let me be hacked in half and you will not find any religion that says anything close to that.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus affirms this when he starts talking about the fire coming to the earth. Look at verse 49. I came to cast fire on the earth and would that it were already kindled. I have a baptism to be baptized with and how great is my distress until it is accomplished. This is a really, really curious statement.
Joel Brooks:
Just go back a couple of chapters. Luke 9, Luke chapter 9 verse 51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem and he sent messengers ahead of him who went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples, James and John, saw it, they said, Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them? But he turned and rebuked them and they went on to another village.
Joel Brooks:
Curious. People reject the Lord, and so the disciples say, alright. It's time. Fire. Let's call fire down judgment to come.
Joel Brooks:
And he says, absolutely not. And he rebukes them. And here Jesus says, I came to cast fire on the earth. I wish it was already ablaze. Well he had his chance, just a few chapters ago, to set it ablaze.
Joel Brooks:
The key is verse 50. I have a baptism to be baptized with. How great is my distress until it is accomplished. The baptism is the death of Jesus, of course. The reason Jesus did not want fire to fall down on the Samaritans It's because he does not want judgment fire to fall on people.
Joel Brooks:
He knows that God so loves his people that God is gonna send judgment fire to fall on him. The baptism that he has to undergo. The fire of God that he has to endure for their covenant unfaithfulness. It's the gospel. That's our hope.
Joel Brooks:
Our hope is not that somehow we're gonna live a really good life, also we're gonna become generous people, we're gonna be awake at all times, and God's gonna come when he returns and said, hey, you did a great job. That's not it. God looks at us and he says, you have been unfaithful. You haven't been good stewards of what I have given you. You deserve to be hacked and half, but my son went through a baptism.
Joel Brooks:
Fire, judgment fire was poured on him, so I would not pour it on you. That's our hope. It's the gospel. That's what we hold to as Christians and when we hold to this, when we believe this, this begins to ignite something in our hearts. In light of such love, we become watchful and generous people.
Joel Brooks:
How can we not in light of such love? Pray with me. Lord, there's so much to unpack there. We just got a glimpse. Just a glimpse.
Joel Brooks:
May that glimpse be enough. You took the hit for us. You took the punishment we deserve. Thank you. Seems so shallow, but Lord, we do thank you.
Joel Brooks:
We pray that as we reflect on that, as we think about your sacrifice and as we think about the joy that awaits us, that would stir us to be watchful people, to be extraordinarily generous, to love our neighbor with a radical kindness. Help us to live watchful lives so we will be ready when you return. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.