January 19th, 2016
A Brief Recap of Sunday: On March 15, 2015 we continued exploring Christ’s teaching in Luke 12. Last week, we saw in Luke 12:22-34 that God’s present care for His children is meant to lead us to freedom from anxiety and a life of radical generosity. This week in Luke 12:35-48, Jesus shifted his focus to explaining how the future return of the Son of Man is meant to affect the present. What I labored to bring out of the text was the following:
Jesus is coming with incomprehensible blessings for those who are ready and unimaginable judgment for those who are not. So be ready!
We then explored this idea with three questions:
Luke 12:40 says “You also must be ready for the Son is coming at an hour you do not expect.” But what does that mean and to whom does it apply (Luke 12:41)? In the sermon, I gave several reasons for why it is best to understand this parable as about disciples and for disciples. This is a parable about Christian discipleship! Having established this premise, the teaching of the parable becomes clear.
Being ready for the Lord’s return = actively doing our Lord’s will. I offered the following observations from our text to sharpen our view of what that means.
Reasons to Be Ready
How To Get Ready
Additional Resources
Looking for more ways to strengthen your faith and increase your hope in the present? Check out any of the following:
Joshua
[1] nāṣaḥ denotes both “brilliance” (yielding the connotations “preeminence, surpassing, glory, victory, leadership”) and “endurance” (supplying “longlasting, perpetual”). Milton C. Fisher, “1402 נָצַח,” ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 593.
Jesus is coming with incomprehensible blessings for those who are ready and unimaginable judgment for those who are not. So be ready!
We then explored this idea with three questions:
- What does it mean to be ready?
- What are the reasons to be ready?
- How do I get ready if I’m not?
Luke 12:40 says “You also must be ready for the Son is coming at an hour you do not expect.” But what does that mean and to whom does it apply (Luke 12:41)? In the sermon, I gave several reasons for why it is best to understand this parable as about disciples and for disciples. This is a parable about Christian discipleship! Having established this premise, the teaching of the parable becomes clear.
Being ready for the Lord’s return = actively doing our Lord’s will. I offered the following observations from our text to sharpen our view of what that means.
- The ready disciple is CONTINUALLY doing our Lord’s will (Luke 12:35, 37). Christian readiness is primarily concerned with doing the Lord’s will today. Not contenting itself with yesterday’s obedience, or pushing obedience off until tomorrow.
- The ready disciple is SACRIFICIALLY doing our Lord’s will (Luke 12:35, 38). I suggested that sacrificial obedience means regularly sacrificing what YOU want to do for the sake of serving Jesus. My diagnostic question was: does the service you render to the Lord ever feel hard enough that it requires you to trust God in faith or to stand on the promises in Lk 12:22-34?
- The ready disciple is INTENTIONALLY doing our Lord’s will (Luke 12:42-43). The intentional disciple doesn’t blame others or his/her circumstances for the ineffectiveness of their service but is constantly looking to him/herself to increase effectiveness. The idea is not that we do everything perfectly but that we work hard to do the best job we possibly can.
Reasons to Be Ready
- His arrival will be unexpected (Luke 12:39-40). Thus we should fear being found unready.
- His arrival will bring incomprehensible blessings for those who are ready (Luke 12:37, 44).
- His arrival will bring unimaginable judgment for those are not (Luke 12:45-48)
How To Get Ready
- Act on what you know (Lk 12:48b).The servants were blessed and cursed based on how they responded to what they knew. We have looked together at what Jesus has taught concerning loving one’s neighbor (Lk 11:25-37), loving God (Lk 11:38-42), prayer (Lk 11:1-13), evangelism (Lk 11:14-33; 12:1-12), and sacrificial generosity (Lk 12:22-34).
- Meditate on the blessings that will be given to the servant found ready at the Lord’s return. I offered this sentence for your daily consideration “If I continually, sacrificially and intentionally pour myself out for the Lord today, He promises to pour Himself out for me for eternity” (Lk 12:37).
- Never forget who said these things. It is Jesus our friend who proclaimed these blessings and curses. His life of obedience led him from the shame and suffering of a cross to the joy and glory of a throne. We can look beyond the footsteps of the next trial to the exaltation of the suffering servant and know that our readiness will be worth it!
Additional Resources
Looking for more ways to strengthen your faith and increase your hope in the present? Check out any of the following:
- Widen your view of heaven by reading Heaven is a World of Love by Jonathan Edwards.
- Here is a faith-strengthening hymn by Isaac Watts entitled There Is A Land of Pure Delight. See also Absent from Flesh by Sojourn Music!
- For more discussion on the role of works at the final judgment, here is a great sermon by John Piper at the desiring God website.
Joshua
[1] nāṣaḥ denotes both “brilliance” (yielding the connotations “preeminence, surpassing, glory, victory, leadership”) and “endurance” (supplying “longlasting, perpetual”). Milton C. Fisher, “1402 נָצַח,” ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 593.
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