Get Ready ‘cause Here I Come (Part 1) | Matthew 24:45-51 | Gary Hamrick

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] we're here in the gospel of matthew we're going to be chapter 24. i'm going to read just a couple of verses and then we'll study further beyond what i'm going to read in a moment but we're going to look at verses 42 to 44. pray and then take a look at a parable that follows the verses i'm going to read and the next two sundays following we're going to look at two additional parables all on the same topic related to the second coming of christ and so this is what we read here in matthew 24 verse 42. jesus said watch therefore for you do not know what hour your lord is coming but know this that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into therefore you also be ready for the son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect let's pray father we want to be ready and so as we consider your second coming we want to take to heart these things that you say that we might be faithful and watching and ready for your second coming and we pray that you would use the parable we're about to study to just encourage us lord where we need it and challenge us where we need it so that our focus might be on your imminent return we love you lord we thank you that you've given a glimpse of this that is to come your second coming so that we might be uh lord watching it is easy for our hearts to get weighed down by the cares of this world you tell us not to but nevertheless it happens and some of the dirt of the world and our own flesh begins to take a toll on us and it's a good reminder that you're coming again that you have an eternal reward for us and so we wait patiently but eagerly lord and we thank you for your word today it's in jesus name we pray and everybody said amen well for those of you who are new to the faith or maybe you don't proclaim to be a christian yet you're just kind of curious about things the bible does make it clear that jesus is coming again and it is referred to by just that the second coming of christ every good news story is supposed to answer six general questions who what when where why and how there are about a thousand prophecies in the bible concerning the second coming of jesus christ that's roughly three times as many prophecies as are found in the bible concerning his first coming and so in relation to this major news story more than roughly a thousand prophecies about his second coming the bible does answer five out of those six typical questions the bible answers who what where why and how but not when not a single of the thousand or so prophecies about the second coming of christ answers the question of when in fact jesus even said in mark 13 32 but of that day and hour no one knows not even the angels in heaven nor the son but only the father that god is intentionally silent about the second coming of christ and jesus says there in mark 13 32 that he says not even the angels know not not even the son and so you know there the angels are think for a moment how that conversation is going in heaven where the angels are just you know sitting around i suppose you know strumming their harps right and uh and they're turning to each other do you you know when he's when he's gonna go back to earth no i don't have no clue i have no clue yeah i know he's not telling us now he's not he's not telling us at all no it's a mystery yeah it's a complete mystery he wants to wear angel food cake oh heaven yeah that's what they would say in heaven you know because they're not gonna have devil food cake but anyway so that but they don't know jesus says not even the angels no he says nor the son now interestingly in the mystery of the godhead god being one god revealing himself in three persons father son and holy spirit the bible says out of the lips of jesus himself that he jesus the second part of the godhead has deferred the knowledge of his return exclusively to god the father so only god the father knows when jesus is going to come again this is intentional on god's part i mean think about it if god slapped a date on the second coming of jesus and it was well publicized and well known it was spelled out in the bible and and if it were a date that was pushed out far enough maybe not even in your own lifetime then the question becomes would you be as serious about your faith or would you tend to be a little you know someone who would take advantage of his absence so if there were a date you know how would you live your life not knowing now when he's going to come but if you were to know exactly when he was going to return would you be as serious about your faith or would you tend to take a little advantage of his absence i mean we know the old saying right when the cat's away the mice will play right now i know that's almost blasphemous to make a parallel between jesus and a cat but but it is fair to say we are like mice because there's a dirty little rat in every single one of us that wants to misbehave and but if you know that the cat's just around the corner you are less likely to venture out for some cheese right now i know the whole illustration is a little cheesy so let me move on what jesus is actually telling us here in in this in this parable is that he wants us to conduct ourselves in a way that we are ready for his second coming again in verse 44 in your bibles we read it a moment ago he says in verse 44 therefore you also be ready for the son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect and so jesus teaches three parables to help us understand what it means to be ready for his return and we're going to look at the first of the three parables today and then the next two sundays we'll look at the other two parables in a three-part series that i've entitled get ready because here i come now those of you who remember the music of the temptations you will remember this is actually a line in that song get ready because here i come if you're too young to know the music the temptations you have missed out google it well in that song it's actually about get ready cause here i come it's about a guy who is wanting to go after and pursue a girl but long before the temptations jesus made it clear that he is going after his bride and he's coming again to take us home and so here's the parable here in matthew chapter 24 the next few verses verses 45 to 51. here's the parable and i'll read it verse 45. who then is a faithful and wise servant whom his master made ruler over his household to give them food in due season blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing assuredly i say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods but if that evil servant says in his heart my master is delaying his coming and begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunkards the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of and will cut him into and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth now jesus often employed the tool of parables in order to communicate a deeper spiritual truth a parable was a teaching tool to help his listeners or in our case his readers uh comprehend a deeper spiritual truth the deeper spiritual truth in this context relates to his second coming so he says to his disciples this parable that we have the advantage of reading and understanding to help us also be ready for his second coming this is a parable of contrasts this is a parable that contrasts between a faithful wise servant and an evil servant between diligence and negligence between rewards and punishment so as we look at this parable together bear that in mind now i'm going to summarize first the parable that we just read i'm going to kind of use modern terminology to help us understand it and then i'm going to explain it in its context so in summary basically this parable that jesus teaches is about a master or an employer who has gone away on a trip and entrusted his household the people that he loves and cares about to a couple of his servants or his employees and while the master the employer is away on this trip one servant takes care of the household feeds the household does exactly like his boss told him to do while he was away he was diligent in that way and thus he is called the faithful and wise servant the other employee however was not so faithful and wise he doesn't do what his boss told him to do because he thinks that he can do whatever he wants to do while the boss is away so he beats up some people of the household and it tells us in the parable that he goes out and he gets wasted with his friends because he just doesn't care he was negligent and for that reason he is called the evil servant but then the boss suddenly returns from his trip when they weren't expecting him and he finds out what the one servant is up to and the other servant is up to and he rewards the faithful wise servant and he severely punishes the evil servant so here's the explanation when you when you when you look at the parable in its context related to the second coming of christ and his admonition that we should be ready based on that context of the parable jesus is talking about himself and he's talking about us and he's talking about his household or an unbelieving world that he loves and he died for he is the master in the parable jesus is portrayed as the master in the parable we are the servants and the rest of the world is his household that he loves and cares about the master has gone away jesus died on a cross was buried three days later he rose from the dead 40 days after that he ascended back into heaven where he presently is the bible says seated at the right hand of the father so the master jesus is presently away but he's coming again and in the meantime while he is gone he has entrusted to us his household the people that he loves and cares about and died for that we as his servants should feed them the word of god love them care about them these are the people jesus loves and cares about too we should fulfill the great commission we should present the gospel we should do our part while he jesus the master is away so that when he returns he would find us faithful rather than take advantage of the world join in the worldly ways uh compromise our lives uh and and are negligent thus in in in in our non-declaration of the gospel and and then he would come back and judge us so this is the parable this is jesus is saying listen this this is who i am he's the master in the story this is who we are we're the servants in the story and while he's gone he's entrusted to us the rest of his household the world the people he loves and died for to take care of them to love them to feed them to represent the master well in his absence now this is critical for us to understand we use the church of jesus christ believers in jesus are his ambassadors in an unbelieving world the bible makes it clear in fact paul spells it out just that way in second corinthians 5 20 he said we are therefore christ's ambassadors as though god were making his appeal through us in other words we are supposed to be his representatives in the world in helping people to be reconciled to god the question is and this is a very important question if you miss anything else i'm saying today please hear this one the question that confronts every single one of us is how well are we representing him and living for him while our master is away that's the question that confronts us jesus is away right now he's coming again but he teaches this parable to challenge us how well are we representing him in the world and living for him while he's away so let's take a look at the difference between these two servants here and we're going to see three points for each and the first one we're going to examine here is the first one in the parable the the faithful and wise servant why was he called faithful and wise well three things number one because he understood his place in verse 45 the terms master and servant he got it he recognized that he was not in charge the master was he realized in in position that that the master is the one in authority that he is in charge in fact in the gospels there were many people through the gospels including his own disciples who called jesus master it was an affectionate term it was a respectful term that acknowledged jesus's lordship and authority over one's life at the same time that in the gospels jesus is sometimes referred to as master you see in the new testament several of the new testament writers referring to themselves as bond servants using the same terminology of recognizing that jesus is in charge he's king he's lord he's master and we subject ourselves to his authority we surrender and submit ourselves to jesus as our master and thus throughout the new testament for example paul as he began the letter to romans in romans 1 in galatians 1 and in titus 1 paul refers to himself as a bond servant of jesus christ we also see this in james 1 james did the same thing in second peter 1 peter did the same thing in jude 1 jude did the same thing they all refer to themselves as a bond servant of christ the greek word is dulos it means one who willingly surrenders and subjects himself to the authority of the master and these new testament writers these believers these these uh ones that god inspired to write some of these epistles in the new testament saw themselves they understood the dynamic we must understand this dynamic if you lose sight of the fact that god is in charge of your life you are likely to live your life as if you were and we aren't we aren't in charge god is in charge and we need to submit to his authority and recognize him if we forget who's in charge of our life we will start to live like we are ourselves but the faithful servant in this story and this applies to us understands that jesus is master and lord and stays in submission to his authority the second thing we see here about the faithful and wise servant is that he understood that we are most content when we are most obedient to the master in verse 46 in the parable jesus says blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing in other words when this servant is faithful to discharge the responsibilities that were entrusted to him he will be blessed now the word blessed there in the greek is macarios and it literally means oh how happy each one of the beatitudes that jesus taught in matthew chapter 5 began with the word blessed blessed blessed blessed same word macarius and the greek oh how happy oh how happy we are most content when we are most obedient to the master now the world likes to turn it upside down and say you're gonna be the most miserable when you try to follow all the rules of the bible but the fact of the matter is and you can personally attest to this if you have put this into practice that you are more miserable when you disobey god blessing comes from obeying the commandments of god they are not burdensome to us because they are safeguards for our lives to bring us his contentment his peace his joy his happiness and we are most happy most content when we are most obedient to his commands in revelation 22 14. jesus one of the last few things that jesus says in all of the bible revelation 22 14 blessed oh how happy are those who do his commandments that they may have the right to the tree of life and so the blessings of obeying god are far greater than the consequences of disobeying him and then the third thing we see here about the faithful and wise servant is that he understood that faithfulness will be rewarded by the master in verse 47 it says assuredly i say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods in other words when that one servant was so faithful to do what the master told him to do that when the master returns he says well good job you've been so faithful in a little i'm going to reward you with much and the servant understood this this is how the master operates he rewards good works now let let me make it clear good works do not get us saved there's only one good thing that gets us saved and that's the good work that jesus did by dying on the cross for our sins we put our faith and trust in what jesus did his finished work and thus we have salvation by faith it's not of works but still there is a correlation between faith and works james and his epistle says faith without works is dead why does he write that because even though works don't get us saved works show that we are because it demonstrates who our master is and who we belong to and who we're living for and so we do good works as an overflow of our relationship with our savior we just we just want to do good things because we want to please him we want to honor him and it's an overflow of that relationship and god takes note of it god rewards good works they don't get us saved but they will be rewarded and god takes note of it and that's one of the things we see here in this parable when the master returns he sees the faithfulness of the servant and he rewards the servant accordingly god takes note of this and he and he rewards everyone according to his work now in revelation 22 verse 12 the bible says and behold i am coming quickly jesus said and my reward is with me to give to everyone according to his work and so god's gonna honor our good works just because he wants to he wants to appreciate what we've done in terms of our good works in fact in matthew chapter 5 11 and 12 the bible says that jesus will reward us when we endure persecution in matthew 5 11 and 12 blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you for my sake rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you jesus also said in matthew chapter 6 that when we pray in secret and when we give in secret and when we fast in secret not wanting other people to see you know because we're not doing it for show that jesus said that your heavenly father who sees what is done in secret will reward you openly god rewards us for those things hebrews 11 6 says that god is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him and so we can learn these things from the faithful and wise servant but then there are some things that we can learn from the evil servant because after all like someone once said i don't know who gets credit for this but someone once said no man is completely useless he can always serve as a bad example and so we have a bad example here with the evil servant and we can learn from him because in verse 48 in the parable jesus says but that evil servant says in his heart my master is delaying his coming the simple reason that the evil servant did what he did was because number one he lost sight of the one he was serving simply put he thought he could get away with it because the master wasn't around now this is the very thing that peter writes about in second peter chapter three i'm going to read a few verses to you but the context is also about the second coming of christ and peter makes the same connection he says look when you lose sight of the master even though he's away right now you are apt to give in to your own fleshly desires this is what he says second peter 3 3 first of all you must understand that in the last days as we return get close to the return of christ scoffers will come scoffing and following their own evil desires and they will say where is this coming he promised ever since our father's died everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation verse eight but do not forget this one thing dear friends with the lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years or like a day the lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand slowness he is patient with you not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance and notice there in the verses i just read peter says that that when people lose sight of the imminent return of christ and they start to question well where in the world is he you know he's taking so long i mean and remember peter's writing in the first century there were people who were complaining about the the length of time it was taking for jesus to return and he'd only been gone like 20 or 30 years and here we are like 20 centuries later and it's easy for many people to get weighed down with the same questions well when is he really coming again he said he was coming again you know back in the first century it's been 20 others now where is this coming and we can lose sight of his coming but what peter said is when people begin to have that disposition they give into they start following that's the verse there in second peter 3 3 they start following their own evil desires their own evil desires and that's exactly what happened next in the parable here in verse 49 in our story it says and he begins this evil servant to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunkards so number two we learn from the bad example of the evil servant is that he traded his place with the master for the pleasures of the world peter also writes about this reading still in second peter 3 10-12 but the day of the lord will come like a thief the heavens will disappear with a roar the elements will be destroyed by fire and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare since everything will be destroyed in this way listen to the question he asks what kind of people ought you to be and then he answers the question you ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of god and speed it's coming that's second peter 3 10 to 12. in other words he's saying there that while we wait for the return of christ since we know this is going to happen and also at the end of the age this present earth is going to be destroyed the present heavens are going to be destroyed god's going to do a complete new start over with a new earth a new heaven how should we conduct ourselves in the meantime how should we live and he answers his own question you ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of god and speed it's coming when we are living with the joyful anticipation of the second coming of christ it motivates us to holy living when you lose sight of that you will end up just living however you want this world desires to own you and while the master is away you're going to have to decide who you will serve will it be the world or will it be the lord in 1922 there was a poem that was written by rhea miller that ended up becoming a somewhat popular hymn of the faith it was just a poem that rhea miller wrote in 1922 but about 10 years later george beverly shea put music to it many of you might remember george beverly shea was the soloist for the billy graham crusades and he shea died in 2013 at the age of 104 but he put music to that poem that raya miller wrote and it became a hymn called i'd rather have jesus and it goes like this in part i'd rather have jesus than silver or gold i'd rather be his than have riches untold i'd rather have jesus than houses or lands i'd rather be led by his nail-pierced hand i'd rather have jesus than men's applause i'd rather be faithful to his dear cause i'd rather have jesus than worldwide fame i'd rather be true to his holy name and the chorus goes then to be the king of a vast domain or be held in sins dread sway i'd rather have jesus than anything this world affords today john would write in first john 2 15 do not love the world or the things of the world for if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in him don't trade your place with the master for the pleasures of this world finally number three the evil servant shows us that he was not expecting the return of his master because in verse 50 it says the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of he wasn't watching and waiting and longing for the return of the master and so in the end the combination of this evil servant taking advantage of the master's absence loving the world more than his master and not looking or longing for his master's return simply proves that he didn't really belong to the master at all and so he suffered the consequences of those choices and when the master returned he severely punished him and assigned him a place with the hypocrites and in verse 51 jesus said where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth that's an idiom for the suffering of hell that's what happened here and so jesus lays out these choices when he says i want you to be ready for my second coming i want you to be ready i want you to be the faithful and wise servant i want you to be this evil servant and if i could summarize this parable into these three exhortations it would be this that he's calling us to serve faithfully to live holy and to watch expectantly because he's coming again let's be ready amen amen let's pray together father we thank you for your word today and for this parable jesus that reminds us how we ought to be living while we're waiting for your return we pray god that we would serve you faithfully as we share the gospel as we give our testimony as we love and care for and feed the world around us that you love and died for may you find us faithful when you come again you've entrusted to us your ministry that we might be ambassadors of yours so may we represent you well and may we live well for your glory father may we conduct ourselves in a holy way not in a pious way but in a way that is just wanting to seek your purity and to walk in your holiness and lord may we be watching expectantly for your soon return we don't know when you're coming lord it may not even be in our lifetime we don't know the signs of the time seem to indicate obviously we're getting closer to your return and maybe it'll be in our lifetimes whenever it comes we want you to find us ready that we would serve you faithfully and live holy and watch expectantly this is our prayer thank you that you're coming again it is our hope it is our joy we pray these things in jesus name and all god's people said amen and amen

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

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Id: avlQDbSJTcQ

Length: 31min 13sec (1873 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021