This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. If you have your Bibles, would you open up to Luke chapter 12? Luke chapter 12. We're picking up in verse 35. Luke chapter 12, verse 35, would you please stand for the reading of God's word? Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps 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 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. 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 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's 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 at 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. And from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more. This is a reading of God's word. Please have a seat. Let's pray. Our Father, our glorious Father, we thank you for this afternoon and we thank you for the word you have given us and we pray that you would make us ready to hear it. Lord, give us the faith to hear you and to trust you, to hear you, to trust you, and to live out what you have given us. We pray for your help. We are a needy people. We're stiff-necked people. We're hard-hearted people. We can be so dull of mind. Oh, our Father, how we need you, how we need your Holy Spirit. Please minister to your people now. We pray this in Jesus's name. Amen. This has been a section of Luke's gospel that has been intensely practical. Intensely practical. For the last several sermons, you cannot help but hear something that is frankly a little bit upsetting. It is so practical. It is obvious how much the Lord is asking of us when you go through these passages. And he's always asking us to take that next step to say, what are the practical implications of what is true, of what is real, of what you say you believe? Not too long ago, we were talking about anxiety. And the whole idea is, do you actually know what your father thinks of you? Do you know how powerful he is? And do you have the practical peace that can totally put to death your anxiety? He talked about the practical implications of whether we trust God with the wealth he has given us, and whether we trust God about what he said about our wealth, that our wealth is fleeting, that we can't keep it anyway, but there are treasures that we can keep for all eternity. And we can cash in now if we will sacrificially give what we have in this world to prepare treasure for ourselves in the world that is to come. There's all these very practical implications, and they are hard to hear sometimes. And right now, where we come to is this idea of what does it practically mean to be a servant of the Lord? Because if you're a Christian, I said, hey, are you a servant of the Lord? You would say something like, amen, of course I am. Now Jesus will take us this next step to say, so what does that practically look like? Beyond just the confession of your mouth, what does it practically look like to be a servant of the Lord? Verse 35 is where we start and Jesus begins with this opening command. What I read there, I forgot to consult the NAS to see what it did, but stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning. And this is a modernized translation that they have done there because literally it's let your loins stay girded. When was the last time you said that to someone, right? Make sure your loins are girded. Yeah, we don't do that, right? So they translated it for us into something more modern. But the picture is of a, you know, a servant who wore a long robe, and if you were going to be doing hard work, that long robe might get in the way, huh? So you might bind up, kind of pull up your rope, tuck it into your belt, and now you are more mobile for whatever kind of work is going to come your way. Let your loins stay girded and keep your lamps burning. Keep your lamps burning. The idea then is that even if it is dark, you will still be able to move about, you will still be able to do your work. The picture Jesus is painting is one of a faithful, a watchful servant. If we wanted to completely paraphrase and translate what Jesus is saying here, it's be ready like a watchful servant. And that's the picture he's going to build on for all these following verses. Be ready like a watchful servant. In verse 36 through 39, that's where the illustration starts getting fleshed out. So he starts giving details to the story here. Be like servants waiting for their master to come home from a wedding. And so you picture you're the servant in the household, your master goes out, it's a celebratory thing, and you just don't know when he's coming back. And so you wanna be ready, but you're not sure when you need to be ready. And ideally, the servant is ready the very moment the master comes back. He knocks once, the door opens. And that servant is ready to serve his master. Now, if the servants are faithful, if they're ready, then Jesus describes in this parable that the master will bless them. And my goodness, how he will bless them. Don't miss this. The master is gone. He gets back. He finds the servants doing what they're supposed to be doing anyway. And then what's he going to do? He will serve them. The master will serve the servants for merely serving the master they should have served anyway. Master will serve his servants. This is extraordinary. And Jesus will repeat the idea of this blessing in verse 38. He probably is referencing something of a popular Jewish custom that would divide the night into three different watches. And so the idea is second watch, third watch, even if the master comes home late, late into the night, Even if waiting on that master demands a whole lot of waiting, the servant who is faithful in that long, long wait will certainly be blessed. Jesus says he will certainly be blessed. Now in contrast, there's great blessing for being ready. There is great loss for being found unprepared. Here it might jar us for a moment because the illustration seems to switch rather abruptly, right? We go from the wedding feast to the idea of this thief who might be coming, but Jesus switches it and he switches it to make a strong point. So if on the one hand, being watchful can result in great blessing, and blessing on the other, being negligent can result in great loss. Not only is this servant then not ready for his master, he wasn't ready for the thief to come either. So he wasn't ready to do his work, and instead of not doing his work, he just was negligent. And because he was negligent, the whole house gets plundered. This is a big swing. You could have been ready for it all and found blessing from your master or you were negligent and then there is great loss as a result. And in verse 40, Jesus starts to make the point that he's really trying to make. He's not just trying to tell a story about how servants relate to their masters. Look at verse 40 with me. You also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming in an hour you do not expect. The conclusion of all this, you must be ready for the coming of the Son of Man. It's here where Jesus completes his thought. Before verse 40, you could have read that passage, you could have read that parable, and you could have come up with a general principle that would have made some sense, right? Disciples should be watchful, they should be ready to serve their master. That's a worthwhile point. But that's not the point Jesus was making. Because he gets to verse 40 and he makes a specific point, he makes a much bigger point. Here all of a sudden we find we're talking about the second coming of Christ. Now what does this parable have to do with the second coming of Christ. Well, first, like both the thief and the master, Christ is coming back at an unexpected time. And the nature of something that's unexpected, it's that it's unexpected. It's that you do not get to predict this. Fine, people can't help themselves. I know when Jesus is coming back, look it, this is the day, the numbers clearly point to it. We had this, what, I don't know, two, three years ago, right? Not too long ago, there was one more prediction. One more time, someone proved themselves wrong because you don't get to predict this unexpected return when Jesus comes again. And so Jesus wants to make the point that when he unexpectedly returns, There should be no time that catches Christians not living faithfully. He should be able to come first, second, third watch of the night, so to speak. And no matter when he comes, because Christians have been living faithfully all along, they never are caught off their guard because any moment of their life would stand up to examination. Those Christians are meant to be prepared. And Jesus wants to drive that point home. If you are always looking forward to Jesus' return, you will live accordingly. You will live accordingly. The second point here, though, is just that the coming of Jesus is going to result in great blessing and great loss. For those who are trusting in God for their salvation, for those who are trusting in God with the every action of their daily life, there will be unimaginable blessing. Just like those servants. I mean, you picture earthly servants. They serve their master and he gets home. He's like, great, you guys take a load off. I'm going to serve you now. If you're that servant, that unimaginable. Unimaginable. It just blows your mind. You're going to do what? Unimaginable. And in the very same way, oh, Christian, God is going to blow your mind with how he intends to bless you in all eternity. It's a beautiful reality. If you have any sort of dream of what you hope that heaven would be like, the new heavens and the new earth, if you have some dream of, oh, it'll be this good, Just like rule the thumb, plan on it being like a thousand times better than that. I mean, our God is going to bless us exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ever asked or imagined. No one's going to get there and say, oh, well, I guess this is nice. I was sort of hoping for this, but no one will do that. God is going to blow our minds with how he intends to bless us if we are found faithful. But there will also be great loss when Christ comes back. And this is for those who are not right with God. This is for those who have not trusted in Christ for their salvation. This is those who do not follow him, who are not disciples of him. That last day then, it will not be a day of great blessing. It will be a day of judgment. It will be a day of condemnation. For every person who is not right with Christ to know that this looming and unpredictable judgment is out there. It is supposed to spur you on. It's supposed to unsettle you. It is supposed to make you afraid. And it's supposed to make you think, I don't want to waste a minute longer. I don't want to stand underneath this ax that's about to fall even a minute longer. If you can hear what Jesus is saying, there is no reason to wait. There is no reason to wait. What Jesus is trying to tell you that is if you are not right with him, when he comes, you will lose everything. There's even a sense of saying you will lose everything and then more. So repent of your sins today. Trust in Christ today. Find the peace, find the forgiveness, find the hope, find the joy today. Why would you wait? Why would you wait one minute longer? Christ is coming and he might be any minute. Every day we are meant to live in light of this truth. Now as the passage keeps going, I just, you know me, I love Peter, right? Partly why I named my son after him. I love Peter. And in this case, if you have ever been confused in a sermon, you ever been confused in a sermon? If you've ever been confused in a sermon, I just sort of like to imagine that Peter was like that a lot. He just always seems to not quite get things or always seems to be the one who will ask the question. And that is, by the way, a good role model, not to be confused, but to be the person who's willing to ask the question. And here, what do you know? It's Peter who's going to ask a question again. It's Peter is going to speak up and say, I don't quite understand what you mean, Jesus. In verse 41, what he wants to know is he wants to know, does this teaching apply to just disciples or does it apply to everyone? And that actually is an important question. So in verses 42 through 44, let's continue on. Jesus is going to sort of expand the parable. 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 master will find so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you, He will set him over all his possessions. First part of the expanded parable, Jesus again is talking about blessings, blessings for faithful stewards. But now you have to notice that Jesus is talking about another type of servant. It's not just normal servants now. These are the managers. This is a servant still, but a servant that the master has entrusted with greater responsibility. In this parable, the servant is entrusted with feeding all the other servants, with taking care of all the other servants. And Jesus says, the servant will be blessed if his master returns and finds him doing just what he was supposed to be doing, taking care of the servants. If he comes back and finds that servant faithful, that master will even promote that servant, give him even greater levels of responsibility. But then the parable continues. Verse 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, 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 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 and But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating." And so let's pause there. So there's also the manager who was not faithful, right? There's the manager who was faithful and was blessed. And then there are all kinds of managers who are not found faithful. And the first one is the really egregious one. Jesus paints this picture of a servant who turns into a self-indulgent tyrant when he feels like his master's not coming back anytime soon. And so, instead of feeding the other servants, what's he do? He eats, he drinks, he gets drunk. Instead of caring for the other servants, he begins to beat them. The servant is just an orientation of heart. He's not looking for his master's return. He's not expecting his master's return. And so what's he do? He just lives out every sinful impulse of his heart without inhibition. Well, what's the master going to do about that? Master's gonna come back when he's not expecting, well, because he's not expecting it at all, but he's gonna come back when he's not expecting him, when he's not prepared for him. And the text says literally that he will cut him in two and put him in the place of the unfaithful. This master's gonna dole out the most severe kind of punishment. And then the servant is going to be cast out from his master's service. Then there's the servant who knows his master's will, who knows what his master wants, and he does not do it. Jesus says he is less guilty. He's less guilty than the servant who goes around beating all the other servants, but he's still deserving of punishment. He knew his master's will, and yet he didn't do it. He The text says we'll receive a severe beating for his disobedience. He's not cut off like the first servant, but he is punished. And then lastly, there's the servant who acted sinfully, but he sort of did so in ignorance. He didn't know his master's will. And so he sinned in an ignorance. Well, he will receive a light beating. not knowing, being ignorant, does not mean he didn't deserve the punishment, but it does mean that he deserved less. We said these are some intensely practical passages. There's a lot of application here. First, I want to show you that the point of emphasis here really has a lot to do with Christian leadership. We see this because Jesus isn't talking about just a average servant. He's talking about the manager over the servants. And so it's a different picture than the first parable that he was telling, where the servants are waiting on their master to come home from the wedding feast. This is still a servant, but he's a servant with greater responsibility. This servant is a steward of the master's other servants. And so this servant is required to feed. the other servants. This is really clearly comes to home with Christian leaders. This is pastors, this is deacons, this is teachers, this is parents, this is counselors, Anyone who's exerting any kind of Christian leadership, this parable really specifically emphasizes you. The answer to Peter's question that he asked back in verse 41 is that Jesus is in fact emphasizing the disciples, though he's not going to exclude just Christians in general, but the emphasis is clearly with leaders. And that's where we will start. Christian leaders must be faithful stewards. Christian leaders must be faithful stewards. God has entrusted them with stewardship over his people. Whether it's few or a whole bunch, it's stewardship of God's people. And for the steward who labors faithfully, There's great reward to look forward to. Just like with the servants in the parable, there's great reward to look forward to, but there is a great warning for leaders too. So Jesus started with the faithless and tyrannical servant, and this is the kind of situation we would like to think is hypothetical, but it's not. This is, you know, for example, the pastor who flagrantly defies the master, who abuses the sheep, who exploits his position. And this flagrant defiance, it's not just a sin. It's not just some mere failure. This flagrant defiance flows from an unbelieving heart. because he knows the master and people view him as a leader, but it turns out he's not even a believer in the church. He's leading something that he doesn't even truly belong to. And this unfaithful servant will receive the master's most severe punishment. He will be placed with the unfaithful. If there's any doubt what that means, you can actually see the parallel passage in Matthew chapter 24, where he tells the same parable. And there he adds one detail. This faithless servant will be put out with the hypocrites. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. In other words, it is fully possible for a faithless man to fall from the heights of leadership to the depths of hell. Flagrant unbelief and defiance of the master will result in the most severe rejection and punishment. The second warning is for the leader who acts contrary to what he knows his master wants. He will receive a severe punishment. And then this too is probably more common than we are really comfortable with. I picture this as being times when God has made something very clear for us. When he has made something very clear for us. And those are those times, maybe it's you were in the word and something just really drove home into your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. Maybe it's sitting under preaching. Maybe it's right now. But that time you hear, and by the grace of God you know, you know that the Lord is telling you to do something. He's telling you to start something. He's telling you to stop something. And it could be so many things. It could be grow in understanding of the Lord. It could be grow in charity, in humility, in confessing your sins, grow in speaking boldly when the chance comes to spread the gospel. Whatever it is, it could be so many things. And yet there we are, even with such a strong sense of conviction in the moment, and somehow we take that conviction and we just Snuff it out and we don't do anything. If you know your father's will, if it's just clear to you what he wants you to do, then Jesus commands you to be faithful and live in accordance with what you know. The third warning, it's similar. The servant who acts ignorantly against his master's will, in other words, he didn't know better, he will receive a lighter punishment. That's in verse 48. And in this case, we find ignorance is not a defense. I didn't know better is not really a defense, and it certainly doesn't excuse sin. We do this in everyday affairs. Try going to another country, commit some crime maybe you didn't know about at the time, and then tell the judge, I didn't know better. Can I get off? And they'll say, no. You still committed the crime, and so the judge over all creation has a similar standard. Ignorance doesn't excuse sin. It may lessen the punishment, but it doesn't eliminate it. In this case, we have to be wary of our hearts when we say things or think things like, oh, I don't think knowing about that is all that important. I just don't think it's all that interesting. I'll leave it to other people to know about that. Just because you don't care about something doesn't actually mean you're off the hook. And just because you don't know about something doesn't mean you're off the hook. We all must actively fight our spiritual ignorance by seeking to grow in the knowledge of God. Now, you probably noticed there's a very big difference between the first servant and the second too. Because the first is cut off, and his punishment is final. The last two, they're punished, but they're not cut off. And at one level, that's certainly a comfort. That's certainly a comfort, because if you're anything like me, you read this passage, you hear it applied, and you start feeling that weight of condemnation, thinking, that looks like me. And so there is some comfort to say you're not being threatened with being cut off, but I don't know about you, but I'm not all that eager to receive either a severe or a light beating. I don't think any of us are. And so while there's some comfort to be found here, we have to do justice to the other two warnings. When you read a passage like this, it is not okay to act presumptuously and say, well, I guess I'm fine because even though I'm disobedient and ignorant, I'm still going to make it. That's not okay. And that's certainly not Jesus's point. Jesus is trying to warn us. He's trying to spur us on to doing what is right by God. The point here is not to send you home convicted thinking, oh man, I have so many cosmic beatings awaiting me. That's not the point at all. The point is this, we know our master is coming back. And so, If we believe that, if we're gonna live out that belief, if you are prone to disobeying your God, then repent. Repent and seek to live in faithful obedience. If you are prone to ignorance, if you are prone to being the person who's just happy to say, oh, I don't know, repent. and seek to grow in the knowledge and understanding of God. And leaders must have a constant eye on the master they serve. And let every day prove that we are faithful stewards in the service of the master. You might hear I've been bouncing back a little bit between applying this to leaders and applying this to just everyone indiscriminately, and it's because of the way this passage ends. I ended my last reading in the middle of verse 48. If we pick up for the second half of it, Jesus says this, 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, because here we see this principle. Yes, it emphasizes leaders and it makes us, it should make us sort of shake in our boots a little bit, but it's not restricted to leaders. It's not just about leaders. It applies to every Christian. Because what God gives each of us, every single one of you here, what God gives you comes with expectations. And the more you have been given, the greater the expectations. If God has entrusted you with much, he will demand more of you. Most of us can see so many ways that God has been rich with us. That doesn't mean in the things of the world per se, that might be one of the ways, but he has shown us so much. He has revealed So much. He has been so faithful to us, so rich toward us. And this is in the teachings that you have gotten to hear. Teachings even like this morning, mysteries that were concealed for so many years. And here we are able to have them just nicely summarized and packaged for us. He's taught us so much. He's taught us things that you can probably even right now, if I said, is there one teaching you think of that powerfully affected you, that powerfully changed you? I'm almost sure the majority of you would say, yeah, absolutely. If not one, a whole bunch even. God has been rich towards us and those people He placed in our lives, those people who were the faithful counselors to us, those people who were the faithful role models showing us what it looked like to trust God and live through this circumstance or that one. And we learned so much from them. God has been so rich toward us just in the books even that we have. If you ever come to my office, I have just a sense of conviction. I look at my bookshelf and I feel like it's condemning me for all that I don't know, even though it's sitting there six feet from where I work every day. And I bet you you're like that. And if you have any good books that you haven't gone around to reading, we have such riches, even just in the books that God has given us, laying out the untold riches of Christ. There are so many ways that God has provided for us. And so the question is for us, have we been faithful to what he's given us? Have we been faithful to what he's given us? Have we acted in accordance with the will of God, which we do in fact know in so many ways? Are we living in accordance with the wisdom that he has just showered down upon our lives? for every blessing that God showers down upon you, recognize that responsibility comes with it. Responsibility comes with it. Every single thing that you could look at the heavens and say, thank you God for, know that there is responsibility that comes with that blessing. Faithfully steward the many blessings you have received. This is a charge that convicts us all. If you're feeling the conviction, believe me, I am too. It convicts us all because we all know that we fall short in these things, far short in these things. We all know how badly we have failed in these things. And so I got to send you away just to remind you of what the believing response is here. Again, I'm not trying to send you out of here with just some overwhelming sense of your guilt before our God. What is the believing response here? Jesus is not calling us to simply feel guilty. He is certainly calling us to be more faithful, but he does so as our loving Savior. Child of God, Jesus Christ is the Savior who died for sinful stewards. And Jesus Christ remains our faithful shepherd, even as we fail to shepherd others. Yes, he calls you to repent today even. But he does so in grace. He does so in kindness. Yes, there is an edge to this passage. No doubt about it. But that edge is a tool in the loving hands of our loving Savior. It's a tool he's trying to use even this moment by the power of the Holy Spirit to spur you on and to spur you on to overwhelming blessing like you can't even imagine. There is no doubt that Christians are a people who have been given much. Brothers and sisters today, let us recommit not in guilt, but in faith. to living faithfully up to those standards and up to those blessings. Let us rise to the calling of being faithful servants. Let's pray. Lord, we pray you would be gracious to us. Our failings and our sins are everywhere displayed. in our lives, and so we pray you would be gracious to us and forgive us once more. And we pray that your Holy Spirit would convict us and spur us on. We don't want to be found the ignorant servant. We don't want to be found the rebellious servant. We certainly don't want to be found to be the utterly defiant servant. Lord, preserve us, spur us on, spur us on to the blessings that await. Whenever you come, we pray that you will find in us faith and a faith that is looking, waiting, expecting our master's return. We pray this in Jesus's name, amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.