Sermon Archive

“Be Prepared”

Luke 12:35-59
Bob DeGray
September 29, 2019

Key Sentence

Be prepared for the return of the Lord.

Outline

I. Watchfulness (12:35-40)
II. Diligence (12:41-48)
III. Understanding the Times (12:49-59)

Message

Over the years I’ve talked often about the Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared.” Near the beginning of Luke, as we talked about the message of John the Baptist, I told the story of our preparations for a two-week trek to the National Scout Camp, Philmont in New Mexico. We prepared hard. We made supply checklists, bought new equipment, weighed and measured. We studied maps of the route. We did a shakedown hike to make sure the patrol could work together. My friend Ned Powell and I loaded our backpacks with bricks and took to the roads in New Jersey, hiking 10 or 15 miles to build endurance and strength, often walking one foot up one foot down on the curb. That’s one kind of preparation: diligence now as you get ready for an event yet to come. We’ll see that in the middle of our passage. But the story I told at children’s corner is a different kind of being prepared, watchfulness. Both boys were told to keep watch, to keep the faith, to be prepared for the Captain’s return. Arion did that. Argo, sadly, did not. Watchfulness is keeping your heart ready for an event that could happen any time, keeping free from the temptations of a fallen world. The first part of our text is about that kind of being prepared.

Our text is the rest of Luke 12:35-59, where we are learn to be prepared today for that day when the Lord returns. Verses 35-40 teach us to be prepared by being watchful. “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, ³⁶and 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. ³⁷Blessed 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. ³⁸If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! ³⁹But 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. ⁴⁰You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

This is the first major section of Luke that talks about the return of Christ. There will be several more. One of the first questions we may ask ourselves is “why is Jesus talking like this?” Why suddenly begin talking about a departure and an unexpected return? Think about this. Jesus has spent a year and a half or two years preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing the sick, defeating demons and teaching his followers. There have been clear indications that he is the promised messiah, even his own prophecies of his death and resurrection.

Yet there has been no talk to this point of his departure and return. Now Jesus brings it up in an almost offhand way, as part of some illustrations. Why? Because he alone knows that it’s true. After his resurrection he will depart, ascend into heaven, and he will return, in his second coming. And he knows his disciples, and you and I, need an ethic of watchfulness and diligence for the interim.

So he begins to teach that his people should be ready for him to come at any time. Look at the words Jesus uses Verse 35: girded up or dressed in readiness, lamps burning or lamps lit. Verse 36, waiting, men who wait. Verse 37, watching, or watchful or on the alert. Verse 40, be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. So clearly the attitude Jesus wants us to have is watchfulness for his return.

Verse 35: “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning.” Dressed for action is literally having your loins girded up, your robes tucked in, ready to run or to work. And oil lamps, in Bible times, needed constant attention They would have to be refilled every two to four hours, and the wicks trimmed. Verse 36 “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.” Notice that we are watching as servants, or, as we said all summer, stewards. We see this throughout the section. Our watchfulness and our diligence are both related to the fact that we are the servants, he is the master. But also, notice that as a servant, you don't presume to judge the master's timing. You are not like a father waiting at home on a Friday night for his daughter who went on a sketchy date and was supposed to be back two hours ago. That mixture of authority, anxiety and anger is not the way we wait.

A servant is more concerned about serving the master, and does not judge the master for being late and is not concerned that his master no longer cares for him, but is simply waiting with patience for his master to return. Not an attitude of frustration, despair or unbelief, but a childlike attitude, of joyful anticipation. In kids we associate this anticipation with Christmas coming, or with the end of the school year in the summer, or with a vacation that is coming soon, which the Brits much more sensibly call ‘a holiday.’ Even as an adult, for me at least, there is still a joyful anticipation of such a holiday. It is more like a husband or a wife whose spouse is out late for some reason. You go about the normal tasks of the evening, but with that void that says, “Boy I wish my spouse was here.” There is a longing and a joyful anticipation of that return. Over the last couple of years Gail has been gone to care for her parents quite a lot, and it’s not long after she leaves that I begin to just long for her return.

But the case Jesus sketches here, is servants waiting for a master. They are waiting with joyful anticipation and even longing for the one who has every right to tell them what to do. This is because he is a great master. He’s been away at a wedding feast, maybe his own, but look what he does. Verse 37 “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.” What a great image! The servants had dressed for serving him and were waiting. But now the master dresses himself down, and has them recline, as was the Eastern custom, and he serves them. This would never happen in a Middle Eastern household. The master had too much honor to be able to take the role of a servant without a great loss of face.

But Jesus, the master in this story, is humble and willing to serve. He does this very thing on the night of his betrayal. John 13:3 “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, ⁴rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. ⁵Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” This is the Lord that we wait for with longing. We also know that the one we wait for has provided salvation for us, by his sacrificial death and victorious resurrection. He’s shown greater love than any man because he laid down his life for those he called no longer servants but friends.

So, we are watching for a great master who will come at an unexpected hour. Verse 38 “If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants!” The second and third watches are the hours around midnight, when the human body is naturally inclined to deep sleep. Thus our waiting for Jesus is not something easy or casual but difficult and deliberate, partly because his return will be unexpected to us. Verse 39 “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. ⁴⁰You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” Jesus makes it clear that he’s talking about his own coming, the coming of the Son of Man. He implies that the timing of his return needs to be kept secret so the master of the house, Satan, the ruler of this world is not prepared. Thus the servants in the house, that’s us, don’t have the option of knowing the time of his return either. Bottom line: you have to be ready.

What does it mean to be ready? One thing is holding loosely to the things, attitudes and pre-occupations of this world. Scripture talks us as exiles, foreigners, strangers in this world waiting for Christ to return and set up a better version.

We’re not to be so comfortable in our culture that we lose all desire to move on to the next one. We are, in a sense, to have our bags packed, like a woman whose fiancé is in the military, out of touch and far away. He’s promised that as soon as he can he’ll come and marry her and take her to be with him. She keeps her bags packed. Being ready is joyful anticipation of that unexpected moment.

The timing of Jesus’ return has always been debated. Do certain conditions need to be met, certain things need to happen? Some parts of the Gospels and Paul’s letters and Revelation sound like a very definite timeline, though few agree on it exactly. But verses like this, which occur frequently, teach that it could happen anytime, unexpectedly. We may look around us and sense that this is the season of his return, but we cannot know the day or the hour.

This is a key reason he keeps telling us he’s coming back: he wants to find us ready: our attachment to the world minimized, our sins confessed, our work being done, diligent in service of the returning master. That’s what verses 41-48 emphasize. Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” ⁴²The 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? ⁴³Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. ⁴⁴Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. ⁴⁵But 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, ⁴⁶the 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. ⁴⁷And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. ⁴⁸But 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.

Now the focus switches from watchfulness, as we await the return of the Lord, to diligence in serving him while we wait. Peter asks who this is addressed to, us, the disciples, or all, the whole pressing crowd. Jesus doesn’t directly answer the question. He says “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?” He’s talking to those who take their stewardship seriously. Which certainly should be true of leaders like the disciples, or me, or our other elders. But it applies to everyone in the church because everyone has been given some kind of stewardship, some responsibility in the kingdom. We joyfully anticipate his return by working diligently to serve as he desires.

Look at what Jesus says “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.” In this imagery the steward’s first responsibility is to make sure everyone gets fed, to take care of real needs. This applies to all of us in all of our relationships. We’re to be faithful and, by the grace of God, wise in how we care for others. We’re all called to love and serve one another: husbands to wives, wives to husbands, parents to children, children, even adult children, to parents. In the church we all have the responsibility to build community, to reach beyond ourselves in caring for others, for their spiritual, emotional and practical needs. So often we hear from people the concern that they haven’t really connected with others in the church. But at times this can be not because you didn’t receive as much as because you didn’t bestow care on others. Blessed, joyful, happy, Jesus says are those whom the master finds so doing.

But I should also say that this divides itself out into special roles and responsibilities for each of us, and that these can change over time. I have a responsibility right now to teach Biblical doctrine and to encourage right living in this local body. If the Lord comes back this afternoon, I hope he will find that’s what I’ve been doing. Maybe for you it's leading a small group, or hosting a small group, or encouraging involved in a small group. Maybe it’s working with Crisis Response or with the Community Pregnancy Center or with others serving the community. Maybe it is teaching Sunday School, or providing a meal to a new mom or a family bearing the weight of sickness or loss. The question I'm asking is have you identified one or more areas of specific kingdom responsibility in your life? And, are you living it out? If Jesus came today or tomorrow, would he find you diligent in your service?

The alternative is stark. 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, ⁴⁶the 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.” Responsibilities often come with privileges and it’s easy to abuse those privileges. If your responsibility includes caring for others, it’s easy to abuse that care, to become domineering, demanding and overbearing, to use superior strength or volume to verbally or physically beat those who are under your care. or simply to become uncaring, inattentive, and unloving, toward those who you are supposed to care for. Such selfishness is an abuse of your responsibility Jesus calls it eating, drinking, and getting drunk. We saw in the case of the rich fool that these were his expression of extreme selfishness.

But your self-centeredness and mine might take very different forms. It might be a desire for glory and recognition, it might be an unwillingness to give of time or money, it might be a focus on self in conversation or thought, it might be a preoccupation with my own needs to the exclusion of the needs of others. All these things stand in direct opposition to love for others and all of these things distract us from the serving of others that is the proper expression of that love.

Jesus takes this seriously. In verse 46 the steward who did abused his position is cut in pieces and put with the unfaithful. I don’t think he means that literally, or that we should apply it literally to ourselves. It’s an illustration, after all. But we should take it seriously. We don’t want Jesus to mean nothing by this. If any position or authority is being exploited, we want it to have consequences. If a pastor is sexually abusing children, we want him to lose. If a husband or father is out of control, we want emphatic intervention. Verse 47 “that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating.” Yes. But even here Jesus shows compassion. Verse 48 “But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating.” We don’t always know what to do. At times we miss our responsibilities tragically but unintentionally. We can’t make this an excuse, but we can trust that Jesus knows the heart and will respond to it.

So the master is returning. We can prepare today for that day by watchfulness and expectation, but also diligence and selflessness while we wait. In the last section text Jesus also shows that those who wait need to understand what this waiting time is like. Verses 49-59 “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! ⁵⁰I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! ⁵¹Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. ⁵²For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. ⁵³They 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.” ⁵⁴He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming.’ And so it happens. ⁵⁵When you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and it happens. ⁵⁶You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? ⁵⁷“And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? ⁵⁸As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. ⁵⁹I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.”

These concluding paragraphs are linked to what came before because they give insight into what we can expect now while we wait for that day when the Lord returns. Jesus begins with a symbolic reference to his passion. “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! ⁵⁰I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” In Luke’s gospel fire symbolizes both purification and judgment. The key use prior to this is John the Baptist’s assertion that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. It’s likely that Jesus considers his passion to be the unleashing of that fire, by which believers would be purified and unbelievers judged. In the same way his baptism, which he anxiously awaited, was the world-shaking moment of his sacrificial death and victorious resurrection.

In the meantime,” he almost says “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” This is the reality of life with Jesus “in the meantime,” in the many “todays” between his ascension and his return. The Gospel divides those who embrace it from those who reject it and often oppose it. This is true even in families. In verse 52 a household is divided three to two, and verse 53 shows every kind of division in that family. Such has always been the lot of believers. Today if you’re Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu, it is likely that becoming a believer will isolate you from your family. Even in the U.S. divisions can come from our faith. Sometimes it happens in marriages, or when children become believers and adults not, or, sadly, it happens when children reject the faith. Jesus says be prepared for this today.

Know the times, Jesus goes on to say, as well as you know the weather. Verse 54 “He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming.’ And so it happens. ⁵⁵And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and it happens. “Even today,” one commentator says, “you can hear Tel Aviv radio say, ‘it will be a scorcher. Southerly breezes are blowing up from the Arabian desert.’ And rain has always come from the west in Palestine.” After Elijah’s victory over the priests of Baal he prayed for the drought to stop, and had his servant look to the sea, where he finally saw “a cloud as small as a man’s hand.” And Elijah knew his prayer was answered, as anyone raised in Palestine would”

Jesus says “You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky. Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” The prophets had long given the forecast for the time of the Messiah’s appearing, and John the Baptist and others had pointed at him directly and said “This is the Christ, the long awaited messiah.” But the Pharisees, and others, could not interpret the times, couldn’t see that the great day of the Messiah’s appearing had come.

Finally, in verses 57 to 59 Jesus reminds them that their inability to understand the times and respond to them has enormous consequences. “Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?” Those who understand the times will not only see the presence of the Messiah, but the righteousness of the Messiah, and the just judgement of God. As Kent Hughes says “This mini-parable presumes that all of us are guilty and are heading for judgment. The only sensible thing to do is try to settle out of court.” Verse 58 “As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. ⁵⁹I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.” In our day, and for us as well as for all those around us, there is a way to settle out of court, to not receive the penalty that we are due. That way is faith in Christ, who chose to receive the just judgment and the just punishment of our sins. When we trust in him, we’re rescued from sin, and we become those who look with joy and longing for his return, rather than those who, if they knew enough, would look on him with fear and dread.

All this is being prepared today for that day of his return.: watchfulness, diligence, understanding the times. My favorite “being prepared” story is the epic account of Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 Arctic voyage. The goal was to cross the Arctic ice cap. But before they could land fierce weather trapped their ship, the Endurance, in the ice. They stayed nearby as the ship was slowly crushed, then made their way across the Weddell Sea to utterly remote Elephant Island. There Shackleton left the party under the command of Frank Wild, and with a few companions took their remaining boat 800 perilous miles to South Georgia Island, where there was a whaling station. Back on Elephant Island, Frank Wild constructed a camp, using two upturned boats, stones and a canvas which resulted in a reasonably comfortable shelter, where they stayed for 138 days living off penguin and seal meat. Not one of the party died. And each morning Wild would order ‘Lash up and stow boys, the boss may come today.’ So too we need to be ready. The boss may come today.