Ready for Christ’s Return?

Ready for Christ's Return?

Well, each of us have a privilege of having a copy or more than one copy of God's Word. So open the one you have with you this morning and turn to Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12, please. And we want to turn to verse 15 and begin the reading there in Luke 12. We're going to read a good portion of this chapter. But beginning in verse number 15 this morning.

And he said unto them, take heed and beware of covetousness for a man's life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. And he spoke a parable unto them saying, the ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully and he thought within himself saying, what shall I do? Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he said, this will I do. I will pull down my barns and build greater. And there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, thou hast much good laid up for many years. Take thy ease, eat, drink and be merry. But God said unto him, thou fool this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

And he said unto his disciples, therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life what you shall eat. Neither for the body what ye shall put on. The life is more than meat and the body is more than raiment. Consider the ravens for they neither sow nor reap which neither have storehouse nor barn. And God feedeth them. How much more are ye better than the fowls? And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? Consider the lilies how they grow. They toil not, they spin not, and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass which is today in the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?

And seek not what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink neither be of doubtful mind for all these things do the nations of the world seek after. And your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things, but rather seek ye the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. Fear not little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, sell that ye have and give alms, provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.

Let your loins be girded about and your lights burning and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord when he will return from the wedding that when he cometh and knocketh they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watching. Verily I say unto you that he shall gird himself and make them to sit down to meat and will come forth and serve them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch and find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and would not have suffered his house to be broken through. Be ye therefore ready also for the Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye think not.

Then Peter said unto him, Lord speakest thou this parable unto us, or even unto all. And the Lord said, who then is that faithful and wise steward whom his Lord shall make ruler over his household to give them their portion of meat in due season. Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing.

Just as Jesus Christ did not know the day and the hour that his Lord, his Father in heaven, was going to require him to drink the cup. He said, my hour is not yet come. He did not know that hour when the Lord would call upon him to be made the sacrifice for our sins in a very similar way. We do not know the hour either of our death or our departure via the rapture. We do not know. So we're told to be ready, right? Be ye therefore ready, Jesus says, for the Son of Man cometh at an hour when you think not. Be ready. Be ready.

Well, Jesus was always ready, wasn't he? He was always ready. He was ready to go. As the hymn we sing says, he was ready to stay. Ready to do the Father's will. He was always ready for whatever the Father appointed to him to do. He said he didn't even speak his own words. He spoke the words that the Father gave him. He, the works that I do, he said, when you see these works, these are the works the Father sent me to do. It's not my works. It's not my words. Just I'm doing the will of what my Father would have me to do.

And so how was he ready? Jesus was always ready, we said, but how was he ready? Even at an early age, look at Luke 2. Hold your finger here, but look back a few chapters. Luke 2:49, look at his mindset. Look at the mind of Christ here. In verse 49, he says this, how is it that you sought me? Wist ye not, did you not know that I must be about my Father's business? I must be about my Father's business.

Over in John 4, verse 34, we would read that Jesus said there. John 4, verse 34, he made this statement. In verse 34, he said, my meat is to do. My food, literally, but this is important. Like my daily bread is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. In fact, it's more important even than physical food to him was to do the will of his Father.

How do we know that? Because he went through that wilderness temptation for 40 days, right? And then when he came out, the serpent tempted him and said, command these stones that they'd be made bread, right? And wasn't it that he told him that and he said he would not do that. He would not yield to the temptation even to eat or to misuse the powers that he had to be able to do that. He said that he was going to do the will of the Father, right? I must be about my Father's business. And so the most important thing to him, his meat, whereas this world serves its own belly, Jesus Christ served his Father and did his will.

And John 6:38, he said, for I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And even though he walked on this earth, as we walk on this earth, his mission, his purpose on this earth was heavenly. It was eternal in nature. It was not merely for the, you know, living from meal to meal, paycheck to paycheck, and just with no real purpose or direction in his life. No, he had to eat, obviously. He was a human, just like we are. He enjoyed, you know, temporal, tangible things of life, okay? But he didn't live for those things. He didn't worship those things. He could do without them because he served his Father. He lived for his Father, not for this temporal, earthly life.

That's not what he was here for. He wasn't here to please himself. He wasn't a rogue on the run from his Father in heaven. He wasn't a prodigal from heaven. He was willingly, he willingly came and he was lovingly sent to this earth to do the Father's bidding. He, as the scriptures will tell us, is the express image. We've looked at those words before in the Greek. It literally has the idea. He, what we would say in the South, your at least is the, look at that boy. He's a spitting image. He's exactly like his, you know, well, even more so than we could say of the spitting image of my Father. I'm the spitting image of my Father or something like that. He is truly the exact express image of his Father in that, in all, not merely talking about some physical characteristics, but in the way he thinks. The way he speaks, everything he does is what the Father would do. He has the same character as the Father. He's, there's no difference. He's the same in nature as his Father. He's different in person, a personhood or personality and all that, but he's distinct in that way, but he's the same. He's God in flesh. He's the express image of the Father.

And so we're told. Now, looking at Jesus, the express image of the Father, the one who always did the Father's will, we're told, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2:5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And he, he taught when he spoke, he taught as one having authority, not as the scribes, which say, do as I say, and not as I do, right? He taught as one having authority. He, he did not merely clean up the outside of the cup and make it look good to everyone. He took on the truly took on the form of a servant. He was at heart, a servant. He came to serve us, though we did not deserve anything but justice and judgment. He was always ready to do, ready to endure, ready to go, ready to do whatever the Father wanted him to do. And he has called us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, follow Him. That's what He's called us to do. He does not teach us to do something that He Himself does not do. He does not demand of us something that He does not first require of Himself and fulfill Himself.

In our texts today, back here in our text in Luke chapter 12, we saw in verse number 21, verse number 21, we saw these words. He that so is He that layeth up treasure for Himself and is not rich toward God. What, what is this referring to? Well, it's referring to the man who tore down his barns, built bigger barns, even though he didn't need bigger barns. He should have taken the extra that he had that was above and beyond his basic needs and he should have shared them, given unto others. That's what we're, that's literally what the text just told us. You know, take what you have and sell it, give alms, right? He should have not said, well, I have enough, but I really want more because I don't even want to have to, in so many words, depend on God. I want to have so much, I don't want to have to pray for anything. I want, I don't want to have to, I don't want to have to ever sweat about anything. I want to take my ease. I want to live out the rest of my life without a thought or care based on what I have tangibly based on my possessions. I want to be so rich and so well off that I don't even have to lift a finger or think.

You know, sounds like at least what a lot of the American dream is about, right? The American dream, you know, I want to, and I'm not saying that everybody wants to have it, it's, you know, get rich quick and get rich and have all of this. But I don't have to work. I don't have to do anything. Well, there's a time that comes where we need to retire, I understand that. But even in retirement, we can still serve the Lord, right? Still serve the Lord, even if we might be retired from a job, well, it might be a good thing that maybe the Lord blesses you to the point where you can afford to not have to be at work. Well, that would just be more time to serve the Lord, right? More time to serve him in a different avenue.

Well, our text commands us here to be rich toward God in so many words, to be rich toward God. Unlike this man who tore down his barns to go bigger and what was the biggest idol he had was himself, right? The idolatry of self, Jesus teaches us here in this text, he teaches us in verse 15, right at the beginning, a man's life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses. A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesses. In other words, the true meaning of our life is not found. The true value of our lives is not found in what things we have because those things make it come to this world and out of my mother's womb and naked I return to the dust, right? The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. My purpose in this world is to know the Lord and to make him known. My purpose in this world is to do His will, not my will.

My purpose in this life is to, as verse 31 tells us, looking at verse 31 here in the text, says in verse 31, but rather, seek ye the kingdom of God. Matthew will say it a little differently. He will say, he will include the words, but seek ye first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things shall be added unto you. Rather seek ye the kingdom of God and all of these things shall be added unto you. What does this world primarily seek after? Well, things that in and of themselves are not necessarily a problem—health, right? Everybody wants to be healthy, right? Everybody wants to be in perfect health. I mean, who wouldn't want to be in great health? And thank God if He blesses us with good health. That's a blessing. We should thank Him for it. We should not try to be unhealthy. We should be good stewards of the body, but we must not worship our health.

The Lord may give you money. If He gives you money, just remember, riches make themselves wings and fly away. The riches may grow wings and fly off. That's what they tend to do, right? If you have riches, bless the Lord and use them for His purposes. Use your health for His purposes to do His will. But don't idolize it, right? Pleasure and comfort. We all like comfort food. I only say, I don't want to do it. I do. My wife made cottage pie. She found out, it's supposed to be called cottage pie if it doesn't include lamb in it. So, you know, shepherd's pie, we tend to call it. She made some cottage pie and oh, it was so good in that cast iron pan, you know, with the potatoes on top and had a little cheese and the vegetables and the beef and all this stuff that was in there. It was so good. Comfort food.

We have a lot of creature comforts in this life, don't we? We have a comfortable home that we live in. We have comfortable air conditioning we're sitting in here today. A lot of people don't have those things in a lot of places in the world that are even meeting in this 24-hour period on the Lord's Day. But do we serve the Lord because of those things? Do we only do His will if we have all the creature comforts? If our health, if our wealth, if our comforts were taken away from us, that's what Satan accused Job and said, you take that hedge away from Him. He won't serve you anymore. He's not going to serve you. If you take away that hedge, if you've made about Him, you take away the comforts and the pleasing things in His life and the things that bring Him joy, even in the legitimate things, He's going to curse you, Lord, curse you, God.

Well, the number one idol is me, me, me, me, me, me. I'm going to do what I want to do. Nobody's going to get in the way of me doing what I want to do and having what I want to have. You know the lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, pride of life we talk about. Lovers of our own selves is what's going to characterize the perilous last times. I can't help but think that we're in those times because we look around and it's just, it's everywhere. And certainly the spirit of this has been spread rapidly and it's very influential on a global scale because of the internet, because of the internet. It just amplifies it even more. The love of self, deny myself no pleasure, love pleasure more than God. This is the mindset, but that's not to be our mindset. It's not to be our mindset in this world.

There's a lot of different ways that can express itself. It might express itself in a very religious sort of way like the Pharisees. Remember the Pharisees, they were, they served themselves. Even the Pharisee we read of, he prayed thus with himself. It was all about making himself feel good about himself. It was not about serving God and doing his will. It was about worshiping his own, his own way. But Jesus, when he spoke to the Pharisees said, you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have omitted the weightier matters of the law. Judgment, mercy, and faith. This is in Matthew 23:23. You've omitted the weightier matters. These are all you have done. These as in the tithing of these things. That's good. That's well. But you ought not to have left off judgment and mercy and faith. You ought not to have left these things off because this is my will for you too. You can fake the outer ones, but you can't fake the inner ones. You can't fool me. If your heart is, if you don't have real heart religion, you can fool people with the tithing, but you can't fool me is what he's saying here. You have omitted because you're really worshiping yourself the weightier matters.

Because I was reading a book that someone gave me, a brother in Christ some time ago. It was a book by Francis Asbury and there was something in that book where he said this. Practicing revenge is the way to continue divisions unto the end of the world. Such offend me. Therefore I will offend them. Therefore they offend me again. I then. So they run in infinitum. They deny me a kindness. Therefore I will deny them. Therefore they will deny me. So these unkindnesses run on endlessly. Divisions will have a line of succession. Where will it, where can it stop? If this be the way of men.

And you know, I thought about this. I've given the illustration before when talking about couples, married couples. And you know, the only way a marriage can work is there must be, well, at least one party, but definitely for it to work properly, there have to be two parties that say not my will, but God's will. Not what I want, but what God wants. That's the only way a marriage can prosper. Is for two people. Because what is it, you know, when we bring two people together, we used to live our own little path, right? I lived the way I wanted to live. I folded things the way I wanted to fold them. I wanted to do them. And then my spouse that I married, my wife had her own ways. We didn't live a whole long time before we got married. Some people live longer and they develop further habits of life. But now when we, the two shall be one, we come together. The scripture says, this is called, Ephesians 5:19 says, husbands love your wives. Be not bitter against them. Be not bitter against your wives. Instead, lay down your life for her. Love your wife. Love your wives as Christ loved the church.

And so the understanding is, you might be tempted and you will be tempted to be bitter or hold some kind of grudge because of something she did that you didn't like or something that she's doing that you don't like. But you should not. You're literally commanded not to be bitter against her. I'm commanded not to be bitter against my wife. And that is God's will. And if I am bitter, then I'm not doing God's will towards my wife. Yeah, as a wife, if you would deny yourself, seek first the kingdom of God, just as with the husband, you must submit to your husband. Submit to your husband.

As one, what is all this in the context of? Jesus Christ was ready to go meet his Father, to go to the cross, but to go and return back to heaven ultimately after his death, burial, and resurrection. He was ready. When that cup came, he was ready to drink of it. So should we be ready to meet the Lord. Part of being ready to meet the Lord is just everyday basic stuff. You know, husbands love your wives. Wives submit to your husbands. Children obey your parents. Think not only on your own things, think also of the things of others. As a body, submitting ourselves one to another in the fear of God. Praying one for another. Having fervent charity among ourselves, all these things as it pertains to one another, we ought to be doing because we love the Lord, because we know that He loves us.

If we're not seeking first the kingdom of God and we're seeking our own will, the result will be what? It will be strife. It will be confusion. It will be blame shifting. It will be all of this going on. It will be busying ourselves with handling the fallout from disobedience, with handling the fallout and the confusion that comes from not doing God's will. And you know, a marriage can be one of the most wonderful things or can be one of the most terrible things in the world if it's not in God's will. Having children can be one of the most wonderful things or can be one of the most terrible. Because we saw this morning, Solomon and Rehoboam. It can be a bad thing. You can have children that are lawless and, you know, just full-blown rebels. You can have children that, well, you can't change the heart of the child, but you certainly can instruct them and train them in the way they should go and pray for them that God will guide and direct them and they'll respond to Him.

Well, we have a choice to make, don't we? We have a choice to make. Animals serve God regardless. The birds always get up and sing every morning. You know, they don't say, well, I think I'll take the day off because they just don't really feel like it today. They know they get up and they sing every morning. The rooster crows. The rooster crows whether you want him to or not. He crows. I don't think Brother Tim wants any chickens, but we have a choice. We have a choice to make, don't we?

Look in Matthew 12, verse 15. Please, Matthew 12, verse number 15. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father, which is in heaven, Jesus says, the same is my brother and sister and mother. He'd also say in John 15, verse 14, ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. The mark of discipleship is self-denial, isn't it? One of the prominent marks of a disciple of Christ is that they deny themselves and serve by love to do the will of the one who loved them first. If our righteousness doesn't exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, then it isn't true righteousness, is it? If our righteousness doesn't go beyond skin deep into the heart and we do the will of God out of the heart, then what kind of righteousness do we have?

Where your treasure is, verse 34, back in our text says this. Look in verse 34 again. Luke 12, verse 34 says, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. What do we treasure? What do we value? What is it that means the world to us, so to speak? In a world that is following its own hearts, we must follow the Lord with all our heart. Our greatest treasure and delight should be to follow Him and do His will, right? Is our greatest desire and treasure to follow Him? Even if it means trouble, even if it means loss, even if it means some discomfort or great discomfort in our lives. What is our, are we willing to be bought or are we sold out to the Lord?

One thing that should mark our lives, if that is true of us, that we are the friends, we are the brother and sister of our Lord because we do the will of the one who sent Him. What is it? What are we going to be doing? Well, we're going to be saying something along the lines of, should ever be at the forefront of our hearts, maybe today the Lord will come back. Maranatha, maybe the Lord will come back today. I am ready to meet Him, but if He doesn't come back, I want to do His will. Lord, help me to do Your will. I know that I can't do it in my own strength, but maybe today the Lord will come back.

In verse 37, it says this, verse 37, blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when He cometh shall find watching. Look at this, verily I say unto you that He shall gird Himself and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. Well, I'm probably going to, you know, if I would feel like was it Peter who said, Lord, wash not only my feet, but my whole body. I, like John the Baptist who said, I'm not worthy to loose His shoe latchet. Why should He gird Himself and serve me? And if He shall come in the second watch, come in the third watch and find them so, blessed are those servants. But then verse 40, be ye therefore ready also. Learning from the goodman of the house that would have, if he knew the hour the thief was coming, would not have allowed the house to be broken into. Be ye therefore ready also for the Son of Man cometh at an hour when you think not.

We live in a world where people don't know what's going to happen, what police departments, they have continual training, right? They continue to train for scenarios. Schools do drills in cases of tornado or a fire or something, any of those things. Firefighters, the Rocky Mount Fire Department has a place over there where, I believe it's still over there by where the Tom Stith Park was, and they have a place where they stage and they practice doing all of their, you know, going in and putting out a fire. Sometimes they'll burn down an old abandoned house and practice with that because they have to stay ready for whatever their job is, right? They have to be ready because at a moment's notice that alarm may ring and there's a huge emergency that they need to be ready to address.

Well, our, we certainly should be ready to speak to souls, ready to give an answer for the reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear. But ultimately what we need, what the Lord is preparing us for and what we need to be ready to do is, Lord, I'm ready to go and meet you. If the Lord should, should not can say it's, it's time. I'm ready. Let's go. Let's go. We should not hold onto anything in this world. We should, we can enjoy the things God has given us, but we should not hold on. We should hold loosely onto the things God has given us so we could let go of them at any moment's sake. Not like Lot's wife. Remember, Lot's wife. But let go and say, Lord, I'm ready to go. I'm ready. I'm ready to meet you.

Well, we need to take heed to ourselves. The scripture tells us, Luke 21 verse 34. Luke 21 verse 34 warns us because it's a very real temptation, isn't it? Verse 34, take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged or overburdened with surfeiting. That is gluttony and drunkenness and cares of this life. And so that day come upon you unawares. You can eat. You can enjoy the things of this life. We're going to have certain cares that have to be taken care of. That's part of living life. But do not become, do not allow the word to be choked in your heart by the abundance of these things. Sometimes the word may bring us through a storm to show us we need to lighten the ship. Some things will have to be thrown overboard. Some things we just have to say, well, at least for now, I need to get rid of that thing because it's weighing down my ship too much. I need to be not overburdened, overcharged with these things because I want the main priority. The number one priority of my life is to seek first the kingdom of God and be ready to go. Should he call me today? I want to be ready to just leave it all behind.

Pastor Peacock, he would make the statement. You know, he said, and it's really not a funny thing, but he said, I wonder if I went and drove around Rocky Mount today if I could get a busload up ready to go to heaven. Right now. And that's a good thought to think, are we ready? We say that we're children of God, so we should be ready, right? Let us not be so tied to the things of this earth. Let us look to the Lord. Blessed is that servant, verse 43. Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing.

We recently went to Ocracoke when we were down at the beach and we went over to the lighthouse over there. I'd never been to Ocracoke before, and I can say, I've been now. I'm not racing to get back over there or anything, but it was, there were some neat things there to be seen. And I think probably the thing I enjoyed about the most was the, was the lighthouse. We just walked over there and talked to the park ranger whoever it was that was standing there and talking about the lighthouse. I noticed there was a can, a metal can sitting in there and she said, that's a lard can. And she said before, kerosene, certainly before electricity, the light keeper would use lard to keep that light burning, the lantern burning and, and they had really a full-time job at night. And that job consisted of continuing to make sure the lamp was supplied with lard. And the wick was trimmed evenly because if the wick, not like modern wicks, but they had to be trimmed then if they were not trimmed evenly, the light would not burn brightly like it was supposed to. And then because the lard was a, would burn smoky, sooty, they would have to keep the, however many. It was a bunch of lenses. They had to keep them wiped clean so that it would properly reflect that light out into the darkness.

And I'm thinking about that lighthouse keeper. They did, they couldn't see the ships that were out there, but there were ships out there and they needed that light. They had to be faithful knowing, having the integrity and the faithfulness to continue doing what they knew they needed to be doing. Out of concern for those people out there in the water, certainly. But they were going to give an answer for how they kept that light. I want to keep this light burning. Whether the storms come, whether it's fair weather, the light's going to be burning. The light is going to be shining out into the dark. And so as Christians, we must, as we do the Father's will. As we keep our eyes upon him, our lights are burning, right? Our lights are burning in this dark world that we live in. When Jesus comes, we sing to reward his servants, whether it be noon or night. Faithful to him, will he find us watching with our lamps all trimmed and bright. Oh, can we say we are ready, brother? Ready for the soul's bright home? Say, will he find you and me still watching? Waiting, watching when the Lord shall come.

Let's pray. Father, help us to be ready. You send chastening and trouble even to our lives, difficulties to our lives, to help prepare us for heaven. We know that if we're in Christ, heaven is our home. But Lord, there are things in our lives, Lord, that perhaps we're holding onto. We hold dearer than we should, that we need to be sure that we have nothing before you in our lives. That we truly are in everything. We're seeking first, the kingdom of God. While we enjoy many things, many creature comforts of this life, Lord, help us to not help us to serve thee. Help us to truly have thee in the first place in our lives. Help us to keep ourselves from idols and Lord to not only have a flickering lamp, but to have a brightly burning light and to be that light that you have made us to be in this world. Bless us now as we sing this final hymn. We pray, Lord, that we would be a people that are ready to meet the Lord. Ready should it be today. We hear people say all the time. I never thought it would happen to me. Or I didn't think it would be today. Or so many things that people say about unexpected things that arise in their lives. May we live the day. The rest of this day, Lord, with that understanding that it really may be today, that our Lord will come. And may that show in the way we think, may the mind of Christ pervade all that we do. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.