LUKE 12:35-48 HOW TO TELL IF YOU ARE READY FOR ETERNITY2017 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Luke 12:35-48 How To Tell If You Are Ready For Eternity

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2017. Well, this morning as we look at Luke chapter 12, I've titled the message, How to Tell if You Are Ready for Eternity.

And I would ask you to consider this morning how ready you are because, of course, eternity is real. And although eternity is real, eternal life is not automatic.

It's actually something that we have to engage with the Lord about in order to experience the eternal life that he offers to us. As we look at this passage, eternity is in view as Jesus is talking about his return and the necessity to be ready for that return. And that is true for us today as we read through this passage and consider it this morning.

it still remains that Jesus can come back at any moment. But we also recognize that even if Jesus does not come back in the next moment, it is also possible, and maybe even likely, you might say, that we will go to him through our own death. As we exit this life, we go into the presence of the Lord. And so in that way, whether Jesus returns or whether we go to him,

Either way, we are on the verge of eternity. We're right at the edge. And at any moment, we could be in our next breath in eternity and spending the rest of eternity with the Lord or apart from the Lord, depending on how you've chosen to live. Jesus tells us in John chapter 14, in my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you.

Here, Jesus establishes the truth for us. There is a place that we call heaven. Jesus calls it his father's house.

And Jesus said, that's a real place. And there's many mansions there. And you know what? I'm going to go prepare you a place in my father's house. And so there is eternity. There is a life after this life. There is life after death. There is a place for you in the father's house that Jesus has been preparing for you.

But he says, if I go to prepare that place, since eternity is real and that place is real, he says, also know that I'm going to come back and receive you to myself. And so Jesus there says, look, I'm going to come get you and bring you to this place that I've prepared for you. And so heaven is a real place.

Eternity is real according to Jesus. It has a place and you have a place in that eternity and in his father's house and his desire is to come get you and bring you into that place. Again, we often call it heaven. And I like the way that Greg Laurie talks about it. He says, heaven is a prepared place for prepared people.

It's a prepared place. Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you, and I'm going to bring you to that place. I'm going to come back and get you to bring you to that place that you may be with me for all of eternity. But

It's a prepared place, but it's also for prepared people. Again, it's not something that is automatic for us, but it's something that we receive as we respond to what God has done. Now, I think for us as believers, if you asked us this morning, you know, if God

we are prepared for eternity, I think it's very likely that we would say, yeah, I'm prepared for eternity. That it would kind of be our automatic response. We wouldn't even have to really think about it too much, but I've believed in Jesus. I've been born again. And so, boom, automatically, I'm prepared for eternity. I'm ready for eternity. But this morning, I would ask you to kind of put aside your automatic response for a moment and consider the words of Jesus.

Consider whether or not you are actually ready for eternity. Are you ready for eternity in the way that Jesus calls us to be ready in this passage? He gives us some tools here. And again, the title of the message is how to tell if you're ready for eternity. There's four tools, four evaluation tools that the Lord gives us to help us evaluate ourselves and determine how ready we are.

And whether or not we're actually prepared for the eternity that is at hand. And we're on the verge of it. We can be in eternity at any moment. And so we need to be ready for that reality. And so the first evaluation tool that the Lord gives us is found in verses 35 through 40.

You can tell if you are ready for eternity by your anticipation level. That's point number one. Your anticipation level is a good indicator of your readiness for eternity. Let me read verse 35 and 36 again. It says,

when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately. Here is Jesus is talking with his disciples as well as the crowd that's around him. He gives some exhortation through illustration. In fact, he gives three illustrations here in these two verses. He says, "'Let your waist be girded, let your lamps be burning, and be like men who wait for their master to knock.'"

And in these three illustrations, he shows us, well, what kind of level of anticipation we are to have for his return. And the first illustration, he talks about letting your waist be girded. Now, that's not something that, you know, we typically use in conversation today, your waist being girded. But for them and their culture, that was a normal understanding. They knew what Jesus was talking about because they wore these robes.

Which, if you've ever worn a dress, probably most of you guys haven't, right? But if you've worn a dress or a robe, or if you went to Samoa and you wore an EA, right? Like, you have that constricting material around your legs. And so you find that you're not free to run. You're not free to work it. It makes it difficult to move very well in that type of attire. And so what they would do with their robes in those days, it was they would take the back of their robe and they would bring it up and they would tuck it into their belt, right?

and it was called girding the waist. And in doing that, it would turn their robe into kind of like a pair of shorts. And in a pair of shorts, they would be free to run, to work, to do whatever needed to be done. And so the idea here is Jesus is saying, when he talks about having your waist girded, he's saying, you know, don't be there in your restricted clothes, but be ready to work, be ready to move. Now, I don't know what you wear at home, but

When I get home, especially if I'm going to be home for the day, I like to get comfortable. And so what I do is I put on my Star Wars pajamas. And I know you might laugh at me a little bit, but hey, that's my favorite thing to wear when I'm at home. And you can ask him. I'm not just making up an illustration. This is the truth. I like to wear my Star Wars pajamas. Now, in my Star Wars pajamas, I'm really comfortable. I'm relaxed.

But when Kim says we need to go to the store, I'm not ready. Because as much as I love my Star Wars pajamas at home, I'm not going to wear them outside of the house because of your reaction. So...

I have to gird my waist and go put actual clothes on in order to go to the store. And that's the concept here. That's the idea that Jesus is saying. He's saying, look, you know, get out of your pajamas, get out of your restricted clothing and be ready to work at a moment's notice. Let your waist be girded. But he also says to keep your lamps burning.

And of course, this reminds us of the parable that Jesus gives in Matthew chapter 25 of the wise and the foolish virgins. And they, well, they had lamps and they were waiting for the groom and the bridal party to come. But, well, the foolish virgins didn't bring extra oil for their lamps. And so what happens is when they are awakened and the groom is coming, they go to light their lamps and there's no oil for their lamps.

Now, again, this is something we may not immediately relate to as easily because, well, we push the button, we flip the switch, we turn on the lights, and you know, the lamps just stay on. We don't have to maintain it. Every once in a while, you know, after weeks or months or years, you have to change the light bulb.

But for them, it was an actual lamp. And so there was a wick that was down in the oil. And so the oil would burn and you would have to replenish the oil regularly, frequently, often in order to maintain the lamp and keep it burning. And it required a level of attentiveness.

It required some anticipation that you were paying attention to your lamp and that you would refill it and maintain it as it was needed in order for it to continue to burn.

And so the waste girded, that's the preparation and the readiness to work at a moment's notice. Keeping the lamps burning, that's the attention, that's the focus, and maintaining that light to continue to burn. And then Jesus gives a third illustration, and that is there in verse 36. He says,

And so in this third illustration, it pictures these servants who are waiting for their master to come. In this case, their master is the groom. And the way that we do their wedding celebrations in those days is the celebration would be at the groom's house.

And what the groom would do is he would leave the house. He would go receive his bride. So he would go to her house, wherever she was. He would say, hey, it's time. Let's get married. They would join. And so the wedding party, the wedding procession would all travel, however far that distance was, back to the master's house or back to the groom's house. And when he got to the house, he would knock on the gate. And then the servants would let him in and they would begin the feast, the celebration of the wedding.

Now, could you imagine being a servant in those days? Your groom or your master is the groom and he's off to fetch his bride and he comes back and knocks on the door and you can't hear because you're back in

in the back area saying, hey, it's a wedding feast. There's some good cake here. Let's enjoy some of this cake. Let's jump in the pool, have a pool party while the master's gone. And you're in the back living it up, having a good time while the master and his bride and all the guests are on the outside knocking at the gate and you're the servant responsible, but you're not responding because, well, you're not there at the gate. That's kind of the idea here. He says, instead, you need to be like the servant

Now, if you picture this, like this isn't your master went to the grocery store, you know, and so you need to be there urgently and on guard. But this is the wedding day. And on this day, especially you as a servant should be at the door so that if he's going to knock three times,

That he doesn't even get to the second knock before you open the gate for him. That you're ready because this is the wedding day. And he's come back and he's got his bride and they're about to be married and the celebration is about to begin. And it all hinges upon you, the servant, being ready to open that gate when your master returns. That's the picture here that Jesus gives. And he says, look, this is the level of anticipation that you should have regarding the return of

of Jesus. In verse 37, he says, Jesus says, look, if the master comes back and he finds you girded, ready to work, ready for whatever's needed,

If he finds your lamps burning that you've maintained, you've maintained your lamp and maintained the oil level and you respond immediately when he knocks, he says, look, you are going to be blessed. So blessed, he says, here's what the master is going to do. Now, this is not part of the normal, you know, Jewish traditions. This isn't cultural any longer. He says, the master will sit you down and serve you if you're ready when he returns.

Here, Jesus is saying, look, there's going to be great reward for you. And Jesus says, I will serve you if you're ready for me when I return. This is the level of anticipation. He gives these illustrations to help us understand, to help us to know and to recognize there's an urgency for us to be ready for Jesus to return.

He explains that a little bit more by giving another illustration in verse 39. He says, So he switches to a different illustration now, again, to make the point of this.

the need to be ready. He says, look, when someone breaks into a house, they don't, you know, put a notice on your door. I'll be back at 3 p.m. and I'm going to take all of your stuff. No, they don't do that. Now, if they did that, then the owner of the house would be ready. All right, at three o'clock, you know, it's kind of like the old movie Home Alone, right? You know, he knew, he heard the guys, he knew what time they were coming back. And so then he made the house ready for them to come back.

And so in a similar way, if we knew what time someone was going to break in, well, then we would prepare for that. But that's not the way that it usually works. Usually it happens at an unexpected time. And Jesus here is saying the return of Jesus, when I come back, it's going to be like that

In that, it's going to be at an unexpected time. In verse 40, he says, So here's what Jesus is saying. He is coming back, that's for sure. The timing, we don't know. The timing, in fact, is going to be, well, at a time where we don't expect for it. It's not scheduled.

We don't know about it in advance, and yet we need to be ready. And so his point is, we have to always be ready for his return because we don't know the day or the hour. And so I would ask you to consider this morning, what is your anticipation level? Jesus gave these illustrations to help us understand how

What level we're to be at as far as our expectation and our excitement over his return? Is your waist girded? Are you ready for whatever needs to be done? Or are you lounging around in your pajamas? Are you lounging around? You're relaxed. You're kicking back. You're doing what you want to do, and you're not really ready for anything that the Lord wants you to do. Are your lamps burning?

Have you been maintaining that oil? Have you been maintaining that flow of the Spirit in your life? And when the Lord returns and knocks, the trumpet will sound, it says, in the rapture of the church when the Lord calls us to meet him in the air. Will you be ready at that time? Are you so ready that it would be like if the master knocked, he wouldn't even have to knock all three times, but that at that first knock, you're ready to go.

that your anticipation level is that high that you're standing right at the door. I'm sure you know what it's like to have someone come knock at your door, right? And I set up a door here just like a knock on it this one time. Someone knock on your door and you're in your Star Wars pajamas. Now, what do you do? You run to the bedroom and you put on real clothes and then you go answer the door, right? That's what you do. And you're like, hold on a minute. I'm not quite ready. Hold on. Listen, when the Lord comes back, there's not going to be time to change out of your pajamas.

There's not going to be time to go finish up the things that you were wanting to do and hoping to do or planning to do or that the Lord called you. There's not. We are called to live with an anticipation on our hearts that we're ready at any moment to enter into eternity, that we're expecting eternity at any moment.

That destination for us must be burned into our hearts to, well, to help us stay on course, as we'll see as we move on into the next verses, that having this anticipation of eternity is what helps us to live a life that God has called us to live. You can search it out for yourself, but there are no New Testament passages or references that

that you can find instruction or encouragement or even allowance for not caring about, not thinking about, and not prioritizing the return of Jesus. Anytime this is the subject of the passage, the emphasis is on, well, if you look at Revelation, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Yes, even so, come quickly, Lord.

The emphasis is watch. And I tell you, and Jesus says, what I say to you, I say to all, watch and be ready. Paul says, look, it's going to happen in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, that there's not time to begin to react as soon as the Lord comes back. As soon as the Lord comes back, that's it. It's over. And if you weren't ready, you're not going to be ready. Your anticipation level needs to be high. That can be difficult for us, especially if you've been around for a while.

Because, well, you kind of get tired of having a high anticipation of the Lord's return.

And perhaps you've heard, you know, many teachings and you've heard the speculations about prophecies and how prophecies are going to be fulfilled and how the headlines, you know, fit into. And maybe you read the headlines this week and there's some interesting headlines in what's happening right now with Syria and all of that that happened this week. But I'm purposely not dealing with that because it's really not about your ability to match headlines with scripture verses. It's really about the condition of your heart.

Regardless of what's happening in the headlines, whether you see prophecy being fulfilled or not, or whether you have good ideas about how these things might be fulfillment of prophecies, the reality is, or the thing is, is the condition of our heart. That's really what's important. And it can kind of be easy to lose our anticipation because, well, we've heard people speculate, or maybe we ourselves have speculated about how things are going to be fulfilled and

how prophecies are going to take place and how this is going to match, you know, and it didn't happen the way that we thought it was going to happen. It can kind of be easy to just kind of get relaxed in our anticipation of the Lord's return and kind of get old. And that's why the Lord tells us you need to be ready. Guard yourself against those things. Guard your heart against that relaxed idea that the Lord's not coming back right away. It's probably not for a long time that

that we need to be ready for eternity continually. And so that's one way to tell if you're ready for eternity. Here's the evaluation tool that Jesus gave us. What's your anticipation level like? Are you standing at the door so that as soon as he knocks, you're ready? You're opening the door before he can finish the knock, that you're so ready for his return that as soon as the trump sounds,

Like it's going to happen in a moment in the twinkling of an eye, but you're already ready before half of the twinkling of an eye. You know, like you're already ready. You're standing at the door. Your anticipation level is such that any moment, yes, come quickly, Lord Jesus. We're ready for you.

Moving on to verses 41 through 44, we have the second tool that Jesus gives us to help us evaluate whether or not we're ready for eternity. And point number two this morning is by how faithfully you serve. You can evaluate your heart and you can tell if you're ready for eternity by looking at your faithfulness in serving the Lord. In verse 41, Peter says,

Asked the Lord a question. It says, Jesus, he gave these illustrations of having a waist girded and lamps burning and being ready to open the door at the knock. Is that only for us, Lord? Peter asks. Or is this for all people? Now, Jesus doesn't answer this directly, but in the following verses, he, well, he gives some exhortation and some teaching, which I would suggest is

answers Peter's question in this way and say, yes, this is for all people. This isn't only for those 12 disciples. This message is not only for the special servants in the church or select disciples or church leaders or pastors only. That this message from the Lord is for all believers.

In Luke, I'm sorry, in Mark, Jesus says it more directly. He says, what I say to you, I say to all, watch and be ready. That it's a command, it's an exhortation, not just for special leaders or special Christians. It's a command for all believers. I don't mean to make it sound like there are special Christians. We're all on the same plane. It's a command for us.

And so understand as we continue to look at this, that this isn't just for, you know, other people, but this is for you. The Lord wants you to be anticipating his return, to be ready at a moment's notice to be in eternity. Well, moving on to verse 42, it says, and the Lord said, who then is that faithful and wise steward whom his master will make ruler over his household to give them their portion of food in due season?

So in response to Peter's question, Jesus says, who is the faithful and wise steward? A few years back, we did a series on this passage titled Faithful and Wise Steward.

And we looked in depth at these concepts and these truths, and I'm just going to be kind of glossing over a lot of this and just pulling out a little bit of the truths, but there's a lot of meat in these passages. If you want to dig in and learn more about your responsibility to God as a steward, as a servant, there's some great insights here. But as we went through that series a few years back, here's the definition that we used for a steward.

A steward is a servant entrusted with resources and instruction to accomplish the master's will. And this is the reality for every one of us as believers. You are a steward, which means, first of all, that you're a servant. It also means that you've been entrusted with resources. It also means that you've been given instruction for those resources that you can accomplish the master's will.

Again, notice what Jesus says, who then is that faithful and wise steward whom his master will make ruler over his household to give them their portion of food in due season. And so in this specific example here, the steward is responsible to make sure that the household is fed, that everybody gets the food that has been entrusted to the steward at the appropriate time.

And so this servant is responsible to make sure everybody gets their meals at the proper time and that everybody is fed and that nobody goes hungry. And so he's been given resources, the food. He's been given instruction how to use the food until the master returns. This is the master's will. Sometimes this can be a difficult concept for us, but let me just remind you, as a believer in Jesus Christ, you are a servant.

which means you have a master. And what you have really isn't yours, but it really belongs to your master. Everything that you have, and you could talk about your time, you could talk about your finances, you could talk about your talents, you could talk about your spiritual gifts, you could talk about everything that you have and recognize it's not actually yours. It actually belongs to your master.

Because you've given your life to Christ. You've become a believer in Jesus Christ. And as you've surrendered your life to him, well, that includes everything that you have, your time, your money, your talents, your spiritual gifts. Everything that you have is his. You're a steward. He's given those things to you. He's entrusted those things to you. But he also gives you instruction on how to use those resources to accomplish his will. How faithful are you?

with what God has entrusted to you. How faithfully do you serve? Now, sometimes it's easy for us to get in our minds, you know, this idea of, well, serving God, that happens when, well, it's my week, I'm on the schedule to be an usher this week. Or it's Youth Servant Sunday, so youth, you know, one Sunday a month, you get to serve God, and you get to do the usher work, and do the worship, and one Sunday a week, that's all you get. You just, one Sunday, I'm sorry, one Sunday a month, you

you get to serve God. But you know, serving God is much more than just what's scheduled or what happens here. This is a small piece of your whole life. And you're called by God to serve him with your whole life. This is just a small part of it. But at school, at work, at home, you're to be a servant of God continually everywhere you go, stewarding the resources that God has given to you. And if you do so,

If you serve God faithfully, there's great reward. Notice verse 43. Throughout this passage that we're looking at this morning, while the Lord mentions reward, he also mentions discipline and consequences for unfaithfulness or for disobedience. There's reward for serving God.

There's reward for anticipating his return, for loving his appearing, for being excited about his coming. There's reward for serving him diligently and faithfully with the resources that he's given to you. Blessed is that servant whom the master will find so doing when he comes. And when Jesus comes back, he finds you as a good steward, not using the resources that you have just for whatever you want, but that you're listening to the instruction of God and putting your time,

your efforts, your energy, your talents to work for his glory, to accomplish his will? Are you ready for eternity? Is your waist girded and your lamps burning and you're standing at the door waiting for that knock and you're faithfully serving? You've got everything laid out according to how God has called you.

to live and to serve and to walk. You can tell how ready for eternity you are by how faithful you serve. I would ask you just to think about this week, just as an example. How did you use God's resources this week? What did you do in response to God's instruction with what he has given to you? How did you use your talents this week? How did you use what God has given to you to serve him? How did you serve God this week? You can tell if you're ready or not by how faithful you were to serve God this

this past week. Now, the good news is last week is last week. Now you have a new week ahead of you. It's not over if you weren't faithful this last week. You have opportunity right now to start being faithful and prepare yourself for eternity. Well, moving on to verse 45 and 46, here we have the third tool that Jesus gives us to evaluate if I'm ready for eternity or not. I can evaluate that by how I treat others.

Here's another tool. It's an important tool. And again, I would ask you to just consider this week, perhaps. How have you been treating people this week? Have you had some good interactions? Or have you been treating people poorly? Check out verse 45 and 46. It says, but if that servant says in his heart, my master is delaying his coming and begins to beat the male and female servants and to eat and drink and be drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he's not looking for him

and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two, and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. So here's the steward. He's been entrusted with this task of making sure that everybody gets their food and everybody gets fed. If he is faithful and the Lord returns, he's going to be blessed and rewarded. But now Jesus gives the other side. If he's not faithful, if he says, my master is delaying his coming,

This really takes us back to point number one. Your anticipation level has a lot to do with how you live and how you treat the people around you. As you recognize, as far as God is concerned, there is nothing more valuable than people. I would ask you to think about that. As far as God is concerned, there is nothing more valuable than people. It's kind of crazy that God would value us so much, but he does.

Understand that all of creation, it's for him, but it's because of us. That he created creation for us to have a place. He created the earth and then planted Adam and Eve there in the garden. It was for us because he values people that he created. It's incredible to understand and to think about how much God values people.

And if your anticipation level is high, that you're expecting to be in the presence of the Lord at any moment, and you're ready for that, you're going to have that same value for people that God has. But if you don't have that anticipation, here it says, the servant says, my master is delaying his coming. Ah, he's not coming back today. It's probably not happening this week. It's probably not happening this year.

there's, well, there's a change that happens and it affects the way that we live and affects the way that we behave. And so he says, then he begins to beat the male and female servants to eat and drink and be drunk. Now, the idea here of the eating and drinking and being drunk is instead of using those resources, that food that the master entrusted to him to give to the household, instead he's overindulging. He's just keeping all of that for himself.

He's helping himself to those resources that the master gave to him to give to others. It wasn't his to eat and drink and then even to excess, to be drunk. That wasn't why God gave those things to him or the master gave those things to him. But he's thinking, my master's probably not coming back anytime soon. Probably not going to happen today. So, hey, I can kick back and relax and enjoy an extra helping of...

chocolate cake or whatever it is. You know, I can enjoy some more and dig into these resources. But the other effect that this mentality, that this lack of anticipation has, Jesus says he begins to beat the male and female servants. And so instead of providing for the servants as he was instructed by the master, he begins to mistreat his fellow servants. He begins to abuse them. He

Because his heart's not on eternity. He's not valuing people the way that God does. He's caught up in his own desires. I like the way that Leon Morris, a commentator, described this guy. He says, "...the master's prolonged absence might lead a careless steward into a false sense of independence. There was nothing to stop him from indulging his whims. After all, he was in charge."

This servant's mentality, hey, the master left me in charge. I get to do what I want. And the master's probably not coming back right away. So I have some freedom here. And he describes it as a false sense of independence. A false sense of independence. I wonder how often do we have this false sense of independence? I think it happens quite frequently for us.

Let me remind you, you are a servant, which means you have a master and you're going to be accountable to your master for everything you do, for how you used every resource that he gave to you. Jesus tells us that we're even going to give an account for every idle word. This is serious accountability that we have.

Now you can get real caught up and concerned about that, but you don't have to. All you need to do is keep your heart in anticipation of the return of Jesus Christ. Everything else falls in line.

But when you're in the mindset, when you're thinking, ah, it's probably not going to happen today, probably not going to happen for a while, I don't have to shape up. You have this false sense of independence where you think you're in charge. You think that you get to say what happens and what goes and where you go and how you do and what you do. And it's a false sense of independence. You don't actually have that freedom. Again, going back to, it's kind of a Christianese terminology that we use, but I gave my life to Christ.

That is a actual truth. It's an actual reality that is represented behind that statement that you really did surrender your life to Christ when you became a believer in Jesus, when you were born again. You receive what Christ has done for you. It's only received in a submission to God of your life, of your being. And so you are a servant and you have a master. And as far as your master is concerned...

there is nothing more valuable than the people that he's placed around you. Your career is not as valuable as far as God is concerned as the people that he's placed around you. Your home, as far as God is concerned, is not as valuable. Your success is

Your goods, your materials, your victories, your entertainment, whatever you might want to consider. It's not as valuable to God as the people that he has placed around you.

And that's important to know because, well, when we lose sight of that anticipation of the return of Jesus, we begin to treat people poorly in order to obtain the career that we want or to get the entertainment that we want or to get the this or that or whatever that we want. We begin to neglect, to mistreat the people around us. These are the people that God loves so much that he sent his only begotten son to

to die upon the cross for them. That person that is so frustrating to you sometimes, that person that's such an annoyance is so precious to God that he sent his only begotten son to die upon the cross for them. Listen, how you treat others is a real strong indication of how ready you are for eternity. And if you're treating others poorly, if you're mistreating them, if you're neglecting them, if you're...

beating them, whether that be physically or verbally or just mentally. It's an issue and God cares about it. And it's an indication that your heart has been misaligned and you're not ready. You're not ready for eternity. It's demonstrated by how you treat the people that are so precious to God. Is your waist girded? Are your lamps burning? Are you at the door waiting for that knock so that you can answer it?

Even before the knock is complete, you can tell, you can recognize whether or not you are ready by evaluating how you treat others. Well, finally, finishing it up in verse 47 and 48, here we have point number four. The fourth point, the fourth tool for evaluation that God has given to us is by your spiritual walk. Verse 47 and 48 says this,

Now again, there's a lot of details in here, a lot of good stuff for us to consider here.

But I'm only kind of hitting some of the highlights here. So we're not covering all of this, all of the beatings and all of those kinds of things. Those are some good discussions that we can have at another time. But essentially here, Jesus says, there's two kinds of servants. You're a servant, you have a master. And the reality is you're one of two kinds of servants. There's servants who know the master's will and there's servants who don't know the master's will. Which kind of servant are you?

Now Jesus says, the servant who knew his master's will, but did not prepare himself. Now the servant who knew his master's will and did the master's will, he already discussed that. That's the steward who is faithful, who gave the food, you know, in the appointed time. And when the master comes back, he gets rewarded. But there's also those who know the master's will, but then don't actually prepare themselves to do it. He says in verse 47, the servant who knew his master's will and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, did not prepare himself.

He shall be beaten with many stripes. There's going to be consequences. There's going to be discipline for knowing what God wants and not doing anything about it. Not preparing yourself, not even attempting to do what God wants. There's going to be consequences for that. You're a servant. Do you know your master's will? If you do, understand you'll be accountable to it and there'll be discipline or consequences for not doing your master's will.

But then in verse 48, he talks about those who do not know the master's will. Do you know the master's will or do you not know the master's will? He says, look, he who did not know, but committed things deserving of stripes shall be beaten with few. There's still going to be discipline. Even if you do not know your master's will, you're still going to be held accountable by God. Even if you don't know God's will, because the point is God wants you to know his will.

You're accountable whether or not he invites you to know his will. We have in our minds sometimes this concept or this idea that like the will of God is so hard to find out, to know, so difficult to know the will of God. And that's the kind of mindset that we carry around. But as you look at the scriptures, that's not presented at all.

Peter doesn't say, yeah, it's impossible for you to really know the will of God, so just kind of do the best you can. No, you know what Peter says? He says, you have everything that you need for life and for godliness through the knowledge of him that is Jesus Christ. Paul doesn't say, you know, it's real hard to know the will of God, and so don't even bother, just kind of do what you want to do. No, what Paul says is stop being conformed to this world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

that you may be able to approve that excellent and perfect will of God, that you would be able to recognize the will of God, that as you walk with God, you have opportunity to know God's will. And so your spiritual walk is a great evaluation tool for how prepared you are because, well, it determines how well you know the will of God. Now, we would like to be able to say, well, I didn't know God's will.

So I'm not accountable, you know, not up to me. I'm glad I didn't know because then I would have had to do something about it. It doesn't work that way, you know that? It's kind of like this. If you're driving down the freeway at 90 miles an hour,

It's a little bit easier to do in Texas. I had some fun driving in Texas. The speed limit's 75 in Texas on these like little dirt roads that are smaller than just two lane roads. Like, like you're, you know, what you live on. It's like almost dirt roads, you know, well, there was even dirt roads and the speed limit's like 65 on the dirt road. You know, it's like, it's crazy in Texas. But anyway, so you're on the freeway, you're doing 90. Cop pulls you over.

You know how fast you're going? Yeah, I was doing 90. You know what the speed limit is? Oh no, officer, I don't know what the speed limit is. Because every time I saw a sign, I looked away. So I don't know what the speed limit is. Not accountable. Can't give me a ticket. I just, I didn't know. You'll still get a ticket because it doesn't work that way. You're accountable to the will of God, whether you know what the will of God is or not. And so you're responsible then, or it behooves you. It's to your advantage then,

to get to know God's will because you're accountable to it whether you know it or not. That's the reality. And so your spiritual walk is a great indicator. How well do you know God? How well do you know his character? How well do you know his nature? How well do you know his will for your life? I would ask you to consider this verse in Revelation chapter three, verse 20. This is Jesus writing to a church. He says, "'Behold, I stand at the door and knock.'"

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come to him and dine with him and he with me. This is not Jesus writing to unbelievers, people who have never heard about him, people who have never walked with him, people who have never received the forgiveness that he offers. This is Jesus writing to a church because the reality is for every one of us as believers, we have the potential, although we have believed in Jesus, to

to push Jesus out of our lives. And so he's standing on the outside, knocking, saying, hello, will you let me in? I want to be part of your life. I want to sit with you and dine with you. I want to be with you. And Jesus is knocking at our hearts.

It's not just about, you know, saying a prayer at one time a long time ago, and then that's it. You know, now you just do whatever you want. You have your forgiveness, your ticket to heaven, you're good. Jesus is knocking repeatedly, continually on our hearts. And let me say it this way. If you don't respond to the little knock, you're not ready for the big knock. The little knock, Jesus knocking on your heart saying, hey, let's spend some time together today.

Hey, let's spend some time in prayer. Let's spend some time in the word. Let's spend some time in worship. Let's spend some time in service. Let's get to know each other. Let's hang out together. That's the Lord's call continually towards us. He's standing at the door with the little knock. And if you're not responding to the little knock, then you're not ready for the big knock. You're not ready for the return of Jesus. If you're not responding to his call to you, to draw near to him. I like the way that John Corson says,

encourages us in this. He says, I encourage you to take time to seek him each and every day in a quiet place. Like Moses, go to the mountain with a tablet in hand and write down whatever he places on your heart. Yours will be a beautiful ministry that will be rewarded eternally if you focus on the work he gives you to do. This is really what we're called to do in our walk with God.

to have a real walk where we connect with God, where he speaks to us and we respond to him as stewards. He gives us instruction and we put that to use and we put that to work and we live according to the way that he has called us to live. How's your spiritual walk? How well do you know the will of God for your life? How well do you know what God's called you to do? You're accountable to it.

whether or not you know it. So it's to your advantage to find out what does God want for you? How does God want you to live? How does God want you to serve? How does God want you to treat the people around you? Your walk with him, your relationship with him is a good indication of whether or not you're ready for eternity. And so Jesus gave us these illustrations to remind us, is your waist girded? Are you prepared and ready? You're not in your Star Wars pajamas.

But you're dressed. You're ready to go. That if the Lord comes back, you don't have to do a bunch of preparation. Oh, Lord, you came back so soon. Oh, man, I was going to have this conversation. I was going to go do that. And then I know you wanted me to do this over here, and you wanted me to do that over there. There's all these things, Lord, that I haven't got to that I know you wanted me to do because I've just been cruising here and chilling in my PJs. It doesn't make you ready for his return. Let your waist be girded.

Get ready to work. Get ready to serve. Get ready to respond as God speaks to your heart and keep your lamps burning. Again, it requires that attentiveness because you got to keep refilling the oil. You got to keep maintaining your walk with God, your relationship with God. You got to continue to receive the Holy Spirit. You got to continue to maintain that relationship that you would burn brightly for Christ. And then make sure you're standing at the door so that as soon as the knock sounds, as soon as the trumpet sounds,

before a half of the twinkling of an eye, that you're ready to go. Jesus gave us these tools. You can check your anticipation level. You can consider your faithfulness to serve. You can consider the way that you treat others. And you can take a look at your spiritual walk and know. And if these things are out of line, please understand you're not ready for eternity. And you need to get ready because we definitely are living in the last days. Jesus could come back this moment.

And it's also just as likely that you could go to be with Jesus in the next moment. Either way, you're going to be in eternity. You're going to stand before God. And are you ready for that? Let's pray. Lord, I pray for each of our hearts. Lord, again, that you would give us a clarity. Lord, a clear perspective on our hearts and lives. Lord, that we would see things the way that you see things.

Not the way that we would try to explain them away or to justify ourselves, but Lord, that we would see the truth for what it is. Lord, are we ready for eternity? Are we ready for your return? I pray, God, that you would help us to be ready. Stir up within us, God, an urgency, an anticipation, Lord, that we would be those who love your appearing, those who long for your return, those who look forward to spending the rest of eternity with you. And Lord, when we have that right perspective, it

It really will set the rest of these things in line. Lord, we'll be serving you faithfully because we'll be looking for your return and ready for you and longing to be prepared and to be faithful with what you have given and entrusted to us. And Lord, we'll be treating people well because Lord, they're so special to you. They're so precious to you. Lord, help us to have your heart, to love them as you love them. Even the ones that are difficult to love, Lord, you love them. Help us.

to learn from you how to treat them the way that you've called us to. And I pray, Lord, that you would draw us near to you in our own spiritual walk. Lord, that we would get to know you. I pray that you would reveal yourself to us as we spend time with you in your word and in prayer and in worship and in fellowship. God, show us who you are. Teach us more about your character, your nature, your truth. Give us, Lord, those intimate times with you, those special times, Lord, where you speak personally to our hearts.

I pray that you would do that for each one of us, God, that we would be alive in our spirit as we walk with you and talk with you, as we hear from you and respond to your word. Give us life as we wait for your return. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.