Be Dressed in Readiness

I want to start by asking you a question. Have you ever heard the saying, if you want something done, ask a busy person? Does that make any sense to you? That you would ask a busy person as opposed to a not busy person if something important needs to be done? How does it make any sense? It took me a while to understand why in the world you take someone, if you compare a busy person and a not busy person and you had something to get done, we all think, They need something to do. Thinking of the person who doesn't have work, we say, if they should come, they should help, they should do the work. I'm going to ask them to do it. But oftentimes, if that's what you do, the work doesn't end up getting done. And yet, if you go ask a busy person, hey, I need some help. Can you do this for me? Can you help me do this? They get it done. And they get it done quickly, and they get it done well. The point of that saying is to teach us that busy people...

people are busy because they get stuff done. And not busy people are not busy because they don't get stuff done. It's not because they don't have things to do. It's because they don't do them. So what do we call people like that? Well, it's not a biblical word, but the word that we have to describe them is procrastinators. They kick the can down the road. They'll take today's work and they'll plan to do it tomorrow. And then tomorrow, which becomes today, they'll plan to do it tomorrow. And that's how they live their life. But what ends up happening with procrastinators is that they don't get their work done. Because all the work piles up until the last minute, and then something comes up. Something happens, something unexpected. They're lazy, lazy, lazy at work, at home, whatever it is. I'm really going to do it now. And then their car won't start. And then why didn't they get their work done? My car didn't start. No. That's not why you didn't get your work done. You didn't get your work done because you didn't do your work when you had the time to do it.

So is procrastination sinful? Yes. Yes, it is. Is waiting to do work until it's appropriate to do it sinful? No, that's not procrastination. But procrastination is sinful because it means that you're not doing what you should be doing right now. You know, sometimes procrastinators will take work that they need to do in two weeks and they'll do it right now instead of the work they should be doing right now. And it looks like they're really hard working and they're preparing and they're working ahead, but really what they're doing is covering over their laziness and their unwillingness to do the work that's right in front of them. They are procrastinating. So to be a procrastinator means that you do not do the work that you should be doing. And also, procrastinators don't put off the work that they're supposed to be doing so that they can do nothing. They put it off so that they can do what they want to do. Maybe that's work for two weeks from now, or maybe that's sleeping, or maybe that's eating, or maybe that's watching TV. I don't know what it is.

But they put off their work so that they can do something else. And oftentimes that thing that they do instead is sinful. They put off their good work. They put off obedience for the sake of pursuing wickedness. Every one of us has things that we want to do, that our flesh wants to do, that it beckons to us and says, hey, let's do this right now. It won't take a minute, but you can get back to your work. But it never works that way in reality. We get sucked in. So our text this morning, from Luke chapter 12, consists of a parable. And the parable talks about how slaves ought to conduct themselves while their master is away. The summary of the parable, if you had to put it in a sentence, what's the parable teach us? It's this. Slaves should be busy about their work while their master is away, but also be ready and prepared for his return. They don't know when he's coming. They need to be doing their work and preparing for him to come back. They need to not be procrastinators, but rather do the work that's right in front of them right now.

The work they've been given to do, commanded to do, expected to do. In a word, they shouldn't do what they want to do, but rather what they've been assigned to do. As we come to the end of that parable, we're also going to see the consequences of failing to do this. If you put your work off, you'll see what the end of it is. Your flesh and the devil will tell you that there's not anything dangerous or bad. You have time and you'll be able to make it up. But our text this morning is going to say, no, that's not true. You can't put off your work. You can't put off obedience until later and think that you're going to be able to quick make it all up at the end. It won't end well for you if that's your way of life. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word from Luke chapter 12, verses 35 to 48. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. Be dressed in readiness and keep your lamps lit. Be like men who are waiting for the master when he returns from the wedding feast.

so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes. Truly I say to you that he will gird himself to serve and have them recline at the table and will come up and wait on them. Whether he comes in the second watch or even the third and finds them so, so blessed are those slaves. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, He would not have allowed his house to be broken into. You too be ready. For the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you did not expect. Peter said, Lord, are you addressing this parable to us or to everyone else as well? And the Lord said, Who then is the faithful and sensible steward whom his master will put in charge of his servants to give them their rations at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.

Truly I say to you that he will be put in charge of all his possessions. But if that slave says in his heart, My master will be a long time in coming, and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that slave 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 assign him a place with the unbelievers. And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act according to his will will receive many lashes. But the one who did not know it and committed deeds worthy of a flogging will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required. And to whom they entrusted much of him they will ask all the more. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. The first thing I want us to see in our text this morning is...

What does it mean to be a slave? In this parable, what does it mean to be a slave? Well, it means that the slaves have work to do. Whether they're hired hands or not, they work in the house of their master, and their job is to be about the business of their master while he's away. But not only are they supposed to be about their master's work, they're supposed to be preparing for his return. And so a working slave must also be a waiting slave. He must be not just doing his day-to-day maintenance of his work, but he also has to be preparing for when his master comes back. That's part of his work, is to wait and to be attentive. In the parable of the ten virgins, five of them did this work. Five of them went about their lives and they lived, and they were prepared when their bridegroom came. But the other five weren't prepared. They hadn't waited. They hadn't anticipated.

That their master was coming. So why were they not prepared? Why were these five virgins not prepared? Why would the slaves in our parable not be prepared? Would they be ignorant of the fact that their master was going to come home? No. We read in our text, he says, well, he went away to a wedding feast. Now, when do people get home from weddings? Generally, they come home late, right? So, you know, it's going to be the middle of the night. It's going to be a hassle to be ready to greet them when they come home late at night. The slaves weren't ignorant of this. They knew where their master was. They knew he'd be home late.

Were the virgins ignorant of the fact that their bridegroom was coming? No. Did they lack interest in the bridegroom coming? Do the slaves lack interest in their master returning? No, they don't lack interest in their master's return. The virgins, when it's announced that the bridegroom is coming, all ten of them jump up and they run out to greet him. They're interested in his coming. They care about it. They're not like, oh, I don't care, I'm just going to stay in bed, he came too late. No, they jump up and they go. And they're ready to receive their bridegroom, but they have no oil. They're not prepared. So why weren't they ready? Why weren't the five virgins that didn't have oil ready? Why would the slaves in our parable not be ready? The answer is simple. It's because they don't think he's coming back yet. They think they've got time. When I was a kid, I got in trouble right at the end of one school year. I got kicked out of school like three days early for getting in a fight. And so my mom punished me. And my punishment was,

that I was going to be given work every single day of summer vacation to do around the house. Chores, if you will. And probably only two or three hours of chores. Not actually a whole lot, not a very severe punishment. Probably stuff I should have been doing anyway, right? But I wasn't the kind of kid that would do those sorts of things, and so that was a part of my punishment. And so I'd get up in the morning. She wasn't going to be home from work until 3.30. And I had two hours of work to do. So did I get up and do my work? How all you kids know that?

I have told you this before, Micah. No, I'd procrastinate and I'd wait and I'd wait until the last minute. But really what I thought the last minute was, the last minute had passed, an hour or two before, and I thought, okay, now I'll get it all done. And I was supposed to have it done by the time she got home. Because when she got home, I'd be free to go play. But she'd come home and more often than not, the work wasn't done. So I didn't get to go play. And that's how I spent my summer. And you know, I never learned. I never learned. I never prepared.

I had other priorities. I'd rather sit there with the work hanging over my head all day by myself than just do the work. Now some of you are laughing. Some of you are smiling. And it's because you're like me. Or you've done things like this. You've gone, yeah, I've got that work to do and I'm excited to do it. I want to do it. It's good work to do. I'm going to get to it just in a little while. But you don't get to it. Because it's not your priority. And that's what you need to learn first about yourself. is that if you don't do the work right and you have the time to do the work, it's because it's not your priority to do it. You think that you will have time to do it later. You'll be able to make it up. And the reason is because you have other priorities. You have other things you'd rather do. So what did I do all day, sitting at home by myself, when I wasn't allowed to go play with my friends? You think I was productive? You think I did profitable things? Nope. Nope. I just did whatever I wanted to do.

For a little while, I just decided I wasn't going to listen and I was just going to leave. And just get home in time to do my work. But then my mom caught on to that. And so then my aunt came over every single day. And it was her job to make sure I did my work. And then I didn't leave the house. And it was a miserable summer. It wasn't miserable because I had work to do. You understand that? It wasn't miserable because I had stuff to do. A couple of hours of work. It was miserable because I wouldn't do the work. Because I thought I could do it later.

And it was miserable because I had a mom who loved me enough to not let me get away with failure. And an aunt who had the time to come over and enforce what my mother expected of me. So a working slave ought to be a waiting slave. They ought to be prepared for their master's return. They ought to have the work done. Are you guys all aware of the difference of how employees work when their boss is around and when their boss isn't around? Or kids, how they behave when their dad's around versus when the dad's not around? If you have people that work underneath you, are you aware of the fact that they don't work as hard when you're not there? We all understand this. Bosses know this. So what do good bosses do? If they know that their employees don't work as hard when they're not there, what do good bosses do? Fire them. If it persists, then yes. But what a good boss does before that is he shows up unexpectedly. That's what they do. Oh, hey, how are you doing?

And everyone scrambles like cockroaches when the light comes on. Everyone's afraid. Everyone's scared. Oh no, oh no, oh no. And they start trying to figure out how to explain things. Now that's not always what happens. Sometimes the boss shows up and everyone's doing what they should do. Everyone's working hard. And things are going well. And the boss is pleased. Right? Good job. So a good boss knows that people don't work hard as hard generally. when they're not around. And so they make a point of unannounced visits. See how you're doing when you weren't expecting me. I have friends who work in offices and they talk about when corporate comes to visit. And they all know what corporate expects of them and all the rules and protocols and all the stuff. And they all know that they don't do it when corporate's not there. They just get their work done. But when corporate comes, they all dress the way they're supposed to and they get there on time. They all work hard and they all follow all the procedures and they all lie.

That's what they're doing. They're lying. They're misleading. And that's what we do. When we know the boss is coming, we quick try to scramble and do everything the way it's supposed to be done. But a good boss shows up when you don't know they're coming. Verse 39 has always been a strange verse to me here. It says, But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. And the question is, who's the head of the house? And the answer is, the head slave. The one who's in charge of it. He's the head of the house.

He's the one who's in charge while his master's gone. Because they're the ones who are procrastinating. They're the ones who are being talked about. Are you going to do your work in the right season or are you going to wait? The head of the house dictates that. And it says if the head of the house knew when the thief was coming, if he knew when the danger was coming, if he knew when his work was going to be tested, he'd prepare for it, right? But he doesn't know when the thief's going to come. That's sort of the point of a thief. That's their goal, right? To show up when you're not suspecting them.

And so in that regard, a thief and the master are similar. You don't know when they're going to come. You don't know when they're going to show up. You too be ready. For the Son of Man is coming in an hour that you do not expect. Jesus applies this parable by teaching that we must be ready for his return. That we ought not to procrastinate or neglect our duty to him because we have time and we can. And yet which one of us can say, I'm ready? Apart from the blood of Christ, none of us can say, I'm ready for Jesus to come back. And if we say that we're ready for him to come back, it's only because of the blood of Christ. And yet he's going to come and inspect our works, and we'll be judged according to our works. And if we're found derelict in our duties, if we're found sleeping, if we're found the equivalent of beating the slaves and eating and drinking and getting drunk, instead of doing what he's required of us, it won't end well for us.

Jesus Christ is our master. He's our Lord. He's our commander. And he tells us what, in his word, what he requires of us and what he's going to measure us against when he comes. What I don't want you to do with this text, and there's a danger, whenever we talk about Jesus coming back, there's always a danger to get all fixated on all the stuff of when's he going to come, when's he going to come, when's he going to come. That is what an unfaithful slave does. Okay? They're fixated on when, is the day coming. Instead of doing the work necessary to prepare for the day. The point of this text is not when Jesus comes back. There are other passages in Scripture that talk about that, and I'm not down on studying that. But I want you to know, this text is not about when Jesus comes back. All he says about it is, you don't know the day or the hour. So you're to be a working slave and a waiting slave. You're to be preparing for his return. You're to be preparing to meet Jesus Christ face to face.

That's what you're to be doing. That's what I'm to be doing. That's what a faithful slave does. They do the work that their master has given to them, and they do it in such a way that they're ready at any moment for him to return. Think of the callings you have on your life. Just pick one. It can be your work. It can be your marriage. You can be a husband. You can be a wife. Your responsibilities as a father, as a mother, as a child, a brother, a sister, whatever it is. Are you ready to have the light of the gospel shined on your work? Or have you said, I'm going to get to it later. I know I need to do better, and I want to do better. I'm going to get to it. I've got to do this other stuff. I want to do this other stuff. And I think I can do both. The problem is you can't do both if you don't have the amount of time that you plan on having. And in the same way that the head of the house doesn't know when the thief is coming, we're told we don't know when the Son of Man will return.

And it could just as easily say, you don't know when you're going to go meet him. In Sunday school, we talked about the preserving power of God, how he preserves us. And I asked these questions. I said, how long can a human being go without food? And the answer is, a couple of weeks. I said, okay, how long can a human being go without water? A couple of days. How long can a human being go without air? A couple of minutes. And what I said to the Sunday school class was, that means that at any moment, you are just a couple of minutes away from meeting Jesus Christ.

Are you ready to meet him? You're a couple of minutes away. If you don't breathe for two or three minutes, you're done. You're in his presence. And are you ready? And so that's heavy. It's weighty. For us to hear it, it sits on us. It doesn't flow off. And so Peter asks the question that makes sense to me, but it's not a good question. He says, Lord, are you addressing this parable to us? Or to the others as well? Everyone else as well? And what's behind that question is, Lord, Jesus, we're in your inner circle. We're close to you. We're really your people. These other people, the crowds, they're out there. They're not as close to you. They don't know you as well. They're kind of following at a distance. But we're your inner circle. Are you going to require this level of vigilance from us? Or couldn't you just tell us when you're going to come? Isn't that what you'd want to know if you were one of Jesus' disciples and you were sitting there? How about we make this a lot easier on us?

Why don't you just tell us, since we're your homies, the time and the day? And then we'll be ready. Do we, your people, who are close to you, who love you, who are called by your name, do we have to attend to this work? Or are we exempt from it? So Jesus answers Peter by describing and comparing two responses that the slaves might have. The first is, he says, who then is the faithful and sensible steward? Whom his master will put in charge of his servants to give them their rations at their proper time. Blessed is the slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you, that he will be put in charge of all his possessions. So what's Jesus say about this slave? Peter says, you mean us? And he says, well, here's what faithfulness looks like. The one who does what's required of him and is about that work when I come. He's the faithful one. He's the one that will be blessed.

Because he was doing what he was told to do. When he was supposed to be doing it. He goes on, he says, but if that slave says in his heart, my master will be a long time in coming and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him into pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. So what happens when we don't do the work that God's put right in front of us to do?

oftentimes, as said at the beginning, you go into sin. The work of that head slave is to care for those put under his charge. He's to feed them. He's to take care of them. He's to make sure they have the things they need. And when he believes that he has time to do what he wants, he doesn't take care of them. And he doesn't simply neglect to give them food. He begins to beat them. Do you follow this? When you don't do what God tells you to do, You go end up doing what God told you not to do. You don't stay neutral. If you won't do what God requires of you, it's because you've got some other thing you want to go do. That your lust, your flesh, wants to go do. So this slave, instead of caring for those under his care, begins to beat them. What else does he do? He steals his master's property. Where'd he get the food and the drink? Enough to get drunk. Where'd it come from? It came from his master's house.

You know, I didn't grow up as a Christian. And so when I was in high school, we used to, you know, you'd have parties. And what was the requirement for a kid to have a party? Well, parents had to go out of town. And if the parents went out of town, I mean, if it was at parties, there's 100 kids there. High school kids all being wicked. Consuming their parents' stuff. That's what happens. That's what you do. I actually went to a party that... was a second party to help pay to get the carpets cleaned from the first party. Because they had white carpet and people made a huge mess of their white carpet. And so the kid's idea was spread plastic all over the carpet so when people spill their drinks and carry on, that they don't make a bigger mess, charge more for the second party so that he had money to have the house, all the carpets professionally cleaned before his parents came home. Now do you think he got away with it? How stupid was he to even think he could get away with it?

He's just as dumb as you and me. I went to both parties. What are you smiling about, Kim? These are your students. She's a high school teacher. These are her kids. No, it sure wasn't. That's what our foolishness tells us. No, I made a mess. I dug a hole and here I am. If I dig twice as fast, I'll get out. That's the stupidity. That's the delusion of sin. So the slave... who thinks in his heart, I've got time to do something other than what I'm supposed to be doing. He procrastinates and it leads him to destruction. Why? Well, because he doesn't know when his master is going to come back. Here's a word that might be helpful to you. In your life, do you recognize people that you think aren't trustworthy? Don't we all? What do you do if you have to work with people who you don't think are trustworthy? No. Well, maybe. But what you do is you keep a closer eye on them.

That's what you do. If you have a child that you think is more prone to go off the rails, he gets some attention that the other kids don't get. That's what faithfulness looks like. Because he's not responsible enough at this point or this season or whatever to manage himself, so he gets the extra attention. And so you should be wise enough. You should be discerning enough to realize that if this temptation that this slave faces, To go and do what he wants. If you see that in your own life, you should be smart enough to realize that people are keeping a closer eye on you. That nothing you do escapes the Lord's eye, but he's not the only one that sees. Other people can see. If you're not trustworthy, if you're sort of a wild card and you don't quite know what you're going to do next, that's not concealed from the world. It's obvious. Every one of you says, yeah, I know people who aren't trustworthy. I wouldn't let them in my house.

What if I wasn't home to do work? And you also know other people, you say, yeah, yeah, here's the key. Go on in whenever you want. Do the work. We're always making these judgments. And if we're always making these judgments about other people, we should realize people are making them about us. So what does a good master do with a potentially unfaithful slave? Well, he keeps a closer eye on them. And if he catches them in the act, it's not good for him. That's when you get fired. In this situation, what happens to him? He gets cut into the pieces and assigned a place among the unbelievers. What's that mean? It means he gets killed. Pretty straightforward, pretty simple. He's committed acts that are worthy of death. He's his master's property and his master kills him and assigns him a place with unbelievers. What's the place of unbelievers? Hell. The man was unfaithful. The man got caught in the act of unfaithfulness. He died and he went to hell because of his unfaithfulness.

If that makes you uncomfortable, you realize earlier in the parable, Jesus says, you too be ready, for you don't know the time or the hour when the Son of Man is going to return. What's going to happen to those who aren't prepared? Oh, you get another chance. Oh, it'll be okay. Oh, there's grace for your willful rebellion. The slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will will receive many lashes. The one who sins willfully has no excuse for his actions. And I want to talk a little bit about this. When you get caught in the act of disobedience, there are a couple of different ways that you will respond. One will be to dig in your heels and fight. And to defend what you're doing. And that's wicked. It's terrible. You're compounding your sin to do that. If you get caught in the middle of sin, don't compound your guilt by defending it. But also...

So if you get that part and you go, okay, I'm not going to do that, then what happens is you get people who roll over. Oh, yeah, yeah, it was terrible, it was awful, I'm so sorry. And they try to convince their master that they're being so hard on themselves and they feel so bad that he doesn't actually need to be upset with them because they're so upset with themselves. That's a lie. That's a flat-out lie. And the reason I know it's a flat-out lie is because if you were that upset about it, you wouldn't have been doing it in the first place. Right? Can we be honest?

If you get caught in the act and all of a sudden you get that, oh no, look, you're not going, oh no, what am I doing? You're going, oh no, I got caught doing what I wanted to do. And if you roll over and you go, uncle, uncle, uncle, I'm so sorry, sorry, sorry, I won't ever, ever, ever do it again. Please, please, please be merciful. That doesn't get you out of the trouble. It doesn't make it better. The one who sins willfully has no excuse for his actions. He knew what was required of him. And he chose to neglect it in favor of his fleshly desires. Okay, what about the one who didn't know? Who was this head of the house, this slave, eating and drinking and getting drunk with? Do you want to take a guess? Who would you think he's getting drunk with? Who are his friends? Who are his peers? The other servants in the house. Now, if you were a servant in a house, and your master was gone, and your head servant, the one in charge of you, said, come over here, let's eat this.

Let's drink. It's okay. Our master's not going to be back for a while. It'll be fine. And you went along with it. Would you go along with it? Yeah. I mean, you'd at least be enticed to go along with it. Your flesh would be like, yeah, my life is hard. We do what he is. And we can get away. I mean, it's in all of us. This idea of, can I get away with it? Will I get in trouble for it? It lives in all of us. So if the head slave comes over and says, hey, come on. We've got time. It'll be fun. Just a little bit. And you go on ahead and you do it. And then the master shows up and there you are. The master said it was okay even. What if the head slave says, no, he said it was okay. Lies to you. However you get there. Master shows up, there you are, eating and drinking and getting drunk with the other slave who told you it was okay. Do you get off scot-free? Nope. Do you get it as worse as the one who willfully deceived and willfully sinned against his master? No, you don't. The one who did not know it,

and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. Now here's the twisted part of your heart and mine. You have before you two different people doing foolishness, and one of them getting a much worse consequence than the other one. You know what you do then? You know what I do? You try to game the system to where you'll be the one who doesn't get the severe consequence. That man was ignorant. That slave was ignorant. He went, I didn't know. And he's being honest. The slave who was put in charge, he knew. The slave who was following, he didn't know. And so what you'll be tempted to do, and what I've seen time and time again in my own life and in your lives as I've been your pastor, is that you try to cultivate ignorance about what's required of you. Oh, I didn't know. I don't know. I didn't know what purity actually was. I didn't know what it meant to be pure. I thought it just meant this. And someone says, no, it means this.

I didn't know. I didn't know that. I thought hard working just meant I just had to come to work. I just had to do what was required of me. That's not a hard worker. I think the best English teacher I ever had in high school, I got a D in the first class I took with her and I failed the second one. She was the best teacher I had. And the reason she was the best teacher I had is because the first day of class she stood up there and she said, listen, I'm going to give you assignments. You guys are going to go to college. This class is going to run like a college. I'm not going to make you do all this and all these checkups and all this stuff. I'm going to expect you to be disciplined and do your work. And here's going to be the assignment. And she says, if you do what's written on the paper, if you do only what's required of you, the best you can get in my class is a C. Because you haven't gone above and beyond. To do excellent work is to go above and beyond what's required of you. And so if you do everything well that I require of you, C plus, you're going to have to do more than that to get a B.

And more than that to get an A. So what's a hard worker? Someone who simply does what's required of them? Says, well, I didn't know there was more work to do. I didn't know what was coming up tomorrow. I didn't know that we were going to be busy next week. Or I didn't know that I was going on vacation. Or I didn't know that whatever you didn't know. Is that a hard worker? Is that how a hard worker conducts himself? You remember at the beginning, I asked you, I said, what is... If you want something done, ask a busy man. What makes a busy man productive? He anticipates the hang-ups. He anticipates the problems, and he prepares for them. Oh, we're about to run out of diapers at home. Instead of having to go out with all the eight kids at my house and go buy diapers, you know what? I'm going to prepare for that. I'm going to notice we're on the last bag. Let's go get some.

When I tell one of my sons, hey, go get a diaper, what we would love to hear, I mean, what we would expect is, bring back a diaper for the baby, right? What we would love to hear is, this is the last bag. They weren't asked to do that. They weren't asked to pay attention to that, but it would be helpful if they would do it, right? And yet, how often do you see little kids going, I didn't know. I didn't know you wanted that. I didn't know I was supposed to do that. Why didn't you tell me? And what I say to my kids or to people that have worked underneath me is, if I have to anticipate every part of your work, you're obsolete. They don't need you to do the work. If I have to think through the whole process, tell you every step of the process, double check that you followed every step of the process, I could have done it myself with half the energy. You've made yourself obsolete because you're not hardworking because your intent, child,

employee, whomever, on maintaining ignorance. Because you think that it's going to lessen your consequence. And that's not how we ought to live. We ought not to live in a way that is aimed at reducing our responsibility. We ought to live in a way that demonstrates our fulfillment of our responsibilities. That when our boss comes, or our parents come, or our Lord comes, we can say, here's what I've done. Here it is. So don't cultivate ignorance. Don't think that you can cultivate ignorance. If you're spending time trying to cultivate ignorance, it's not going to please the Lord. It's not going to work when he comes. Because you're suppressing the truth. You're hiding it. You're trying to bury it away. You're trying to reduce your culpability. So then at the very end of it, Jesus does answer Peter's question. Peter says, you mean us, Lord? Jesus tells this whole parable. And then at the very end, he says, from everyone who has been given much, You, Peter. You, my inner circle. You who are closest to me. You who say you love me. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required. And to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more. I want you to recognize in this passage that the slave doesn't choose what he's responsible for. It's given to him. It's assigned to him. He doesn't have the authority to refuse it and to say, I will not do that.

Everyone who has been given much, much will be required. He didn't sign up for it. He was assigned it. You ever hear people at work and they go, well, I didn't want to do this work anyway. I didn't want to... You know what they say? That's not yours to choose. Ari, I love you. Do the work that was given to you. We joke at my house about food and kids say, I don't like that. That's fine. I've told you all this before. At my house you can... I tell my kids, you can decide what you like, but I'm going to decide what you need. There'll come a day when you can eat what you want, but that's not today, and you're going to eat what I've given you. You're not going to neglect it and play with it and flip it all over the walls and the floor and tell me an hour later, I'm hungry. It's not going to happen. Because we love you. And I don't want you to live a life, I don't want you to grow up in my house thinking that you can decide that you don't have to do what's required of you. You have to do what's required of you.

So Jesus answers Peter's question by saying, yes, it's especially directed at you, Peter. You've been given much, much more than the rest of these people. And your responsibility, therefore, is far greater than theirs. You be dressed in readiness because you are my disciple and my father and I have work for you to do. And we expect you to be faithful while I'm away. Be about the work that we give you. This is Jesus' call to his people. Be about the work that I've given to you while I've gone away to prepare a place for you. So what's the application of the text? Well, you've got to open your eyes and you've got to examine your life. If you need help, ask someone who knows you well. The purpose of examining your lives, I'll tell you, though, is not for you to find all your victories. If you're a Christian, there will be victories, and praise God for that. It is a sweet thing to see His work in our lives, isn't it? But there will be failures. And your job is not to live right now

Wrinkled up successes. Your job is to straighten out the failures. Examine your life and see that you're prepared to meet Jesus when he returns. Where you find failures, what's required of you, your duty, is to repent and return to God. That's your duty. Now there's a blessing hidden in this. And only busy people understand the blessing. You know what busy people like? And to go back to the saying at the beginning, you know what they really like? What did you say? They like being asked to do things. Do you hear me? Faithful slaves like to get more responsibility. They delight in them. That's why they get their work done. Because they're working ahead in hope, in hope of getting more work, getting more responsibility, bearing more fruit for their master. That's why they work. That's why they don't procrastinate.

And if you think that getting more responsibility and more work is not attractive, then you have repentance that's needed. Because the work that God gives us is good for us. It's how he sanctifies us. I had a young man tell me recently that he wants to be the kind of busy man that gets stuff done. I said, I'm not yet. But I want to become the kind of man that does that, and I say that's a good desire. Because at least you understand at this point, you understand two things. You understand you're not there yet, and you want to get there. That is the kindness of God, that he has that desire. Would that we would all have that sort of desire in us, that we would want to bear more weight and more responsibility for our master, to be entrusted with more work. What a blessing.

That's our place in this world. We're made in God's image. We're to reflect his image. There's nothing he can't do. There's lots of things we can't do, but there's nothing he can't do. And our goal is to come further and further online as we live a life of faith, to become able to bear more responsibility, more weight, and bear more fruit for Jesus Christ. It's not to do less. It's not to do with the bare minimum that's required of us. It's to do as much as we can to stretch and to strive and to scrape and to claw, to do more for the kingdom of God than we do currently. That's the work that he's about accomplishing in his people, is to stretch them out, to push them, to sanctify them, to build them up, to produce more fruit. And we ought to welcome that work, that chastisement, that pruning, that discipline, by faith.

Because on the other side of it is glory. Hebrews tells us that all discipline does not seem joyful but sorrowful at the time. But after it has done its work, after you've been trained by it, it produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Yes, Jesus' righteousness. But also yours. That you would become more righteous. That you would bear more good fruit for God. That's what we're here for. That's what we're here for to see done in our own lives. That's what we're here to see done. For someone that's not here yet and sits in all these empty chairs. That's what every man and woman is made to do. And it's our place to work with them, in them, for them to that end. Be in readiness. You don't know the hour. Be in readiness so that you will have good work to show your master and your king when you need it. Let's pray. Father, what a joy it is to have good work to do. To be able to serve you.

So often we don't serve you as we ought to. We don't serve you as we should. And yet, Father, in your mercy, we see times and experience your kindness when we are able to serve you and when we do find faith to do what you require of us. And it's not burdensome to us. It's our delight. It's our glory. And it's our joy. We pray, Father, for greater faithfulness, for repentance, conviction of sin in our own lives. for faith to speak to our brothers and sisters, to our neighbors, about your holiness and your righteousness and what you require of all creation and how you've provided bountifully for that in Jesus Christ. We pray, Father, that you would be merciful to us, that you would make us faithful slaves and that we would be fruitful, adding to your kingdom, building your kingdom so that you would receive the glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.