Luke 12:35-48

³⁵ “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, ³⁶ like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. ³⁷ It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. ³⁸ It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. ³⁹ But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁰ You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

⁴¹ Peter asked, “Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?”

⁴² The Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? ⁴³ It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. ⁴⁴ I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. ⁴⁵ But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk. ⁴⁶ The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.

⁴⁷ “That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. ⁴⁸ But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

Be honest—that was one of the better presentations of the Three Wise Men, don’t you think? Ethan and I had been looking forward to doing that together. The kids did a great job with their nativity play, complete with baby Jesus and Christmas carols, but every nativity play I have ever seen leaves out the events that happened a few days later. When King Herod finally realized that the Magi were not coming back to Jerusalem, he became furious and gave the order to slaughter all of the boys in Bethlehem who were age two and under. Raise your hand if you have ever seen that included in a nativity play?

It would not have been a difficult order to have given from a man who executed three of his own sons. What upset Herod so much that he would order such a gruesome and barbarous act? What enraged him were the very words of the Magi—“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” The Magi were simply asking for directions, but to Herod, it was a direct threat to his authority. He was the ruler over the main Jewish province. He was the king of the Jews. There could be no competition to his authority. Herod would not wait until this king grew up and challenged his throne. That would have been too fair. That would have been a level playing field. Herod wanted to increase his odds of keeping the throne by 100%, so he eliminated the competition—or so he thought. As you know, Jesus was rescued by an angel of the Lord who warned Joseph and Mary to escape to Egypt. Herod on the other hand did not escape. Shortly after his slaughter of the innocents, he died a painful death. The Jewish historian Josephus describes his suffering this way, "his entrails were ulcerated, and the chief violence of his pain lay on his colon; Nay, farther, [a part of his body] was putrified, and produced worms, and when he sat upright, he had a difficulty of breathing, which was very loathsome, on account of the stench of his breath, and the quickness of its returns; he had also convulsions in all parts of his body...."[i] I believe the pain of his death was just the beginning of his judgment.

Jesus was born “king of the Jews”, but Herod had just been a pretender to the throne. It is interesting that Jesus was born a king. The son of a king is usually called a what? A prince. No royal son had ever been born as a king. If a king were born to a king, the child would immediately usurp the throne of his own father. No kingdom can have two kings at the same time. I should say no earthly kingdom can have two kings at the same time, but this was the kingdom of God that Jesus was ruling. It was his first advent. His first coming. The one we celebrate at Christmas. But one of the best ways to celebrate Christ’s first coming is to eagerly anticipate his second coming.

There have been approximately 734,000 days since Christ’s first advent. That’s a lot of days—more days than the apostles anticipated. More days than most Christians throughout history have anticipated. How many more days must pass before his second coming? Of course we don’t know the answer to that question. My guess is that it will not be another 734,000 days, but I could be wrong. When it comes to Christ’s second advent, I can be certain of two things. First, every day that passes is one day closer to his second coming. You know the feeling that our kids get as each day moves closer to Christmas day? That is the way we should anticipate Christ’s second advent. The second thing I can be certain of is that there is a particular way we should be waiting for Christ’s return. It is not sufficient to merely cross each day off the calendar—“there we go kids—one day closer to Christ’s return!” This waiting period is not to be a passive experience, but an active service for the King. This passage details the benefits of doing it well and the consequences of doing it poorly.

Before we get to the benefits and consequences, let’s make sure we understand how we are supposed to anticipate his coming. According to v. 35, we are to be dressed and ready for service with our lamps burning and waiting for the master to return. Another translation says “dressed and ready for action”. When we were in Madison this summer we got to witness an exciting event. As we stood by Lake Mendota, a Madison water rescue team rushed to the lake and began to back their rescue boat into the water. It was a windy day with very choppy waters and apparently there was a boat in trouble somewhere on the lake. We were literally five feet from the action. As we watched we could see the rescue squad was in various states of readiness. Two of the men already had their wetsuits on. Just as they were starting to lower the boat into the water, they received a radio call informing them that the danger was over. They packed up and left almost as fast as they arrived. These men and women were dressed and ready for service. They knew their job was to perform rescues and they were ready for action.

Would that describe your Christian walk? Are you dressed and ready for action? What does that even look like in our day? More details emerge in this passage. Verse 47 assumes that as servants we will know the Master’s will. Some of you might be thinking, “Ah, that lets me off the hook. I don’t know the Master’s will”. That is one of the greatest lies we tell ourselves in the church. We are fat Christians—fat with the knowledge of God but not very good at exercising that knowledge. A great surgeon has great knowledge and great skill. If a surgeon is going to do brain surgery on me, I do not care if he has all of the billions of neurons memorized. I don’t care if he could list off every biochemical process and locate every synapse. I want him to be smart, but I also want him to be skilled. I want to know if he is a skilled brain surgeon or if there is a good chance he will leave a scalpel sticking out of my head! Most Christians have more than enough knowledge about the Bible and about God. What we lack is action and service.

Here is the problem. We think that we have to attain a certain level of understanding before we can begin to serve. But the reality is just the opposite—we need to serve before we can truly understand. The truth is, almost everyone seated here already has enough knowledge to be a pastor. Don’t believe me? OK—here goes. I am going to teach all you how to be a pastor in five minutes. Who has a watch? Somebody time me. Ready—make sure you are listening good. Go!

You need to know two things to be a pastor—you need to know the Great Commandment and the Great Commissions. Most of you already know these, but let’s review them quickly. The Great Commandment is found in Matt. 22.

An expert in the law, tested [Jesus] with this question: ³⁶“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” ³⁷Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Now let’s review—what is the Great Commandment? To love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said that this summed up the entire law and the prophets. One more time. Say it with me. The Great Commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart soul and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself.

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Let’s review this one—what is the Great Commission? To make disciples of all nations by baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded.

Now let’s put the two together. The Great Commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart soul and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself and the Great Commission is to make disciples of all nations by baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded. You know this stuff, don’t you? If you don’t, do not feel badly because you do now! How are we doing on time? OK, one more minute to go.

That is the basic knowledge you need in order to be a pastor, but that doesn’t make you a pastor, does it? By the way, being a faithful disciple and being a pastor is the same thing. In order to be a faithful disciple you have to practice these things. This is also what the Master expects us to be doing when he returns. Jesus expects us to be dressed and ready for service. To be dressed and ready for service is to daily practice the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. If you are loving your family with your whole heart, then you are preparing for Christ’s second advent. If you are planting the seeds of the gospel and making new disciples then God will find you faithful when he returns. You know what God expects from you. If you didn’t when you walked in this morning, you do now. No more excuses. We need to put this knowledge into action. What could this church do with 50 faithful disciples? Do you think our list of bold prayers could be answered? Could we see 10 conversions? Could we see 10 families be healed? Could we see this spill over into other churches?

If the Great Commandment and the Great Commission are both so well known, why are they so rarely practiced? I think there are two primary reasons. The first reason is very similar to the problem King Herod had with Jesus—he did not want any other king ruling his life. If we are honest we will admit that we like to be in control of our own lives. Church is fine and Jesus is cool, but when Jesus begins to interfere with out whole life we get a little uncomfortable. Singing about Jesus is OK, but bowing down to him in service? I don’t think so. He is not our King. You don’t have to be like Herod and slaughter little children to avoid his kingly authority—all you have to do is ignore him. All you have to do is affirm the Great Commandment and the Great Commission with your mouth, but not with your life. You are not dressed and ready for service—you are a naked Christian.

The other reason we do not practice service for the King is that we think the Kingdom is too big and we are too small. This is not all your fault either—the church is partly to blame. As I have said before, even our discipleship process, which is meant to help you grow, can be a hindrance. This circle represents growth through a process with the end goal of multiplication. Now multiplication simply means that you are making new disciples—the great commission. But the problem is that we too often assume that this is a lengthy process. In other words it often looks like this. Once you enter the growth phase of being a Christian you need to stay there for many years until you get to the level of being able to equip other believers. Then, if you are really good and after many more years of sweat and toil, you can become a multiplier of disciples. This is a good process in that it communicates that you should always be growing, but it is awful because it subtly

communicates a long period of time which is necessary.

I prefer the slight change I made this past year which is a spiral instead of a circle. The idea here is that a Christian can be equipping and multiplying within the first few weeks of becoming a Christian. If a new believer leads someone to the Lord, they have just multiplied themselves. It does not need to take many years but can happen within weeks.

Let me illustrate what I mean with a story from this book called Organic Church.

While doing some teaching in Japan, I had a dream that Heather, my daughter, started a church. In the dream, a room full of young people who were all seriously worshipping God. When I returned from the trip, I mentioned it to her just to let her know that she was on my mind and in my dreams while I was away.

The next day she said, “Dad, my friends all want to do it!” “Do what?” I asked. “Start a church.” I told her that she would have to do most of the work, and I would coach and lead only a little. She said that was fine. The next day she arranged a house to meet in, picked a night of the week, and found a worship leader; flyers were soon being passed out to friends on campus.

After the church had been meeting ofr several months, I met with these students and we all sang praises to the Lord. I felt the Lord’s pleasure. I asked the students what was the biggest church they had ever been to. Living in Southern California there are many options of megachurches, and a number of churches were mentioned, ranging in size from two thousand to more than fifteen thousand.

I then told them that I think Satan is more intimidated by this little church of fifteen high school kids than by any of those Godzilla-sized churches. They all sort of chuckled and looked around the room at one another with smiles

I showed them why I thought this way: “How many of you think you could start a church like one of those megachurches?” No one raised a hand. I asked, “How many of you think you could start a church like this one?” and all raised their hands. I asked them to look around the room at all the raised hands, and I said with a new-found soberness, “I assure you, Satan is terrified by this.”

Are you dressed and ready for service? There are four possible consequences in regard to our preparation to Christ’s second advent. Each of will fall into one of these four.

1. If you don’t care about the King, you will be cut to pieces and assigned a place with the unbelievers. (46)

2. If you know your master’s will and do not get ready, you will be beaten with many blows. (47)

3. If you do not know your master’s will and do not get ready, you will be beaten with few blows. (48)

4. If you are dressed and ready for service, he will put you in charge of all his possessions (44) and he will dress himself to serve you, you will recline at the table and Jesus will come and wait on you. (37)

I don’t know about you, but this last one literally blows me away. Remember how Jesus dressed himself and washed the disciple’s feet? Jesus is saying that he will do even more than that for his faithful disciples!

Let me tell you one way we are going to move in this direction as a church. Thirteen men are part of the leadership training group. We will be changing the name of the group to the “Multiplication Team” and we will begin studying this book called Organic Church. By changing the name we are communicating that we intend to be faithful disciples who are engaged in multiplying other disciples, not just that one day we can become a multiplier.

I am also very encouraged about the direction of our denomination. They have just completed a draft revision of our Statement of Faith. Most of the changes are minor ones, but they added a completely new statement. I just received this last night by email. See if this does not fit perfectly with what we are talking about this morning.

We believe that God’s justifying grace in the gospel must not be separated from its sanctifying power and purpose. He calls us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves, acting with compassion toward the poor and needy, seeking justice for everyone. In fellowship with one another, we are to battle the world, the flesh, and the devil with the Word of God and prayer through the prevailing power of the Holy Spirit. Since the age to come has already dawned in Christ, we are called to take the light of Christ to the world, bearing witness to the gospel in word and deed to every nation, people, and language.[iii]

At Jesus’ first advent he was known by the Magi as the “King of the Jews”. At his death a sign was placed above his head on the cross which read the “King of the Jews”. At his second advent he will be called: “King of Kings and Lord of Lords”. Will you be dressed and ready for service?

[i] Flavius Josephus, "Antiquities of the Jews," The Works of Josephus, trans. William Whiston (Hendrickson Publishers, 1987) 17:6.5.

[ii] Neil Cole, Organic Church, Jossey-Bass, 2005, pp. 211-212.

[iii] EFCA Statement of Faith—Draft Revision #8