Ready and Waiting

And the able entry into the passage
or into the subject, I guess, that we will consider this morning. That last line says, then we
shall be where we would be, which implies that currently we are
not now where we would like to be. Then we shall be what we
should be, which says quite clearly that we are not now what we ought
to be. Things that are not now nor could
be soon shall be our own. And it points us to heaven, really,
to eternity. We’re not there yet. We’re not
ready for that yet. And that’s what the subject matter
at hand is. I put the bulletin or the passage
in the bulletin, as usual, with place for notes. If you would
like. We’re back in the gospel of Luke
after two weeks away in the book of Isaiah, not the entire book,
a mere few verses. I didn’t want any of those who
were away the whole time to think that we’d set some kind of a
record, but it’s comfortable and good
to be back in the gospel of Luke. We’ve seen this past week just
a tragedy of the scale of which we haven’t seen in probably in,
certainly not in my lifetime. We’ve heard of other earthquakes
that took a grave toll. I know that there was one in
the 70s in India that took a grave toll, but these are rare incidents. The question always comes out
of things like this is, you know, why weren’t we more prepared?
In our own society, oftentimes when tragedy strikes, people
immediately look to why weren’t we more prepared? And they do
so to the end of suing somebody and want to find out who was
to blame. I think I’ve said this before,
so often we’ll call something like what happened this past
week an act of God, but we never look at a beautiful and gorgeous
sunny day as an act of God. We don’t look at a gentle rain
shower that waters the crops and feeds us as an act of God. But we’ll look at something like
this. But we can’t blame God because we can’t get any money
out of Him. So we want to find somebody to blame. Who was supposed
to man the warning system? Why wasn’t the government more
prepared? And after the government gets
sued enough, then they come up with plans of preparation, advanced
warning systems, preparedness seminars. If you’ve ever lived
on the West Coast or any earthquake zone, you know that you’re given
repeated warnings on what you should be prepared for and what
you should have on hand in order to be prepared for an earthquake.
They have volcano contingencies, tornado contingencies. If you’ve
ever gone on a camping trip, we’ve made a joke of that in
times past that you go prepared to camp And for every contingency
that could possibly happen, even in winter, we were sharing with
the Magnussons what you need to have in your car. Now, we
don’t have it in our car, but we told the Magnussons being
from California, you need to have water, you need to have
a change of clothes, warm gloves, new socks, all those things that
you need to have in your car. We wouldn’t have room for our
children if we put all those things in them. There’s even
now building into many new cars, a collision warning system. You
talk about preparedness. Not that you can probably do
anything about it, but at least you know it’s coming. Jesus said bad things are coming,
it’s guaranteed. We are going to have trouble
in this world. And rarely do we get an advance warning. And
the worse the tragedy is, the worse the disaster is, the less
the warning, right? But preparedness, spiritually
speaking, is a must. We have plenty of advanced warning.
And what Jesus says is this, this incident should never, ever,
ever catch us off guard. And that is the return of Christ.
Or perhaps, if you will, your return to Christ. Perhaps ahead
of his schedule of arrival to earth. But that should never
catch us off guard. We used to have a tongue in cheek
saying in seminary that a pastor ought to be ready to preach,
pray or die in a minute. If you’re not a pastor, maybe
you’re exempt from preaching, but we ought to, especially in
light of the passage that Dave just read, John 15. We ought
to be abiding. We ought to be ready to pray.
We ought to be, in a sense, in prayer at all times. And we ought
to be ready to die at a moment’s notice. Listen, if you would, as we read
along. Luke 12, beginning in verse 35,
where Jesus urged readiness. A spiritual preparedness, if
you will. He said, be dressed in readiness
and keep your lamps lit. Be like men who are waiting for
their 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 in the third and finds them 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
to be ready. For the son of man is coming
in an hour that you do not expect. Before we consider the particulars
of the passage, I want you to notice the language there and
the recurring image that is there. The image that is portrayed throughout
this passage is that of a master and slave relationship. And the
master is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ. And we are
the slaves. It’s a simple it’s not a parable,
per se, but it’s a recurring metaphor that Jesus wants us
to grasp. Verse 36, he says, be like men
who are waiting for their master, in other words, slaves. Verse
37, he says it explicitly, slaves whom the master will find on
the alert when he comes, implying their Christ’s return. And he repeats it in verse 38
and says, blessed are those slaves. It is an unmistakable image.
It is the master and slave relationship. It is the Christ that he’s talking
about. Christ, our Savior. who He’s
talking about and what He is urging us is spiritual readiness. Let me park this in the context,
if I may. Jesus is dealing, as you remember,
with His disciples, the greater portion of them. Not just His
apostles, but including them. And that His followers are around
Him and He’s been encouraging them on and off with encouraging
and faithful words, almost this entire chapter 12. Perhaps he
knew, he knew human nature, that if we’re able to put it off,
we will. If we know that it’s a distant
day, then we’ll put off our preparation for that day. I know the first
time that we went through an earthquake, we weren’t prepared.
And it wasn’t a bad one. It was just one of those rattlers,
just enough to rattle your nerves. We were prepared after that.
It’s fascinating how people prepare after an emergency of that magnitude. But perhaps Jesus knew human
nature so well that He knew even though He was standing there
face to face with His own apostles, and his faithful disciples, he
knew that there was a tendency for them to become complacent
in time. I mean, after all, humanity had
already waited some 5,000 years in the development of God’s plan
of redemption, if you believe the Bible’s calendar. As we considered
Isaiah’s prophecies, they had waited specifically 700 years
for the fulfillment of those messianic prophecies. And maybe
at hearing that the Lord now was going to go away and in some
day return, they figured, well, it’s going to be some time we
can kick back and prepare as we go. We can take our time on
these preparations. Were the Lord’s disciples prone
to complacency at the prospect of a protracted delay of His
return? Were they complacent or tending
to complacency? I just ask you to look at your
own heart. If the disciples or if we are
prone to complacency, why wouldn’t they have been? They were living
much further away from Christ’s return. He said it was going
to come and he said it was going to be soon, but they knew it
wasn’t going to be immediate. I want to look this morning at
three features of a saint ready for heaven. Three features of
a saint ready for heaven. It’s an interesting phenomenon.
I don’t know why I do this, but every year I’m a seasonal guy. The start of summer, the start
of fall, and the start of a new year. Those three things have
always just stuck in my head. Whether, you know, just tied
to the school year, can’t wait for summer. Tied to the end of
summer, can’t wait for school. Well, maybe not. But New Year for me has always
been one of those times. I’ve always been a New Year guy,
a look back on the last year, melancholy, take inventory, spiritually
speaking, set goals for the New Year, examine, see which direction
you’re headed. I’ve always been that way. And
I’ve been that way a lot of times in the pulpit. I always have
looked for a New Year’s passage. What’s a New Year’s passage?
What’s something that can charge us up? And after two weeks of
getting beat silly in Isaiah, I said, you know what? I’ve got
to get back to Luke, get back to the context where I know where
I am, study the passage. And about halfway into the week’s
study, I discovered the Lord had provided us a New Year’s
passage. He provided us an examination
of our hearts and lives to see where we are, where we’re going
and whether we’re prepared, whether we’re prepared at all. Three
features of a saint who is ready for heaven. First of all, I want
to look at the nature of spiritual preparedness. The nature of spiritual
preparedness. Jesus says, be dressed in readiness,
verse 35, be dressed in readiness. You say, well, what is that?
What is the attire of readiness look like? Any of you ladies who have ever
had to get children ready? You know what readiness is. Children
don’t. Sometimes husbands don’t. It means not only the right clothes
at the right time, but the right color socks with the right shoes
and the coat on ready to go in the car. Now we have one that
gets ready an hour early. We have another. You know, we
got a piece together as we’re running out the door. Jesus says completely and thoroughly
ready, that’s what He means. If you want to put it in earthly
terms, right socks, right clothes, right shoes, coat, ready to go.
Not just mostly ready, but thoroughly ready, completely ready, totally,
absolutely, completely ready. What does it mean? Most jobs
have a standard uniform, don’t they? I mean, many jobs. And if you’re not in full uniform,
you’re not ready for work. I remember many places I’ve worked
as a youth up, that if you’re not in complete uniform, you
are not ready for work. Doesn’t matter if you’re on the
clock. You’re not ready for work. What Jesus says, is that if we’re
not completely dressed, completely ready, thoroughly and completely,
we’re not ready. But what does it mean? The phrase
is a metaphor. And it’s similar, not identical,
but it’s similar to the metaphor that Paul used. Dressed or clothed
in righteousness is one of Paul’s figures. He also uses it, another
similar metaphor, clothed in humility. But in neither of these
cases is Scripture calling for some specific literal article
of clothing or even a complete list of articles of clothing,
not talking about physical dress. We talked about the parable of
the wedding feast, remember that one? where the man came in and,
well, first of all, the king was having a big feast for his
son and nobody wanted to come to the wedding feast. So the
king went out into the highways and byways and invited everybody
he could see from all walks of life to come to the wedding feast.
And from a king, it was a command, not just an invite. And one guy
came. And as was the custom in the
East, the king, potentate, putting on this big fancy party would
provide even the clothes, the wedding clothes. And even that
parable becomes a metaphor of us taking on Christ’s righteousness. That’s what he says. Remember,
as it was, it was one scraggly fellow who didn’t want the king’s
clothes, who didn’t think he needed the king’s clothes, who
wanted to come in on his own. And that becomes the point of
the parable. He wanted to come in on his own
righteousness. He wanted God to take him on
his terms. And that’s essentially what is
here. We need to be dressed in readiness.
There’s absolute truth to the statement that we have already
been given the righteousness of Christ. And in us, God, when
He looks upon us, sees Christ and His righteousness. But the
practical working out of that righteousness in our lives is
something that takes a lifetime. What he refers to here, though,
and he doesn’t use the specific term that is so often used in
Scripture, girding up your loins. The long flowing garments of
the East is what slaves would have worn. And in the house,
and in and about the house, in light duty, the garments would
have been down. The gown, the long flowing robe
would have been down around the floor. But when they set about
to real hard, eager work, they would pull the garment up and
tuck it in the waistband. And in that way, they were really
ready for work. Hard labor. And it’s in that
sense, dressed in readiness that Christ urges us to be. That’s the image that is presented
here. Girding up the loins, because
any service to Christ, any service is not possible without it. What does that little phrase
mean, girding up the loins? It’s used quite a bit in Scripture. And I want to pause and just
look at it. In Exodus chapter 12, it was first urged of the
Israelites that you shall eat the Passover in this manner,
with your loins girded, with sandals on your feet, staff in
your hand. You shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. What it was meant to imply was
the exodus itself. This garment tucked into the
waistband. First Peter seizes or Peter seizes
upon this and in First Peter, he says it this way. Prepare
your minds for action. Keep sober in spirit. Fix your
hope completely on the grace to be brought you at the revelation
of Christ Jesus. It’s the same imagery. Gird up
your loins. Be ready for service. 1 Peter
1 13 gird up your minds for action. What Peter is urging us to there
is a readiness for service in the mind and in the heart. There’s another image that Jesus
wants to use for readiness. Keep your lamps lit. Does that
mean that we’ve got to be, you know, suburban equivalent of
Tom Bodette, keeping our porch lights on at all time. I mean,
how absurd do we want to get with this? What does he mean? Keep your lamps lit. It’s another
metaphor that he uses here to simply describe spiritual readiness. And it’s taken, the thought at
least, is taken from a parallel passage where Jesus went into
great detail in Matthew chapter 25. If you would take a moment,
I want to take a few moments to turn there. Keep your finger
in Luke and turn to the parable of the ten virgins. Keep your lamps lit. What does
he mean by that? This should uncover some of the
meaning. The setting is simple. Jesus
says the kingdom of heaven will be compared to ten virgins who
took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. In essence,
it’s a general summary, a picture of the church, and in it you
have true believers and false professing believers and those
that are real and genuine. You had debates over the centuries
as to what the oil is in this passage and what does it represent?
I don’t even think we need to go into all that. Look at the
two different classes in verse two. Five of these ladies were
foolish and five were prudent. For when the foolish took their
lamps, they took no oil with them. But the prudent took oil
and flasks along with their lamps. See, the foolish virgins, they
were attempting to keep up this appearance. They were taking
lamps, but they were taking no oil with them. They were just
they were going through the motions like so many. And whether you use the imagery
that we just heard read, the vine and the branches, what Jesus
is saying here is abide. Stay with me. Whether or not
that oil refers to the Holy Spirit and somehow we’ve got to maintain
a vital link with the Holy Spirit. You know, it’s a difficult if
it’s a difficult explanation to maintain throughout this,
because how do you explain that they had some of the Holy Spirit?
They burned him up. The bottom line is there are
imitators. There are those that are going through the motion,
there are those that go through All the gyrations of looking
like a believer for a time, but they don’t abide. They don’t
keep their lamps lit. Look at verse five says now where
the bridegroom was delaying. And there’s the image that I
believe is tied to this. There is a delay. We don’t know
the time. We don’t know when the Lord is coming back. We don’t
know when the Lord is going to take us. While the bridegroom
was away, they all got drowsy. It’s an interesting thing in
studying this. There were people that wanted to point to this
as being a sin issue because they fell asleep. But, you know,
notice this. They all fell asleep. Jesus doesn’t
rebuke the sleep. What He’s pointing to is the
suddenness. Look at verse 6. But at midnight there was a shout,
Behold, the bridegroom, come out to meet him. And it was just
like a thief in the night. Then all those virgins arose
and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the prudent,
give us some of your oil for our lamps of going out. But the
prudent answered saying, no, there should be enough for us
and you to go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.
You see, the parable, it’s not a parable about sharing. You
can’t mix this one up with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
You can’t rebuke the five wise virgins for not sharing. It’s
not the point of the parable. Not the point at all. Verse 10
says, they were going away to make the purchase. The bridegroom
came. Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast
and the door was shut. And the other virgins came saying,
Lord, Lord, open for us. But he answered and said, truly,
I say to you, I do not know you. It’s a sad feature. It’s a realistic feature of Christianity. There will be those who think
that they’re getting in. There will be those that want
to get in. There will be those that expect the Lord to open
the door to them and He will say no. Keep your lamps lit. Be ready,
he says. The verse here in front of us
is an exhortation to have this attitude about us of constant
readiness. Constant. growth in Christ, a
constant eagerness to embrace Christ for eternity, to meet
the bridegroom, to be truly ready. And he combines this with a third
statement in verse 36. He says, be like men who are
waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast.
Why? So that they may immediately
open the door to him when he comes. Now, I don’t know how
many of you are like this, but when we have company, I mean,
we have to blitzkrieg the house. We know when it’s coming. We
know when everybody’s got their job. We’re all doing things right.
And if you’re not ready and the doorbell rings early, you panic,
don’t you? You’re not ready. You open the
door reluctantly. You know that you haven’t done
all of your chores, your lists. And he uses this additional simile
as another urge for spiritual readiness. And he plays upon
this very simple image of a master returning home from a wedding
feast. Perhaps he delayed, perhaps he stayed longer than he was.
And can you imagine Christ coming? That’s exactly the image that
he wants. Can you imagine Christ coming
to your house this evening for dinner? Can you imagine Christ coming
to take you home to eternity? And you’re not ready. You reluctantly
answer the door. You have to open the door. He’s
the master. You can’t say, go have a cup
of coffee. Wait for me a bit. Let me clean
up the house. He’s the master. And as he approaches, he wants
you to immediately open the door and he wants you to do so with
joy and he wants you to welcome him. Shouldn’t be this foot dragging,
there shouldn’t be this indifference, this sadness, this. Mixed emotion, a greeting of
the Lord. One pastor said it this way. What does the master do when
he’s received in this way? He’s moved by such love that
in the event of seating himself at the prepared table, he causes
his devoted servants to seat themselves and girding himself
as they were girded, he approaches them to serve them. That’s the
image that comes to mind is this image of a master slave, but
it doesn’t go how they think it’s going to go. These are people
who believed in Christ, they placed their faith in Christ, And as Christ approaches, they’re
ready. Their lives are ready. They’re eager to embrace Christ
for eternity. You say, what is spiritual preparedness? It is a clearing away of anything
that stands in the way of a joyful and hearty welcome of our Lord’s
return. What about prayer? You know,
every time I mention prayer, people come up to, oh, that was
so convicting. It is convicting. It’s convicting for everybody.
I don’t think there’s a time, a period in my life where I felt
like, oh, OK, I got it now. I got prayer down and I’m comfortable
with my prayer life, Lord, now. We can never pray enough, we
can never commune with Almighty God enough, can we? I mean, have
you reached the limit? Have you plateaued? What about
practical righteousness? Is there no sin left in your
life? to mortify as the Puritans used
to say, is there nothing left for you to pursue? Is there nothing
left for you to reach into the dark recesses of your life and
weed out? What about service? Talk about
service in the past and This is another one of those. Anytime
you talk about this, people come up to you. Oh, I was convicted.
You know, I’m going to I’m going to start doing something next
week. I’m starting a deal. And I’ll tell you, deals are
hard to start. Service is hard. Service is difficult. Takes time. It takes perseverance. What about
giving? Giving is another one of those. What about sharing our lives,
our testimonies, our faith? What about teaching others? I
guess the bottom line here, as we prepare for the Lord’s table,
this becomes for us a gut check passage. How aren’t we prepared? And in 2005, how would God have
us to change course right now? What would God have us to repent
of at this Lord’s table that we prepare to receive? What would
God have us to change in our lives? What would God change
in us by His grace if we would only confess? How are we prepared? That’s the question. And if we’re
not prepared, why not? And let’s make that the goal
this year in serving and in readying ourself for our Lord’s return.
Anything that stands in the way. Anything that stands in the way
ought to be remedied this year. This is a thoroughgoing readiness
to embrace Christ for eternity. The bottom line question, are
we ready? Are we ready? I said that there were three
features of a saint, a saint who is ready for heaven, not
only the nature of spiritual preparedness, but the blessing
of spiritual preparedness. I mentioned this moments ago.
Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert
when he comes. Why? And this is this is among
the most hard to believe passages in all of Scripture. When I think
of Christ and his perfect sacrifice, Almighty God taking on human
flesh, coming and paying my penalty on the cross. And then in time,
these words, Truly, I say to you that He will gird Himself
to serve, that He will have them recline
at the table, that He will come up and wait on them. People,
that’s hard. That is hard for me to believe.
That’s hard for me to grasp. that somehow, in some way, and
there are all kinds of different suggestions here of exactly what
Christ is going to do. I take promises quite literally.
In some way, He is going to serve us. No wonder verse 37 starts with
essentially a doxology. Blessed, oh, how very happy. How happy are those that are
on the alert, ready, waiting, eagerly throwing open the door
and ready to embrace Christ. J.C. Ryle said there is no degree
of honor and glory, which the Lord Jesus will not gladly bestow
on those who are found ready to meet him. I mentioned this passage really
just alluded to it during our study of Isaiah. But listen to
Isaiah 26, at the glorious banquet that is pointed to us in eternity.
Isaiah 25, verse 6, The Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish
banquet for all peoples on this mountain. A banquet of aged wine,
choice pieces with marrow. Aged, refined wine. And on this
mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples,
even the veil which is stretched over all nations. He will swallow
up death for all time, and the Lord will wipe away tears from
all faces. He will remove the reproach of
His people from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.” You
know, I don’t know what heaven looks like. I don’t know what
the table looks like. I don’t know what’s for dinner. But you
know what? It is going to be a precious scene. When the Lord
comes and welcomes those that are truly His and He serves them,
I mean, who cares what’s for dinner, right? And you know what? He made a
down payment on this promise. Jesus is preparing to go to the
cross. He’s got His disciples, His precious
apostles in the upper room at the Last Supper. And do you know
what His last act was? to go around the table and to
wash everybody’s stinky, dirty feet. He served them. He saw what everybody else ignored. He responded to what anybody
else could have and should have done, being equal one with another. But Christ, who is in so many
ways superior to these men, Christ girded Himself about and went
about with a basin of water and a towel and cleaned their dirty
feet. He was motivated by love for
them and He wanted to give them an example. The amazing thing
is that it was during dinner, during the meal. That’s not exactly
the time to start cleaning up people’s feet. The most astounding thing in
that passage as well is that Judas was there and Judas even
washed his enemy’s feet, the one that was betraying him. I
mean, it’s an inconceivable thought that someday Christ is going
to gird up his loins, roll up his sleeves and serve us. Those
who are faithful and ready, eager to embrace him at his return,
There’s a final feature of those saints that are ready for heaven.
Not only the nature of spiritual preparedness, the blessing of
spiritual preparedness, but the necessity. A saint that’s ready
for heaven knows how necessary it is. Look at verse 38. Whether
he comes in the second watch or even the third and finds them
so, blessed are those slaves. You know what he says? We’re
called to a thorough spiritual readiness any moment of the day,
any day of the year, any year of history. We’re supposed to
be ready regardless of the timing. It calls us to an upright, prepared
living moment by moment. No lapses. No falling back. No plateaus. Did the Lord know they were prone
to complacency? What does He see in our lives? The Lord urged His disciples
on many occasions to be ready for His return. Later on in the
Gospel of Luke, He says it again, be on guard, Luke 21, 34, so
that your hearts will not be weighed down with dissipation
and drunkenness and the worries of life and that the day will
not come to you like a sudden trap. The uncertainty of the Lord’s
return, the timing of it is our motivator. There’s an old song,
an old hymn. What if it was today? What if
it were today? What if it were today that Jesus
came back? You know, I don’t particularly like the tune, but
the thought is a good one. The thought is a really good
one because it’s a scriptural thought. What if it was today? What if Jesus was waiting for
us in the fellowship hall? Are you ready? You ready to go
to heaven? One Puritan urged this, he said,
a servant may be truly faithful. And even still be taken. Off
guard that he has not everything in such order and readiness for
his master’s return, as he thinks is due him, and it is a high
standard. And as he has both as he both
could and would have it. If he had noticed the time of
his coming, if in this case, he would not be willing to open
to him immediately. What he says there is, wouldn’t
any of us elevate our standards if we knew he was coming at six
o’clock tonight? Can you imagine the quiet time
you’d have this afternoon? Right. Can you imagine the service
in this church today if we knew Jesus was coming back next Friday
afternoon? But Jesus adds, be sure of this,
look at verse 39, 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. Usually thieves don’t call ahead.
That’s what Jesus says in essence. When I was in California, I had
this truck and the truck had a topper and the topper was in
my way, I took the topper off and it didn’t take long for the
topper to get stolen. And I had all this equipment
in my truck and I said, never again. I was unready. I was off
guard. They took my topper. They’re
never going to get me again. And I rigged up this fancy alarm
system with sensor eyes and lights that would go off and an alarm
in my house. You know what? Never in all the four years that
I had the thing rigged up, never, ever did it ever go off again.
A thief doesn’t call ahead. They got my topper, they took
it. What he says is here, The day of the Lord’s return
is going to come like a thief in the night. And there is no
safety for a Christian except in being constantly ready. Always
ready to embrace Him. In fact, if we can say in our
hearts, boy, I don’t know. Maybe wait until next week. Maybe at the end of the year
I’ll have my life together. Maybe if I could just… When we lift our heads up from
prayer, from receiving the Lord’s Supper,
He wants us ready. He wants our lives changed. He
wants our lives to count for something. He wants us to be
different and live differently. And He wants us to glorify Him
in it. One Puritan urged in closing, time is short. Eternity is long. It is only reasonable that this
short life be lived in light of eternity, shouldn’t it? We
should labor to judge ourselves before God for those things that
the world takes no notice of. For spiritual, for inward things,
for the motions of pride and worldliness and revenge, of security
and unthankfulness and unkindness towards God. For our barrenness
in all good duties that we owe to God and men, such sins the
world cannot see. Yet these should not humble our
hearts. Yet these should humble our hearts.
For when we do not make conscious of our spiritual sins, God gives
us up to some open abominations that stain and publicly disgrace
our holy profession. No wonder Jesus closes with these
simple words, you too. You too, be ready. Why? For the Son of Man is coming.
It’s a promise. It’s a guarantee. And we could wrangle all day
long, pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib. All I know, He’s coming. The
Son of Man is coming, but He’s coming in an hour that you do
not expect. And anybody who ever wants to set the time, And tell
you that he’s coming back in 1984 or he’s coming back on March
17th. You can guarantee you can go
to the bank. It’s not them. You to be ready. For the coming
of the son of man. Is that an hour that you do not
expect? Question I would pose to you as we prepare for the
Lord’s table, what if it were today? That old hymn. clunky tune, but the thought
is good. The thought is biblical. What
if it were today? Let’s pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father,
we humble ourselves in your midst. And Lord, we acknowledge that. We are not ready. So many things that we have not
done that you would have us to. So many ways that we haven’t
abided. In Christ. So many things left
undone, so many things in our lives, sins left unaddressed. So many things left neglected.
Father God, we thank you and praise you that we didn’t set
out to craft a New Year’s message. And it’s true that any day is
a day of change. But Father, we look forward to
this New Year with such anticipation that You would correct our hearts,
change our lives, make us indeed to be ready to be the people
You would have us to be before Your return. So that we can eagerly
embrace you and welcome you with glad hearts. And not surprised
in different hearts. Lord, we thank you for your word
and for the timing of it. Father, as we prepare for the
Lord’s table. We thank you for the sacrifice
that you’ve given to us in Christ. We thank you and praise you in
Jesus name. Amen. By way of reminder, our table,
this table of communion is not a denominational table. It is
a table that is open to anyone who professes faith in Christ.
We give you no other admonition than what Scripture gives you.
You are, in a sense, commanded to partake if you are a believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ. But we are also commanded to
partake worthily. And as you may remember, the
context of that worthy