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Ready or Not, Here I Come
Ready or Not, Here I Come
Introduction:
In February 2014, a northern California couple made a discovery that so many long to find.
Buried treasure on their property!
The couple were walking their dog on their own property when they spotted something beginning to emerge from under the dirt of the pathway.
It was a corroded tin can that had been buried years before.
Digging it up, they found more cans, all containing gold coins—more than fourteen hundred coins total, valued at more than ten million dollars.
The coins had been minted in San Francisco at various times between 1847 and 1894—dates that span the California gold rush era.
One particularly rare coin in the collection was valued at more than a million dollars.
It was believed to be the most valuable hidden treasure ever uncovered in the United States.
However, as Christians, we should not be among these that seek this kind of treasure.
The truth is, we have already all the treasure we need found in Jesus Christ and our God eternal.
Bow your heads with me as we pray and prepared our hearts to hear from Lord today.
Pray
Luke 12:32-40
When I was a kid, one of my favorite games with my friends was hide and go seek.
We lived on a hundred acre farm and we had a large yard with a great big pool, a bath house, an outdoor fireplace and lots of trees.
There was a long drive way that went back to several barns and pens and even more trees.
It made for a very challenging game of Hide-and-go-seek.
It did not mattered if I played with my siblings or the kids from church who were often at our house for fun and fellowship.
One would be the seeker.
They would lean up against a tree and begin counting while the rest of us sought out good hiding places.
If you were patient and mischievous enough, you could go a long time without being found!
When I was a kid, one of my favorite games with my friends was hide and go seek.
We lived on a hundred acre farm and we had a large yard with a great big pool, a bath house, an outdoor fireplace and lots of trees.
There was a long drive way that went back to several barns and pens and even more trees.
It made for a very challenging game of Hide-and-go-seek.
It did not mattered if I played with my siblings or the kids from church who were often at our house for fun and fellowship.
However, in the Christian life, when it comes to Ready or Not, we want to be ready as Jesus will not take time to seek us out.
Jesus is slowly, but purposely making His way to Jerusalem.
At times He is teaching to the multitude and at other times He is directing His teaching to His disciples.
In this instance, Peter asks Him who He is addressing and Jesus tells him in a round about way that it is the disciples that He is addressing.
Previously in this chapter, Jesus addresses the crowd regarding the greed of the nation of Israel and their desire to accumulate things to provide for themselves.
He shares the Parable of the Rich Fool who decides to build large barns to store enough grain for his animals and items for himself so he does not have to work and can just have fun in life.
Jesus shares God’s response to such a case.
:
Jesus says it will be the same for each who acts the same as this rich young fool.
Then Jesus turns his attention to His disciples and shares with them that they should not worry about their needs; the food they need to eat or the clothes they need to wear.
A. Fear Not (v 32)
Luke 12:27-
This brings us to what is probably the first and only 3 point sermon I have every preached!
:-)
First off Jesus says...
A. Fear Not (v 32)
A. Fear Not (v 32)
God Almighty, creator and sustainer of all, owner of all things, is our Father and He has no other desire than to give us what we need!
In fact, Matthew records Jesus saying...
Our world is ruled by sin.
Many do not know God and even those who do are not perfect, yet many can be pointed to who love their children and try to give their children incredible gifts.
If we, in an imperfect state of sin, can love and lavish our children with gifts, how much more will the God of love desire to give to us!
If we truly believe this, we have no need to fear, but instead can live totally relaxed about our needs knowing that God will provide.
When we trust God to provide for our needs, we can then turn our attention to the...
B. True Treasure (v 33-34)
God is our true treasure.
It is Him and His kingdom that we should be focused on.
When we are not worried about striving to provide for ourselves, but instead follow His lead, we find the true treasure.
Abraham is an incredible figure of faith when you think about it.
He lived in a time when most were not devout to God.
They were focused on the very things we are talking about; land, possessions, wealth… Yet Abraham walked away from those things when God called him to go.
He went to a land he knew nothing about.
There was no law from God yet.
We do not see prophets in his story telling him what God said.
There was Abram and God.
When you look at Abram’s family, we see ordinary people striving for the same things others around them were striving for.
Lot chose land and wealth when he was asked what he wanted.
Later we see Laban as a deceptive man working to use others to gain wealth for himself.
Yet from out of this family we find Abraham who...
Abraham exemplifies for us the kind of live we are to live; focused on a land and kingdom we have not seen and yet know has everything we will ever need.
That is where our true treasure lies.
So Jesus directs us not to fear and to be focused on the true treasure, then he cautions us to...
C. Be Ready (v 35-40)
Or as Mark puts it, “Be on your guard!
Be alert!”
The end of things as we know it will come suddenly.
We do not want to be caught unaware, but if we are fearful and focused on the wrong treasure.
We will miss it.
However, if we are at peace in our spirit and are attention is on God and His kingdom, we will be aware of God’s movement.
We will touch more on this next week, however Jesus completes this passage with two parables to alert us.
These are not to make us fearful.
Jesus began with “fear not.”
That is because if we have our sights on the right things, we have nothing to fear.
However, if we do not have our sights on the right things, we may lose it all.
Look with me at the parables Jesus shares at this point.
Parable of the Watchful Servant,
Parable of the Watchful Servant,
Luke 12:
There are two things to take note of in this parable.
1) The servants need to be ready and expectant to receive the master of the house when he returns.
Step 1 - Betrothal: This occurred when the prospective groom traveled to the home of the prospective bride to pay the purchase price establishing a marriage covenant.
They do so by remaining dressed, keeping the lamps lit and ready to open the door.
I have a brother who is 14 months younger than me.
When we were kids, he was always wanting to go to bed dressed as he was afraid Jesus would return and everyone would see him in his underwear.
:-)
This occurred when the prospective groom traveled to the home of the prospective bride to pay the purchase price establishing a marriage covenant.
That is not exactly what Jesus is referring to, but the attitude is the same.
We are to be faithfully doing the work the Father has given us to do and expectant of His return.
2) The master is so delighted over the faithfulness of his servants that he in turns serves them.
Jesus is the prospective groom.
He is on earth at this particular point in time in order to pay the bride price and establish the marriage covenant with His bride the Church (body of believers).
Step 2 - The groom returns to his father’s house for 12 months to prepare the living accommodations for his bride to live in his father’s house.
As Jesus is sharing this with His disciples, He knows He is even now on the road that leads to His paying the bride price.
Once that is completed, He will be returning to His Father’s house to prepare the accommodations for us His bride.
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