Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Josh.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: And today on reading the gospel, we are studying Jesus teaching on being ready. This is found in Luke, chapter twelve, verses 35. And we're going to read all the way to the end of the chapter. Join us.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning. And be like men who are waiting for their master to who come home from the wedding feast so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at a table, and he will come and serve them if he comes in the second watch or in the third and finds them awake. Blessed are those servants.
But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his home to be broken into. You also must be ready, for the son of man is coming at the hour you do not expect.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Peter said, lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all? And the Lord said, who then is the faithful and wise manager whom his master will set over his household to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is the servant whom his master finds so doing. When he comes, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, my master is delayed in coming and begins to beat the male and female servants and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, at an hour when he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful. And the servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given of him much will be required. And from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: I came to cast fire on the earth and wood that it were already kindled. I have a baptism to be baptized with. And how great is my distress until it is accomplished. Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you rather division.
From now on, in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother in law against her daughter in law, and daughter in law against mother.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: In law, he said to the crowds, when you see the cloud rising in the west, you say at once a shower is coming. And so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, there will be scorching heat. And it happens. You hypocrites, you know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? And why do you not judge for yourself what is right? As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.
I don't know about you, but reading this, this is kind of a dark, I guess, or depressing or scary. There's beating and accusers and a lot of bad things potentially happening here.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: So the illustrations are from that society where slavery was predominant. But I like to make a difference between what is required from us. It says, you must be ready.
And also when Jesus Christ says that he came to bring division, that is not a must.
That may happen. If we receive Christ differently in the same household, that might create division. So in the second part is the potential.
In the first part is what is required from us, and we must be ready.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we're so used to seeing the positives here. Jesus is talking about what happens in the negatives if we don't. But again, the goal is not that we want these things to happen. The goal is we'll be ready. We won't.
And the things that they were know, beating the other servants and drinking the wine and eating the master's food, those are not good things.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: It's risky. Negative behavior.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it's doing stuff they shouldn't be doing. So I think that we need to understand that as well. But there are consequences for not being ready. And I think that's what's important to understand that in our life, we look at the gift that Jesus gave, we look at the new life that Jesus gave. There's a bunch of positives to being a Christ follower, but there are negatives to not doing what God wants us to do.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: Also, there is another aspect here. Jesus Christ talks about the baptism with fire with which he would be baptized, and that is a reference to his persecution, and that is about himself. And of course, we have different verses in the gospel that say that the disciple is not above the master. So if he was persecuted and rejected, we'll have similar experiences, but that is not required or not mandatory. It is what might happen if others around us do not receive the Lord.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Yeah, what can we do? What should we be doing to get ready? Let's take this last one, this accuser. You're going to court with an accuser. Why would you settle accounts beforehand?
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Because you can settle for less always.
Otherwise you have to pay the full price. And you have to even cover the government expenses sometimes, or your accusers expenses. That means it's a longer process. There is no way around that. The only shortcut, the only way to solve the problem is on the way to the judge.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: And we would call this looking in today's court, at the american court system, the plea deals. Prosecutors will come to a defendant and offer them a plea deal that if you agree to plead guilty, we will offer you a lower sentence. And it's true, you have a chance going before a judge, going before a jury of peers, being tried and being found innocent, even if you are guilty, and then you would have no repercussions. But many times, if you were guilty, you want to accept the plea deal because that gives you a lower punishment. If you go before the judge, you go through a full trial, you can have a much harder and much stricter punishment.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: So this is one of the practical applications of the main teaching in this event. Be ready.
So settle. Be ready to settle with your accuser. Why do we have to do that? Because we are going to go in front of the judge of the whole universe, who happens to be at the same time our loving heavenly Father. And we will kneel down and we will say to him, like in the Lord's prayer, father, forgive my sins, inasmuch as, or in the measure I forgiven. To those who sinned against me, sin is presented as a debt. This is the language of the Lord's prayer. And forgive our debts as we forget our debtors, but is a reference to wronging someone or sinning against another person. If we want to be ready for the second coming, we have to remove everything that might be between us and him. As in the previous episode, we have to remove that heavy reliance of abundance of materialism. And now these barriers are primarily internal.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: So what is this passage telling us about?
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Know he's coming and God is coming in the form of Jesus Christ. And also we have other verses in the gospel. Together with Jesus Christ, Jesus will come not only in the glory of his angels, but also in the glory of his father.
Jesus and the Father are one. We studied that in a couple of episodes. And that unity which was broken for just a short while when Jesus died on the cross, that unity will never, ever be broken in the future. This is why the Father will accompany Jesus when he comes, so practically, we should be ready for that. That is the main teaching that I take from this event. Jesus is coming. God is coming back to cleanse this planet, to transform into something new, to make it the residence, the headquarters of the whole universe, to bring down the new Jerusalem, as we studied last year in revelation, chapter 21 and 22, and the saints who have been with the Lord for thousand years inhabiting the new Jerusalem. So Jesus is working on his side, and we are required to do our work on our side. He's making ready our places in heaven, and he's renovating that new temple in heaven while we have to prepare our hearts and our minds and our characters here on earth.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: When I was doing driver's ed, we had an instructor that I was not a nice kid, and I feel very bad now, but we had an instructor that we thought was clueless. We thought he wasn't paying attention, and so we were to accelerate real fast and do different things on the virtual stuff. When he wasn't listening, we'd make fun of him, all these things. And it was at the very end of class, the last day, as he was handing out certificates so we could get our driver's license, he said to me, you know, all those times you made fun of me in the back of the class? I saw that. And I'm not going to give you this certificate until you apologize to the whole class. And I had to apologize to him in front of the whole class, which was very embarrassing for me. But he gave me the ticket he deserved to not give me the certificate. He didn't have to pass me.
I think there are times we look at God in a similar light, that God is a God of love, that we can do what we want in life, we can indulge in all the bad things. And in the end, it's not really going to be as bad. But God is a God where there is going to be consequences. And as he said, those who he's given much to, he's going to require much from. And there will be some who had very little, had very little knowledge, had very little to do, but still chose to reject their punishment. Will be light.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And let me focus on one of the most beautiful parts of this story is when the master of the house comes home from a wedding feast and it's night or early morning, the second or the third watch, and he finds his servants ready, dressed for action, watching the house not to be robbed by bad guys.
Do you know what he would do?
Jesus said in the parable, he would say, okay, now it's your time to sit down. You recline of the table. He will put on his serving clothes and he will serve them. That's awesome. That is awesome. And that is a beautiful projection to what Jesus Christ said. It was the last communion in the upper room. And I said, I'm not going to eat from the fruit of the vine. I'm not going to eat grapes or drink wine until I come back. And that I'll invite you to sit at that long table with Abraham as Isaac and Jacob, and I will serve you. This illustration that is in the middle of a gloomy passage is the brightest moment when the master become a servant.
And whatever he asks from us, he models it first.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: Let us pray. Father God, we do not deserve to be at that table for any merit of our own, for any virtue of our own, but only from the blood of Jesus Christ.
We do not deserve to be served by Christ.
If we squeak into heaven on our own, Father, we deserve to be the slaves, the servants to all. But Father Jesus himself will serve us. And what a beautiful day that will be. And I pray, Father, that we will be there, that we will be ready, as this section says, this event says, even the elect don't know when Jesus is coming, and they'll come at an hour that we don't know. So may we be ready now, and may we be ready always. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
