Luke 12:35-40 Watching and Waiting
Good morning! We are continuing our study in Luke chapter 12, this morning we are going to look at verses 35-40, that’s on page 871 in the pew Bibles.
I would be remiss if I launched into this sermon without acknowledging some of the events that we have been seeing in the news lately including the war in Israel and the shooting in Lewiston, Maine. For those of you who don’t know, I was born in Lewiston and have spent many happy hours bowling at the facility where the shooting took place.
We will certainly pray for peace and comfort for all of those involved and for the families that lost loved ones as well as the first responders that were helping people on scene and those involved in pursuing the suspect.
And we will also continue to pray for peace in Israel and the safe return of those taken hostage and for comfort for all those who have lost loved ones in both Israel and Gaza.
These things have prompted many people to start to wonder if we are indeed in the end times and if the return of Christ is imminent. These are legitimate questions and are worth considering, and that fact is confirmed by our text for this morning, Luke 12:35-40.
Let’s read that together.
35 “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, 36 and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. 37 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 table, and he will come and serve them. 38 If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! 39 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 house to be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
Let’s pray.
So far in Luke chapter twelve Luke has grouped several different sayings of Jesus that fit a similar theme that really boils down to what the focus of Christ’s disciples should be, that our trust should be in the Lord and not our material possessions, and here in these verses He gives us the reason: and that reason is that He is coming back again.
Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning! That is the instructions that He gives His disciples.
You may see a note there in verse 35. The phrase, “stay dressed for action,” literally means to keep your loins girded. This may be a familiar phrase, to gird your loins, but what does it really mean?
Don’t forget that Jesus was speaking to people in First Century Israel and nobody knew what blue jeans were yet. People wore long tunics and cloaks then which we often see characterized in our Christmas plays or in the movies, and to gird your loins meant to gather the long garments from between your legs and tuck them up into your belt so you were ready for action.
Long garments had to be girded up so as not to hinder walking, working, and fighting. Pants really were a wonderful invention!
Loins were to be girded and lamps were to stay lit so that servants were ready to serve, they could move freely and they could see in the dark.
Jesus doesn’t just give them this instruction but He shows them the application and importance of this kind of readiness. Look at verse 36.
be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks.
Skip ahead to verse 38.
38 If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants!
The Romans split up the hours of the night into four watches, 6pm to 9pm, 9pm to 12am, 12am to 3am, and 3am to 6am. So Jesus says, if the master comes back from the wedding feast late at night, even as late as three am and finds his servants awake and ready for him, ready to open up the gate when he knocks and let him in, blessed are those servants! They aren’t asleep, they have nothing to hide, and they open the door at once!
Jesus would go on to tell another parable similar to this in the verses that follow our passage about servants who weren’t ready for their master’s return and what will happen to them and we’ll look at that next time.
But the temptation for the servants is to, quite frankly, be lazy and not be diligent about their duties because the master wasn’t there. While the cat’s away, the mice will play. They could have their own little feast while the master was gone and get drunk, or fall asleep while he was away instead of being diligent in their duties and keeping an eye out for the master’s return.
Jesus describes a wonderful reward for those servants who were found faithful and were awake and alert to the master’s coming and opened the door for him when he came back in verse 37.
37 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 table, and he will come and serve them.
Jesus says that the reward for these diligent servants is that the master himself will gird his own loins, it’s the same Greek word, and serve the servants. This again is a great picture of the upside down nature of Jesus’ kingdom, the King serving His servants.
In Mark 10:45 Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.”
RC Sproul wrote, “When He comes those who are found ready, who are busily engaged in their work, having set their hearts on the kingdom of God, and not the acquisition of material possessions, will be rewarded. When the King comes, the King will serve His faithful people.”
Jesus goes on to share a second picture. In the first picture he illustrates the readiness that He expects from His disciples but in the second He shares the unexpected nature of His return.
39 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 house to be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
Just imagine if you got an email saying, “I’ll be at your house next Thursday night at 8:15pm so I can burgle your house.” You might reply, “I will also be at my house next Thursday night at 8:15 pm so I can clean your clock.”
But that’s not how it works. The alarm system industry exists because that’s not how it works.
Jesus is telling His disciples to be ready because His return will be just like a thief in the night, He will come at an hour we do not expect.
This idea is repeated several times in the New Testament.
1 Thessalonians 5:2-3, 2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
2 Peter 3:10, 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief…
Revelation 16:15, 15 (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”)
Verse 37 says, Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.
Verse 40 says, You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
The plain emphasis of Jesus’ teaching here is: Disciples be ready! So we are left to consider the question, what does readiness look like?
To that question I must respond with two more: Do you believe that Jesus is coming back today? How would your life change if you did?
The ground floor of readiness is saving faith in Jesus Christ. We are certainly not ready for His return if we are still in our sin, we must have personal faith in Jesus Christ and His substitutionary death on the cross in order to be ready for his return.
But should Jesus tarry another two thousand years what should we do in the meantime? Be watchful, be faithful, be diligent. To be ready is to live my duty and die at my post. Not lazy, not worldly, not sensual, not inconsiderate. We must be watchful and call others to watchfulness as well.
In the words of Peter from 2 Peter 3,
8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
Amen.
