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HEAVEN CAN
WAIT?
Luke 12:35-48
How Should What
Jesus Has Told Us About the Future Affect the Way We Live Today?
1. Be Ready.
"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 too, be
ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not
expect."
2. Don’t Procrastinate.
Peter said, "Lord, are You addressing this parable to us, or to
everyone else as well?" And the Lord said, "Who then is the
faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in
charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper
time? Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when
he comes. Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of
all his possessions. But if that slave says in his heart, 'My
master will be a long time in coming,' and begins to beat the
slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk;
the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not
expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in
pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers. And that
slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in
accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who
did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will
receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much
will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they
will ask all the more.”
How Can I Tell If I’m Ready?
1. I’ll Value Character Over Comfort.
“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is
decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For
momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal
weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at
the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen;
for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which
are not seen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:16-18)
2. I’ll Value Pleasing God Over Pleasing Others or Pleasing
Myself.
“Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while
we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— for we
walk by faith, not by sight— we are of good courage, I say, and
prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with
the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at
home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear
before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be
recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has
done, whether good or bad.” (2 Cor. 5:6-10)
I’ll Value People Over Things.
“But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that
with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand
years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as
some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for
any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
(2 Peter 3:8-9)
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