Are You Ready?

ARE YOU READY?

Luke 12:39-40

Introduction

Good morning church!

I am glad to be here with you all this morning and thankful to God for this great opportunity of sharing His word.

Let us begin our time with the word of prayer: Pray

Illustration

I would like to begin our time together with a real incident that took place in Nepal few years back. There was a rich business man living in our community in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. He lived a luxury life with all the facilities at home including a huge garden and swimming pool inside his compound. His house was in the corner of the city and it was quite far from other houses. He might have thought of the potential danger of the thieves and security of his properties; but he never did anything about it. He was so busy with his business and comfortable in his mini-palace that he didn't put security guards, dogs, auto lock gates and so on. He used to wear a lot of golden jewelries and his wife and kids too. He even had a kind of mini-bank at his house as he used to keep huge amount of cash at hand. He was enjoying his life with his family in such lavishness. One day, when he woke up in the morning, he realized that his house was broken by the thieves at night and got away with most of his valuables, cash and jewelries. It was a huge shock for him as he never even thought of that and was never prepared for that kind of robbery. It took him several days to accept that fact and he almost lost his mental balance because of that traumatic experience. What would you do to safeguard your property if you were in that man's place? Let us see what the Bible says about this.

Let us turn to the Gospel of Luke 12:39-40.

39 "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.

40 "You too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect."

Let us pray for the revelation of His Word. Prayer…..

The Topic that I am going to share with you this morning is:

"Are You Ready"?

According to Craig Blomberg, This little parable of the householder and the thief depicts two human characters, one trying to guard himself against the other. It contrasts with those of earlier verses because here Jesus wants about being prepared for His return. He encouraged them to be ready by noting the reward and blessing that the return will bring. This same parable is found in the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 24 verses 42-44. This is an allegorical parable where the householder stands for the person who is not well-prepared disciple of Jesus; and the thief represents the Son of man.

I would like to share three important things from this parable about the reasons to be ready:

1. The Son of Man is Coming.

2. The Time is Unexpected.

3. The Command is to be Ready.

Let us look at these three reasons one at a time to understand their importance for readiness.

The Son of Man is Coming.

Merrill Tenney says that the second coming of Christ is one of the most prominent doctrines in Scripture. In the NT alone it is referred to over 300 times. The term 'Son of Man' is used to refer to Jesus Christ. The write of this Gospel, Luke portrays Jesus as the Son of Man in order to emphasize His humanity. The metaphor of the Son of man as a thief does not mean that Christ is a robber. The allegory is that He comes like a thief at an unexpected time. Jesus is teaching Hid disciples to be freed from worldly cares through trust in the care of God and hope in His second coming. They are not to be allured by the temptations of laziness, self-indulgence and self-assertion but to be ready to serve the Son of man when He comes. The most important fact here is very clear that the Son of man is coming.

As this doctrine is one of the most prominent doctrines of the Scripture, it is also one of the doctrines with differences in people's opinion. This doctrine has been discussed in many occasions but still the debate remains there. Some people believe that the second coming of Jesus took place already on the day of Pentecost. Others believe that His coming refers to our conversion as He comes into our hearts. There are many views regarding the coming of the Son of man. Christ Himself clarifies in John 21:23 that He will come again. His coming will be the time of completing His redeeming work of the whole world, which is yet to come. The coming of the Son of man is still to come and it will be the climax as the result God will be the all in all.