Occupytill I Come

In the Gospel of Luke the Lord uses a parable to teach us a lesson concerning what is expected of His servants while He is away in a far country making preparation to receive His kingdom. Although we have studied this passage many times, the Holy Ghost has recently shown a light on one little word in the parable that now looms large in its importance to the theme of this parable. The word that I refer to is found in verse 13 and is Jesus’ choice of "Occupy."

The Greek word translated as occupy here is:

4231 pragmateuomai { prag-mat-yoo’-om-ahee}

1) To be occupied in anything

2) To carry on a business

3) To carry on the business of a banker or a trader

There is no doubt as to what the Lord expects from each of us while He is away preparing to receive His kingdom. We are to be gainfully occupied in His service. Those who are faithful to work wisely and further that which has been entrusted to him will be rewarded in like manner in the future kingdom. Those who do not work for the name of Christ, and the furthering of His Gospel will also be rewarded according to what they do with what the Lord has given them.

Notice we are talking of rewards and not salvation. Each on the servants in this parable were already servants of the master, no matter how they used the gifts of the master they were still his servants in the end. Each of us who are truely servants of the Lord Jesus Christ are indeed His servants and what we do here will not change that. We did not employee ourselves with Him but in Grace he made us His own and we have no bearing on our servitude, only the rewards of our efforts can be affected!

Ephesians 2:8

8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast.

This word occupy gives us the directive to be busy about the Lord’s work, using what He has given us for His gain while He is in the far country. Many times we confuse the definitions of occupy, (to be gainfully employed) with (occupy) simply taking up space. There is a great difference; for occupying space gives the impression of doing nothing but sitting idly by waiting for the return of Jesus and His kingdom. There is a vast difference between what the Lord’s instruction and what we have come to think of as "occupying".

Many people in this day and age use the excuse that the King James English is hard to comprehend and even more difficult to follow, this is not the case however. Missing is the readers inspiration and the understanding that only comes with the indwelling Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Ghost that gives us our spiritual understanding. 1 Corinthians 2:14

14But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Let us look now at the Modern English definitions of the word Occupy. Webster"s dictionary gives many definitions for this word "occupy." Tonight I would like to look at some of these definitions and then look at Biblical examples for each and then notice the common denominator of how each of them show effort and resolve to further the kingdom of God. Of all four of the modern definitions, only one indicates no movement, and I am afraid that we choose to follow the one over the other three in our Christian lives.

A: to engage the attention or energies of Matt 20:1

The first definition found in the dictionary for occupy indicates a person who is engaged to perform a work for pay, a hired hand if you will. It is a wonderful thing to have an occupation, we grumble and complain many times of having to work for a living but in reality we are blessed to have the ability to work and provide a way of life for our families. We must first realize that we should be grateful to our employers to allow us the opportunity to work for them, after all we did not force them to hire us, but they found something in us that would help them about their business. The same is true in the business of the Lord, we did not force Jesus to hire us into his vineyard but He, in grace and mercy, found us in our time of need and hired us into His service by paying our sin debt. We often forget that little point, we are working for Him and not that Jesus is working for us. We place demands on the Lord as an ungrateful worker places demands on his employer.