Matthew 24:45-51 KJV Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? [46] Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. [47] Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. [48] But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; [49] And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; [50] The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, [51] And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
I. INTRODUCTION—THE SETTING OF THE PASSAGE
-The Scripture that I read comes from what it commonly referred to as the Olivet Discourse. It is the last words the Lord would leave to His disciples before the Crucifixion. There is much that the Lord deals with in Matthew 24-25 but the prevailing theme that pours out of it is that we must be ready for the coming of the Lord.
-Here we find the disciples gathering around the Lord to hear about the end of the age. The whole context of the Lord’s words here indicates to us that there will be a separation that will take place.
A. Comparing the First and Last Sermon
1. The Sermon on the Mount
-The last sermon of the Lord mirrors the first one that He delivered some 3 ½ years earlier from that day when He preached the Sermon on the Mount.
-The Sermon on the Mount is one that never dies. It lives forever. One finds that there are forty-two different principles that establish the church of God and a saint’s character in Matthew 5-7.
• 5:13—Good Salt compared to Bad Salt
• 5:14-15—Light opposed to Darkness.
• 5:17—Destruction of the Law and the Fulfillment of the Law.
• 5:19—Commandment breakers and Commandment bearers.
• 5:23-24—Forgiveness compared with Un-forgiveness.
• 5:28-30—The man that lust controls versus the man who mortifies the body of sin.
• 5:31-32—Marriage opposite of divorce.
• 5:38-39—The old eye for an eye, tooth for tooth versus turning the other cheek.
• 5:41—Going the necessary one mile compared to the extraordinary second mile.
• 5:45—Evil and Good; Just and Unjust.
• 6:3—The works of the right hand and the works of the left hand.
• 6:5—The prayer of the hypocrite compared to that of the reverent.
• 6:5; 6:18—Secret service provides open rewards.
• 6:22-23—The righteous eye that lets in light versus the evil eye that lets in darkness.
• 6:24—Two masters: God and money.
• 7:3-5—Splinters in eyes compared to logs in eyes.
• 7:6—Pearls in hog-pens versus pearls in jewel cases.
• 7:9—Bread versus stones.
• 7:10—Fish opposing serpents.
• 7:13-14—Strait and wide gates, broad and narrow ways, destruction and life, and many compared to few.
• 7:15—Sheep’s clothing containing ravening wolves.
• 7:17-19—Good trees/good fruit versus Bad trees/bad fruit.
• 7:24-29—Wise men founded on the Rock compared to Foolish men founded on the sand.
-It was a masterpiece of a sermon that was full of paradoxes, choices, comparisons, and differences. It was spoken from a hillside, but spoken into history, and finally spoken into eternity.
2. The Olivet Discourse
-In the same manner that His ministry was begun, He ended on the same note. Again, He makes reference to comparisons and differences.
• 24:6—Wars on earth compared to peace in the heart.
• 24:8—The beginning of the End.
• 24:12—Iniquity compared with Love.
• 24:13—Quitters or Endurers?
• 24:17—Those on the housetop have a choice: stay there or get down.
• 24:18—Those in the field have a choice: Stay in the field or return home (In both cases, returning is always a detriment to the soul.).
• 24:23-24—The choice to follow a false christ.
• 24:35—Things such as heaven and earth will pass away differing with His Word which will stand forever.
• 24:37—The days of Noah compared with the days of the returning Lord.
• 24:40—Two in the field—One taken and one left.
• 24:41—Two at the grindstone—One taken and one left.
• 24:43—The good man and the thief.
• 24:45-51—The faithful and wise servant versus the evil servant.
• 25:2—Wise virgins compared to foolish virgins.
• 25:3-4—Oil in the lamp versus oil gone out of the lamp.
• 25:9—Sellers and buyers.
• 25:10—Open doors and closed doors.
• 25:15-18—Invested talents versus wasted talents.
• 25:23—Good and faithful servants versus wicked and slothful servants.
• 25:29—Abundance or poverty.
• 25:32—Sheep separated from goats.
• 25:46—Everlasting life compared to eternal punishment.
B. Faithful and Wise Servants vs. Evil Servants
-Yet in this passage that we read there is the necessity of understanding what it means to be a faithful and wise servant. The Lord lets us know that the opposite of a faithful and wise servant is one that is an evil servant.
-A faithful servant is a man who is trustworthy and carries out his assigned roles. He can be relied on to take care of the matters with honesty, integrity, and willingness to do the hard work that it takes for accomplishment.
-The word wise indicates to us an intelligence that has been gleaned from both experience and the willingness to listen to a teacher. He is a cautious man who is making sure that the investments of his overseer are not wasted. He is a prudent man who is unwilling to be taken advantage of in the matters of the owner’s property. Every decision he makes is thoughtful and well-planned.
-On the other hand, there are servants who are evil. These men are those who have a bad nature about them. There is something basically destructive about everything they do and get involved in. There are always underlying and hidden motives that wants to strip and destroy the company. They will steal. They will do their best to injure people who get in their way. Void of conscience, little seems to control their behavior.
-A servant that is evil is lax in his responsibilities. He thinks nothing of abusing fellow servants and those under his care. The evil servant does not even consider the return of the master who will require an accounting.
II. A PORTRAIT OF A FAITHFUL AND WISE SERVANT
-So the Lord asks a question to His disciples. . .
• Who is a faithful and wise servant?
• Who is the man who the Master places over His house?
• Who is able to give food at the proper time?
• Who will watch over the house with a sense of vigilance and seriousness?
-If you are going to be a wise and faithful servant, there are some requirements that you will have to discipline yourself to.
A. You Will Have to Pay the Price
-There is a price tag that comes to those who give themselves to being a faithful and wise servant. In our walk with God there will be struggles, strivings, and setbacks that we are forced to endure.
-Paul was right when he said that we will walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).
-The closest disciples to the Lord—Peter, James, and John—all had to pay a heavy price for their faithfulness. A deep devotion that these men had needs to come alive in our own world today. I long for it in my personal life.
-There is a passion and pain that is involved in paying the price of becoming a wise and faithful servant of the Lord. You can try to bypass paying the price of devotion but the Lord needs men and women now who are going to do His will.
-There will be a great separation to take place for those who are willing to pay the price for becoming a wise and faithful servant of the Lord. For every one who is willing to go the length it takes to be faithful and wise there are a hundred who would rather remain locked up in the status quo of their relationship with God.
-You will pay the price for faithfulness sooner than you think you will and you will have to pay more than what you expect you will. Consider these passages of Scripture that deal with the calling of God:
3 John 1:7 KJV Because that for his name's sake they went forth. . .
Matthew 9:38 KJV Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.
Luke 18:31 KJV Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem. . .
John 13:13 KJV Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.
Matthew 26:38 KJV . . . tarry ye here, and watch with me.
Mark 6:45 KJV And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side. . .
Exodus 3:4 KJV . . . God called unto him . . . And he said, Here am I.
Acts 26:19 KJV . . . I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision:
1 Corinthians 1:2 KJV . . . called to be saints. . .
Habakkuk 2:3 KJV . . . though it tarry, wait for it. . .
Acts 20:24 KJV But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself. . .
-The devil does not want you to hear any of these passages of Scripture. He wants you to muddle along and just get by but the reality is that those who choose this kind of lifestyle end up coming up short in the long run.
-There is a price to pay that comes with being a wise and faithful servant of the Lord and we must pay it!
-It very well could be a price that demands more than you are willing to pay but if you can ever humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, there are incredible rewards to come out of it.
-I want a depth of God in me but I am the only one who can even begin to move toward the faithfulness that God wants me to fulfill.
J. R. Ensey—Worry about the depth of your ministry and God will take care of the breadth of your ministry.
B. You Will Be Pulled From Your Comfort Zone
-If you are to be a wise and faithful servant, it is going to require you to be pulled from your own comfort zone. Most all of us have a comfortable place in our soul that we often refuse to move out of because of the growth process that is involved in it.
-Personal growth has a price tag also. Just as endurance has a price tag so does moving forward to greater spiritual maturity and usefulness.
-Difficulties pull us out of our comfort zone!
Isaiah 59:16 KJV And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: . . .
Ezekiel 22:30 KJV And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.
-If one person can intercede it will make the difference! All of us must know something about prayer and praying. Prayer was the lone thing that the disciples asked Jesus specifically to teach them to do.
-Don’t let your values get astray! God does His best to pull us out of our comfort zones so that we can grow in a spiritual way and He will use whatever means available to move us to a place of prayer.
C. You Will Have to Have a Deep Love for the Lord
-You can go about any Christian calling and do it without a vision. In fact it is often easier to work for God without a calling. You can bypass love and be bound to duty and never make much of a difference at all.
-That is what Jesus was getting at when He began to question Peter in John 21.
John 21:15-17 KJV So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. [16] He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. [17] He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
-I want a vision that will make a difference! The only way that Peter was really going to feed the sheep was for him to be motivated by a deep love for the Lord. The Lord knew that love in itself brought an incredible power to the life of His disciples.
-Lovest thou me more than these? Let me tell you what love is capable of. It moves us into an attitude that changes both us and those who are around us. People who love find themselves coming into this kind of thinking:
• I will do more than belong—I will participate.
• I will do more than care—I will help.
• I will do more than believe—I will practice.
• I will do more than be fair—I will be kind.
• I will do more than forgive—I will forget.
• I will do more than dream—I will work.
• I will do more than teach—I will inspire.
• I will do more than earn—I will enrich.
• I will do more than give—I will serve.
• I will do more than live—I will grow.
• I will do more than suffer—I will triumph.
-Faithful and wise servants. . . are willing to pay the price. . . are willing to get out of their comfort zones no matter what it is that moves them out of it. . . they have a deep love for the Lord.
III. CONCLUSION—A FAITHFUL AND WISE SERVANT
PERSONAL ILLUSTRATION REMOVED FOR THIS CONCLUSION.
-We have to be faithful and wise servants!
Philip Harrelson
October 14, 2012
