The Disappointment Of Having Just Missed It
12/8/2002 Eccl 9:11-12 Matthew 25:1-13 Text Matthew 25:1-13
Tyrone was 20 years old and for the first time in his life, he had kept a job for more than six months. He really needed this job, but the words of his boss kept going through his ears. He could still hear him yelling, “You’ve been late to work five times this month alone. The next time you’re late, you’re fired.”
Tyrone knew if he got up an extra half hour early, he would have no problem catching the bus, which would get him at the rapid on time to get to work and have 25 minutes to spare. If he got that extra half hour of sleep that he loved doing, he could catch the express and get to work on time with five minutes to spare.
Now that very same night, he notices there was a good movie that didn’t come on until 10:30pm. Tyrone knew if he set his alarm clock, he could get up and catch that last bus that would get him to work on time.
He thoroughly enjoyed the movie. He slept so well that night that he didn’t hear the thunderstorm that caused the power to go off for ten minutes that night. When the alarm went off, he jumped out the bed, through down some food, and headed up his street to catch the bus, not knowing he was ten minutes off from the rest of the world.
He ran down his street to the main street just to be safe. He got there just in time to see the bus pulling away. He ran behind yelling wait, wait. The driver kept going. He caught the next bus and went on in to work. He knew exactly what he would say to his boss. There was a letter where his time card should have been. It said, “Get your stuff, you are fired. I don’t want to hear it.”
What was it that caused Tyrone to lose his job. Was it the bus, the electrical storm, the alarm clock, the movie he wanted to see, the late scheduling of the movie? Was it the supervisor’s fault for not giving him one more break or the bus driver’s fault for not stopping the bus when he chased after it.
You can blame it on anything you want, but the reality is, he lost his job that he could not afford to lose because on that day when it counted the most, he wasn’t prepared and in place when the bus came.
Today we are celebrating Advent. Advent means the coming. It refers to the coming of Jesus Christ. Most of us know about Jesus’ first coming and that is why we celebrate Christmas. But Jesus spoke a lot about his Second Coming. One day when we least expect it to happen, Jesus is going to come back and take away his followers. It’s going to happen so quickly that most people are going to be caught off guard.
Two men will be walking up a hill talking about the who will win the Superbowl when all of a sudden one will be gone. Two women will be at work discussing how Halle Berry looks in her latest movie, and all of a sudden one will wonder, what happened to the other woman. Now Jesus teaches, the only people who will go away in that instant will be those who are prepared and ready to leave.
Now most of us plan to be ready when Jesus comes. Now if he came today several of us will not be ready and we will miss out, but we do plan on being ready when he actually comes. The only problem is that like Tyrone, we don’t know when some little change is going to happen in our lives and set us off course.
There was nothing he could have done to stop the storm that night, but there were other things he could have had in place long before the storm ever came.
There is a danger in living for the final dash. The danger is, we don’t know what is going to happen in our lives between now and the dash. We deceive ourselves into thinking we are smarter than we truly are. We want to think we can control the future, but we can’t.
One day a group of shrimp are swimming along in the ocean just minding their own business, when out of nowhere a net comes up and before long they are on you plate being served to you at Red Lobster. The bible teaches us the same thing can happen in our lives. The troubles of life can quickly grab us.
One day we’re walking along with Jesus and enjoying it and we assume it will be like this forever, so we let our guard down. Satan starts to attack the good in our lives, and we forget that God’s word is given to us to protect the good in our lives. Do not take the good things you have today for granted or you will start cruising in your spiritual walk. In our cruising instead of growing in the Lord, we start to make a few bad decisions. We’re trying cocaine just to see what if feels like and we’re smoking this weed just to make sure we’re not missing out on anything.
We thought we could handle the temptation, but now we’ve gotten pregnant or gotten somebody pregnant in a relationship which is going nowhere or we’ve become addicted to something else in our lives and we can’t break free of it. We’re disappointed because God gave us a door to escape out of , but we just missed that door and now we’re disappointed in what’s going on with us.
Jesus told us he was going away to heaven to take care of some business. He said in the meantime, I’ve got a job for you to do. I want you to tell everybody you can about me, I want you to make disciples of them and teach them my commandments. I also want you to start living a holy life. Use what I give to you to get the job done and be ready to give an account to me when I get back. Now I want you to watch until I come so you can be prepared.
Now many people in the church have completely misunderstood what Jesus meant when He said watch. When you were a kid, did your mother ever leave on a Saturday and tell you, "I want this house completely cleaned when I get back." You intended to clean the house, but there was something you wanted to watch or some game you wanted to play, or somebody you wanted to talk to on the phone, so you did those things instead.
But every now and then, you’d look out the window to see if she was coming up the street. The moment you got news she was coming you got busy and cleaned, but your final result showed, you hadn’t been cleaning too long. You can’t do the amount of cleaning in 5 minutes which should have taken a few hours to get done. Now you were watching for your mother, but that’s not the kind of watching Jesus was talking about.
Jesus used the term watch to mean pay careful attention to how you’re cleaning each room of the house. Watch it, don’t sweep the dirt under the rug. Watch, Don’t let anything distract you from getting the house in order. Watch, Keep in mind your mother is coming and she has a certain standard she’s expecting to find when she opens the door. So to watch means to literally take action now, so you won’t be caught with your job left undone. You don’t want to be disappointed that you missed the opportunity to do what needed to be done.
I can tell you now, your mother is not going to be happy with the fact, you did a little of something in each room, but didn’t clean any room well. Nor is she going to be thrilled to know you were intending to get around to it. She’s not going to be snowed by you telling her how much you love her the moment she hits the door, if you didn’t do the work. The bottom line is, were you really ready when she came home.
When we think of meeting Jesus, do we see it as a lifetime walk or something we can throw together in an instant by saying “oh God forgive me.” If it’s a lifetime walk, we’re watching for Jesus to return by getting our lives in order now.
If we see Jesse’s return as something we can get together with a simple prayer, we’re going to try to wait to the last possible moment to get ready to meet him. Like Tyrone, we are going to want to get in the last ½ hour of sleep instead of doing what’s the most important thing to do now.
In our New Testament reading we find the story of the ten virgins, five of whom were considered wise and five of whom were considered foolish. Their intent was to be ready when the bridegroom came to claim his bride. Now in the first century, the bridegroom would come with his friends to the house of the bride where she would be waiting with her friends.
The two parties would then march through the streets with candles and lamps lit up. The virgins or bridesmaid would be responsible for lighting up the streets so that everyone could see the bride and the groom. Together they would end up at the groom’s house with people cheering the group along. Once at his house, those who had been invited would go into the house and the others would be kept out by locking the door. The true celebration would take place behind the locked doors for the invited guests.
In the story, the ten virgins were all members of the bridal party. Quite often an announcement would come out, here comes the bridegroom and everybody would get ready and start to go out, but it would be a false alarm. Before the groom arrived at the bride’s house there were often delays.
There would be negotiations over what the groom would have to bring as presents and gifts to the bride’s family. Both sides would delay the negotiations to give the appearance of how valuable the bride was. So it was very common for the bridegroom to come much later than he was scheduled to arrive.
Of the 10 women, five of them not only had their lamps to be lit going through the procession, they also had purchased some oil to pour into their lamps. The other five had lamps, but they didn’t have oil. They were ready for the bridegroom to come but they were not really ready. They were dressed properly and had been invited by the bride to be a part of her bridal party.
They were in the right house with the right people. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the five foolish ones had every intention of getting the oil, because they knew they would need oil in the procession. They even had the money on them to purchase the oil.
But something happened to them they had not planned on happening. They got to talking with each other and carrying on having such a good time, nobody was watching the clock. The bridegroom and his party hadn’t come yet, and they fell asleep. Now there’s nothing wrong with falling asleep, except its hard to watch and to be asleep at the same time.
The women didn’t intend to sleep through their opportunity to be prepared for the bridegroom. No doubt they planned just a little cat nap, and they would hustle to the store to get what was needed.
Do you know that if you had of been there to see those ten virgins, if you had not of seen those five little jars with some oil in it, you would not have been able to tell them apart. The lamps even looked the same. They could all be used to turn on some light. Jesus is giving this story as a warning to us in the church. He’s letting us know that some of us are here in the church and have said, “we are living for the Lord,” but we really are not. If Jesus came today, and took away the church, this place would not be empty.
Can I tell you something. The problem for most Christians and folks claiming to be Christians, is not we do not know what God wants us to do with our lives. The problem is we want to postpone what God has already told us to do. Obeying God always carries a price tag. But we think we can avoid paying the price and still have time to get ready to meet Jesus.
Postponed good intentions will cause a lot of people to end up in hell. It’s going to cause a lot of us as Christians, great shame and embarrassment when we stand before Jesus Christ to give an account for what we have done with our lives. Those five foolish virgins looked like they were ready. They looked like they were really ready. The reality is, they were headed for a big disappointment. They were going through the motions, but they did not have what was required.
But then the real thing came. The negotiations were over. The word came out, the bridegroom is leaving his house and coming to claim his bride. Well the bride and the bridal party were running around trying to get everything in order. At this point the five with no oil realized, they had slept through their opportunity to get the oil they knew they needed. So they told the others, quick give us some of your oil.
But the other five were not 100% sure they had enough oil for themselves. What if this was one more false alarm. Then if the real call came later, they wouldn’t be able to march with their lamps lit. Light was a symbol of happiness, therefore candles and oil lamps were essential equipment for the wedding party.
The five wise were unwilling to risk being unprepared because of the actions of the other five. They told them, go as quickly as you can and buy some oil and get back here before the groom’s party reaches the house.
You see we cannot go to heaven based on what our mother or father, or grandfather believed. We’ve got to have the relationship with God ourselves. Without a living relationship to Jesus Christ, we have no oil in our lamps.
The five women dashed off into the darkness in order to get the oil in time. They had known for weeks the bride was going to get married. They had known for weeks the bridegroom would come. They had known for years the bride’s party was to have lit lamps to march through the streets with the groom’s party. They had known all of this and yet when the most important event starts to happen, they were not ready for it.
We have known all of our lives from the moment we entered the church, Our God wants us to live holy lives. We have known God says to seek Him first. We have known God says to study His word and to be faithful in service. Yet if Jesus came back right now, would he find us a different person than we He first called us into service.
Could God brag on us saying, this is how she used to spend her money but notice how she puts me first now? Would he say, now they spend time looking to my word in Mark, Matthew, Luke and John for advice, whereas they used to spend it with Days of Our Lives, Another World, Jerry Springer and Oprah.
Could God say, it is the desire of their hearts to know My word and I am pleased with them? For I see them in Pioneers and Life-Sharing eager to grow with others. They are faithful in worship.
Could God say, remember how they use to treat each other in their home, but look at how they honor one another at home now? Notice how quick they are to forgive one another. Look at how they speak to one another.
You know if I got up here and preached a sermon and used profanity throughout the sermon, many of you would talk about me like a dog. What kind of pastor would preach a message like that? No, the real issue is what kind of congregation would come time and time again to hear a message filled with that language. You know it’s sad, but some of us will pay far more to here that kind of a sermon, than we will one pointing us to God.
How do I know, because we do it without thinking. Every movie we go to see is a sermon. It’s trying to get you to think a certain way. Every song you listen is a sermon. It’s trying to get you think a certain way. You know if a preacher was cussing and swearing, you’d say, I’ve got to go find me another church.
But if a Jay-Z does it, you say, “well I’m just listening to the beat.” Just like you should want to go find you a new preacher, you need to go and find you an new rapper.
One of the great tragedies in the Church today is we have forgotten the fear of the Lord. All the messages from the world about God is love and we are all His children, all the songs about having a little talk with Jesus, and he’s my friend has caused us to forget that our God is also a consuming fire. No sin will be allowed in His presence.
Are you ready for Jesus to come and get you just as you are, or do you know you’ve got some priorities out of whack.
Today is as good a day as any for us to begin to fear the Lord. Then like the five foolish virgins maybe we will take actions to correct our behavior. They did go quickly to get some more oil, but they waited just a little too long to act upon their decision. While they were on their way to buy oil, the bridegroom arrived. The parties got together and marched through the streets. When they arrived at the groom’s house, the virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet and the door was shut.
Can you imagine how disappointed the five were to get back and discover the party had come and gone on without them? Just like Tyrone, they had planned on catching the bus, but they just missed it. I plead with you, don’t wait too long to do what you know you ought to do. They were determined however and followed along the streets to the bridegroom’s house, looking somewhat out of place.
Five women with lit candles at 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning without a wedding party. When they arrived they beat on the door, thinking it would be a simple manner for the door to be opened and for them to be invited in. Tyrone was thinking you know if I just get to my job and explain the situation to my boss, he’ll give me one more chance. But the firing papers had already been sent out.
The five women knew they were at the right house. But whoever was guarding the door was under strict orders to close the doors once all the guests were in. They were heard knocking, but the one on the other side of the door replied, " I tell you the truth, I don’t know you." The only ones the speaker recognized were those who had come in with the bridegroom.
Jesus is coming back from heaven to claim the church as his bride. Each Sunday two churches gather here in this building. First, there is the professing church made up of people who claim to know Jesus Christ. Second, there is the true church which is made up of people who are actually living for Jesus Christ and putting Him first in their lives. Only you and God know which church you’re actually in. Simply making a confession of Jesus Christ as the Son Of God is not enough. Even the devil makes that Confession.
Is your life indicating you have been touched by God? Does sin cause you anguish inside and force you to struggle with it, rather than simply excusing it as no big deal. If it does there’ is a lot of hope for you in your relationship to God. Because Jesus is working on you trying to get you ready Jesus said, not everyone who calls me Lord is going to enter the kingdom of heaven. It’s only those who do My Will.
The Bible speaks of a rapture taking place in the world. The rapture is when in an instant all remaining true believers will be taken out of the world. God Himself is going to make the distinction among people so there will be no mistakes made as to who is taken and who is left.
Two people will be walking together, bing one of them is gone. Two people in bed together, bing one of them is gone. People traveling on an airplane, bing the pilot and co pilot and many of the passengers are gone. At that moment many people will be like the foolish virgins trying to get ready to meet God, but it will be too late.
There’s not a single reason we can’t get ready to meet Jesus Christ whether He returns unexpectedly to us or we go directly to Him. The door has not yet been shut. There is still time to buy some oil. God loves us so much He’s given us one more opportunity to change.
Today might be your last opportunity. Jesus died for you so you can be brought back into a right relationship with God. Without that relationship, you will never be ready to meet God. God has done all He’s going to do to save your soul. The rest of the decision has been left up to you. Tyrone’s disappointment of having just missed the bus, will be nothing compared to the feeling of knowing you just missed heaven. We serve a loving God who wants to remove the disappointment of having just missed a relationship with Him. He stands with His arms open.
Matthew 25:1-13
"At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. 4The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. 5The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
6"At midnight the cry rang out: ’Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’
7"Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8The foolish ones said to the wise, ’Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’
9" ’No,’ they replied, ’there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’
10"But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
11"Later the others also came. ’Sir! Sir!’ they said. ’Open the door for us!’
12"But he replied, ’I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.’
13"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.
Matthew 24:36-41
"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
Sermon Outline Pastor Rick 12/8/2002
The Disappointment Of Having Just Missed It.
Ecc. 9:11-12 Matthew 25:1-13
A. Tyrone A Man On A Mission For A Job
1. The Boss—One More Time Being Late
2. Determined To Make It—Just 30 Minutes Early
3. The 10:30 Movie, The Thunderstorm, The Clock
4. Just 10 Minutes Off—Wait Wait Wait
5. Get Your Stuff
B. The Season Of Advent
1. The Coming First-Christmas – Second Coming
2. Two Men-The Game Two Women—The Actress
3. The Prepared Make The Trip
4. Remember Tyrone’s Storm—The Unexpected
5. Shrimp From The Ocean To The Red Special
C. Choosing To Stay On Course With Out Lives
1. Remember God Wants The Good For You
2. The Word Is For A Purpose
3. Choosing To Make Some Bad Decisions
4. Help, I’m Hooked And Want To Be Free
5. Disappointed At Missing The Door
D. Jesus Gave Us A Mission In His Absence
1. The Job: Tell, Make, Teach, Live Holy
2. Watch And Be Prepared
3. Misunderstanding The Word Watch
4. Mom’s Words And The Distractions
5. Good Intentions, Not Enough, Nor Praise
6. Real Meaning Of Watch—Consider Carefully
7. Jesus—Lifetime Walk Or Instant Action
E. The Story Of The Ten Virgins (Bridesmaids)
1. The Five Wise And The Five Foolish
2. First Century Wedding—Marching In The Street
3. True Celebration Behind Closed Doors
4. False Alarms & Delays For The Wedding
F. The Key Factor Of Having Some Extra Oil
1. Lamps For Oil Ready But Not Ready
2. Foolish Knew All About The Oil
3. The Delay & The Sleep
4. Couldn’t Tell Them Apart Except For Oil
G. Jesus Issues A Warning To The Church
1. If It Happened-The Place Not Empty
2. Postponing What God Wants Us To Do
3. Good Intentions Is The Way To Hell
H. Here Comes The Groom
1. Give Us Some Of your Oil
2. Go Quickly To The Dealers
3. A Dash Out Into The Darkness
4. Knowing What Was Required But
I. Give God The Opportunity To Brag On You
1. We Know The Right Thing To Do
2. Have We Really Changed
3. Our Resources, Our Time, Our Study
4. Our Actions In The Home
5. Our Words Of Grace
J. What To Do With A Cussing, Swearing Preacher
1. Talk About Him Like A Dog
2. I’ll Pay To Hear Him Preach
3. The Different Formats Of A Sermon
4. Play Amazing Grace During The Sermon And
It Will Be Okay
K. What Happened To The Fear Of The Lord
1. There’s More To God Than Love & Joy
2. Today Is A Good Day To Start
3. The Disappointment Of The 5 Foolish
4. They Arrived Just A Little Two Late
L. All They Needed Was Just One More Chance
1. Walking The Streets During The Night
2. Right Neighborhood, Right House
3. But I Don’t Know You
4. Must Come In With The Groom
M. Jesus Is Definitely Coming Back
1. Two Churches In Every Church
2. The Professing—The Living
3. How Does Sin Affect You
4. The Good News Of Hope
5. The Rapture Is Coming
6. One Taken, One Left
7. No Reason We Can’t Be Ready
8. Today Is The Day To Get Ready
9. Our God Is A Loving God.
