Micah McCormick: Turn to the Gospel of Matthew.
Micah McCormick: Hopefully you have a Bible.
Micah McCormick: If not, you can use the Pew Bible there in front of you.
Micah McCormick: Matthew chapter 24.
Micah McCormick: That's the first book of our Christian New Testament.
Micah McCormick: Matthew 24, that's page 880, if you're using the Pew Bible this morning.
Micah McCormick: The text we'll consider begins in verse 32, and we'll finish the rest of this chapter.
Micah McCormick: Matthew 24, verses 32 down through verse 51.
Micah McCormick: This is what Holy Scripture says.
Micah McCormick: Learn this lesson from the fig tree.
Micah McCormick: As soon as its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near.
Micah McCormick: In the same way, when you see all these things, recognize that he is near at the door.
Micah McCormick: Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things take place.
Micah McCormick: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
Micah McCormick: Now concerning that day and hour, no one knows, neither the angels of heaven nor the sun, except the Father alone.
Micah McCormick: As the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be.
Micah McCormick: For in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah boarded the Ark.
Micah McCormick: They didn't know until the flood came and swept them all away.
Micah McCormick: This is the way the coming of the Son of Man will be.
Micah McCormick: Then two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left.
Micah McCormick: Two women will be grinding grain with a handmill, one will be taken and one left.
Micah McCormick: Therefore be alert, since you don't know what day your Lord is coming, but know this if the homeowner had known what time the thief was coming, he would have stayed alert and not let his house be broken into.
Micah McCormick: This is why you are also to be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you did not expect.
Micah McCormick: Who, then, is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give them food at the proper time?
Micah McCormick: Blessed is that servant whom the master finds doing his job when he comes.
Micah McCormick: Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
Micah McCormick: But if that wicked servant says in his heart, My master is delayed, and starts to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with drunkards, that servant's master will come on a day he does not expect him, and at an hour he does not know, he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Micah McCormick: Lord, we're again asking for the spirit, because without the spirit the flesh profits nothing, and we want the conviction and power that is not merely human, but that comes through the spirit as he speaks through his word.
Micah McCormick: So grant us that now as we look at this text, we pray in Jesus' name.
Micah McCormick: Amen.
Micah McCormick: I know that was a larger block of text that I read, it's the whole passage for this morning, but I want to begin by drawing your attention right away to verse number 45.
Micah McCormick: Who then is a faithful and wise servant?
Micah McCormick: You can hear Christ summarizing what he's saying by the call for faithful servants.
Micah McCormick: And look all the way down in the next chapter, chapter 25 to verse 21.
Micah McCormick: Well done, good and faithful servant.
Micah McCormick: There it is again.
Micah McCormick: Expectation of a faithful servant.
Micah McCormick: And both of these figures are waiting, these faithful servants.
Micah McCormick: In the surrounding context of these chapters, Matthew 24 and 25, where Jesus gives this teaching from the Mount of Olives, he speaks frequently of his coming.
Micah McCormick: He's coming.
Micah McCormick: The text we read had a lot of language of the coming of Christ.
Micah McCormick: We don't know when he will come, so we have to be patient.
Micah McCormick: We don't know when he will come.
Micah McCormick: We've got to be alert and active.
Micah McCormick: We don't know when he will come, so we want to act as wise ones and not as unwise ones.
Micah McCormick: So if we're drawing this together, the Son of Man is coming, he's looking for faithful servants in the meantime.
Micah McCormick: We could summarize it this way Christ calls us to wait for him faithfully.
Micah McCormick: Christ calls us to wait for him faithfully.
Micah McCormick: How do we demonstrate that?
Micah McCormick: We demonstrate that three ways.
Micah McCormick: Number one, by being anchored in his word, number two, by being alert to his coming, and number three, by being active in his service.
Micah McCormick: So first, we're to be faithfully waiting by being anchored in his word.
Micah McCormick: Verse 35.
Micah McCormick: Christ says there, My words will never pass away.
Micah McCormick: We have to be anchored in God's word because that's the thing that's permanent.
Micah McCormick: That's the thing that won't pass away.
Micah McCormick: Three different times in verses 34 and 35, something is said to pass away or to not pass away.
Micah McCormick: You see that first in verse 34, Jesus says, This generation will certainly not pass away until all these things take place.
Micah McCormick: So Jesus isn't saying that this generation will never, ever, ever, ever pass away.
Micah McCormick: The implication is when these things take place, that generation will pass away.
Micah McCormick: Well, what things?
Micah McCormick: There's a verbal clue for us right in this chapter.
Micah McCormick: Where else do we hear the phrase these things?
Micah McCormick: Go all the way back up to when this whole section starts in verse number two of chapter 24.
Micah McCormick: His disciples are pointing out the significance of the temple complex.
Micah McCormick: And Jesus says, Do you see all these things talking about the temple they've been discussing?
Micah McCormick: Then Jesus goes on to say, Not one stone will be left, it'll all be torn down.
Micah McCormick: The next place we find that expression is in verse number three.
Micah McCormick: There the disciples ask, When will these things happen?
Micah McCormick: So Jesus has just said, the stone's not going to be left on top of another, it's going to be torn down.
Micah McCormick: And the disciples say, When will these things happen?
Micah McCormick: When will the destruction of the temple happen?
Micah McCormick: And then they go on to ask an additional question to the disciples in verse number three question about the sign of his coming and the end of the age.
Micah McCormick: So two times right at the outset of this discourse, these things refers to the temple and its destruction.
Micah McCormick: So I take it that here in verse 34, Jesus is circling back to remind his disciples that these things will take place.
Micah McCormick: The temple will pass away, and that stands in contrast with God's word that never passes away.
Micah McCormick: Jeremiah 7, verse 4.
Micah McCormick: Do not trust in deceitful words, chanting, This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.
Micah McCormick: People in Jeremiah's day were appealing to the temple, but they weren't listening to God's words.
Micah McCormick: They weren't listening to what he said.
Micah McCormick: Jeremiah had already prophesied in chapter three of a coming day when people will no longer say the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.
Micah McCormick: And it will never enter their minds or be remembered.
Micah McCormick: It will not be missed, nor will another one be made.
Micah McCormick: So, despite the Indiana Jones movies, that's not what Jeremiah says.
Micah McCormick: Jeremiah says there's a coming day when this piece of furniture that was so central in the temple, it was the throne room of God, where people won't even ask about it.
Micah McCormick: It's passing away.
Micah McCormick: When we fast forward to the book of Revelation, Revelation 21, 22, John writes, I did not see a temple in it, because the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
Micah McCormick: Temple passes away, and even generations pass away.
Micah McCormick: As for man, his days are like grass, he blooms like a flower of the field.
Micah McCormick: When the wind passes over it, it vanishes.
Micah McCormick: Its place is no longer known.
Micah McCormick: Psalm 90 ten, our lives last seventy years, or if we're strong, eighty years.
Micah McCormick: Even the best of them are struggle and sorrow.
Micah McCormick: Indeed, they pass quickly and we fly away.
Micah McCormick: These things take place.
Micah McCormick: That generation passes away.
Micah McCormick: Future generations pass away, but God's word lasts forever.
Micah McCormick: Pastor Doug mentioned a couple of weeks ago that uh some people have tried to use verse 34 as kind of a calculator to determine the exact time frame of the Lord's return.
Micah McCormick: So they'll say, well, Israel was reestablished in 1948, and a generation is 40 years, so Christ is coming back in 1988.
Micah McCormick: And they were wrong.
Micah McCormick: And then some other people come along and say, Ah-uh, but wait, but wait.
Micah McCormick: Psalm says a generation could be 70 years.
Micah McCormick: So it's not 1988, it's 2018.
Micah McCormick: And they were wrong.
Micah McCormick: And then some people, I was on a website this week, wasted 10 minutes of my precious life on this website, but lest you say, well, no one really thinks this, the people do.
Micah McCormick: But wait, wait, wait, wait.
Micah McCormick: The Psalm says 70 or 80 years.
Micah McCormick: So see, it's not 2018, it's 2028.
Micah McCormick: I would love for the Lord to return in 2028.
Micah McCormick: We would all celebrate that, but we don't know.
Micah McCormick: And when we treat scripture that way, it's not only that people are misinterpreting scripture, they're giving fodder to the scoffers who say, Where is the promise of his coming?
Micah McCormick: We don't want to do that.
Micah McCormick: Even in verse 35, it's not only the temple, it's not only generations that come and go.
Micah McCormick: Even it says in verse 35, heaven and earth will pass away.
Micah McCormick: Second Peter.
Micah McCormick: Peter writes the same thing in chapter 3, verses 8 to 10.
Micah McCormick: Dear friends, don't overlook this one fact.
Micah McCormick: With the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.
Micah McCormick: The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.
Micah McCormick: But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.
Micah McCormick: Similar language to what we read here in Matthew.
Micah McCormick: On that day, the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed.
Micah McCormick: God wants us to set our whole heart on his word to be anchored there.
Micah McCormick: How many of you really thought there was ever a day when you might not see the World Trade Center standing in its place?
Micah McCormick: How many of you, and we love having the children with us, if you can remember when you were nine years old, to think of 70 or 80 years, that's basically like forever.
Micah McCormick: Like I'm never gonna die.
Micah McCormick: And then as you get older, you realize, well, life actually just rushes out to sea like a sandcastle when the wind comes in.
Micah McCormick: Even beautiful buildings, great buildings, crumble and fall.
Micah McCormick: But Jesus upholds everything by the power of his word.
Micah McCormick: And if it's his word that sustains the heavens and the earth, if it's his word that determines the end from the beginning, then we have to anchor our lives in his word.
Micah McCormick: That's faithful waiting.
Micah McCormick: And it's not just individually, we as a church want to be anchored in the word together.
Micah McCormick: That's why when we come, we want to be having scripture guide what we sing about and what we listen to on the Lord's Day, and how we have it read, and how we have it infusing our prayers and hopefully our conversations.
Micah McCormick: We want to be anchored in the word together as we wait for Him.
Micah McCormick: It's His Word.
Micah McCormick: It comes from Christ, the Son of Man, and it's meant to bring us back to Him.
Micah McCormick: Revelation 21, 23.
Micah McCormick: The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it.
Micah McCormick: This new Jerusalem doesn't need the sun or the moon because the glory of God illuminates it, and its lamp is the Lamb.
Micah McCormick: So there will be a new heavens and the earth, new earth.
Micah McCormick: After this heaven and earth passes away, there'll be a new creation, but even that created order is in remarkable ways changed and transformed as Christ encompasses everything.
Micah McCormick: So let the word bring you to Jesus the Son.
Micah McCormick: Second, we demonstrate that we are faithfully waiting when we're alert to his coming.
Micah McCormick: Verse 42.
Micah McCormick: Therefore, be alert.
Micah McCormick: Or some of your versions might say, Watch or be ready.
Micah McCormick: Since you don't know what day your Lord is coming, but know this if the homeowner had broken, had known what time the thief was coming, he would have stayed alert.
Micah McCormick: There it is again, and not let his house be broken into.
Micah McCormick: That is why you are also to be ready.
Micah McCormick: So it's not just enough to have an idea that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back.
Micah McCormick: We want to be anticipating it.
Micah McCormick: Not predicting the day or the hour.
Micah McCormick: We don't know the times and seasons, but we can still be anticipating and alert and ready for his coming when he does come.
Micah McCormick: We're drawn back to this final coming of Christ there in verse 36.
Micah McCormick: So before he talks about being alert and this parable of the owner that goes away and comes back, notice verse 36.
Micah McCormick: Now concerning that day and hour.
Micah McCormick: Again, in this section, Christ has talked both about the destruction of the temple in the first century and about his final coming.
Micah McCormick: And he gives us this clue that he's talking about the final coming.
Micah McCormick: And then he goes on in verse 37 to not give us the exact day or the hour, but he does make a comparison for us.
Micah McCormick: He compares his second coming, his final coming, to the days of Noah.
Micah McCormick: As the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be.
Micah McCormick: That was the scripture reading for this morning that Mike helped us with.
Micah McCormick: And there's something similar about his second coming from the days of Noah.
Micah McCormick: What is that similarity?
Micah McCormick: The days of Noah were days of judgment.
Micah McCormick: The people that weren't ready for the flood were swept away.
Micah McCormick: Verse 38 highlights that.
Micah McCormick: Carrying on in life with no thought of the God of heaven who's overall.
Micah McCormick: Until the day Noah boarded the ark, they didn't know until the flood came and swept them all away.
Micah McCormick: They weren't alert to coming judgment.
Micah McCormick: If you're here and you're not alert to the coming of Christ, you're going to be swept away in judgment.
Micah McCormick: I say that with no ill will towards you, but to warn you based on what Jesus Himself says.
Micah McCormick: Do you personally know the one who's coming?
Micah McCormick: Not just are you a respecter of the idea of God in general, or you have some thoughts of Jesus, but have you turned from your own way and trusted in him alone?
Micah McCormick: Have you embraced him and received him?
Micah McCormick: Don't think that somehow you're going to be able to accumulate enough good works to withstand his coming.
Micah McCormick: That's like a child taking some Legos and building a little house and putting it up on the lifeguard stand in Long Beach and thinking, you know, when Hurricane Sandy comes through, that'll it'll hold up.
Micah McCormick: It won't.
Micah McCormick: It'll be swept away with God's judgment.
Micah McCormick: And when the Lord Jesus returns, if you don't know him, you won't be able in that day to point your finger at the Christians who made bad predictions about the future.
Micah McCormick: You have to stand before God.
Micah McCormick: You won't be able to point your finger at those who are hypocrites, which this passage talks about.
Micah McCormick: We'll get into that, but you have to stand before the Lord.
Micah McCormick: And death and final judgment really do come.
Micah McCormick: It comes suddenly and irreversibly.
Micah McCormick: Verses 40 to 41, let the listener understand for a moment here.
Micah McCormick: But sometimes you might have heard these two verses and you haven't closely considered the context and the comparison Christ is making.
Micah McCormick: So there's two men in the field, one's taken, one's left, there's two women grinding grain, one's taken, one's left.
Micah McCormick: He's comparing it to Noah's day when people are going about their business and the flood comes and sweeps them away.
Micah McCormick: So Jesus isn't saying, at least here in this passage, that all the Christians are going to mysteriously disappear for many years.
Micah McCormick: He's saying if you are not ready, you're going to be swept away in judgment.
Micah McCormick: That's the comparison here.
Micah McCormick: No, I didn't.
Micah McCormick: I did read the first book.
Micah McCormick: Usually the books are better than the movies, and just as a general rule of thumb.
Micah McCormick: But I have to remind you of something you already know, and I know you know this, but Tim Lahaye is not inspired by God, but Matthew is.
Micah McCormick: So focus on what Matthew's saying here.
Micah McCormick: If you want to talk to me about other passages of scripture after the service, that's fine.
Micah McCormick: But right here he's comparing it to this flood of judgment.
Micah McCormick: Remember the parable of the weeds in Matthew 13?
Micah McCormick: Therefore, just as the weeds are gathered and burned in the fire, so will be at the end of the age.
Micah McCormick: The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom all who cause sin and those guilty of lawlessness.
Micah McCormick: They will throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Micah McCormick: Then the righteous will shine like the sun and their father's kingdom.
Micah McCormick: Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.
Micah McCormick: But there's a hopefulness.
Micah McCormick: We're alert to his coming, and we can be alert with hope and expectation if we've received his salvation.
Micah McCormick: And to do that, we've got to consider his first coming.
Micah McCormick: His first coming was a coming to bring salvation, to be a substitute, to live a perfect life, to die the death that we deserved.
Micah McCormick: All this judgment that we're speaking about, Christ took it upon himself and his first coming.
Micah McCormick: And for all those who turn and trust in him, there's freedom.
Micah McCormick: There's not a looking forward to that last day with a cowering fear, but an excitement that our Lord will return and receive us to himself.
Micah McCormick: He'll be marveled at on that day by all those who have believed in him.
Micah McCormick: Hold on to him as the faithful servant.
Micah McCormick: That's our hope right there.
Micah McCormick: We don't have to know exactly when he's coming to be excited about his coming.
Micah McCormick: Human nature is not meant to know all things.
Micah McCormick: Even the Son, and listen carefully, even the Son in his human nature, according to his human mind, apparently didn't know things that the Father knew.
Micah McCormick: He grew in wisdom and stature according to his human nature.
Micah McCormick: Yes, he's he's divine.
Micah McCormick: But to be alert to his coming is to expect it with anticipation and wonder, not to put every little last detail in place because we can't match up exactly all those little details, but we can be excited about it.
Micah McCormick: We can be prayerfully alert.
Micah McCormick: Remember when Jesus is with the disciples and he's in the garden, he says, just watch with me and pray, be alert in prayer.
Micah McCormick: And then he comes out and they're they're sleeping because they they lost that connection to him.
Micah McCormick: We'll come, and I don't want to uh preach Kevin's sermon for him next week.
Micah McCormick: I don't want to do that, but we'll come to this parable of the brides waiting for the groom to come.
Micah McCormick: Are you ready?
Micah McCormick: As a bride anticipates the groom.
Micah McCormick: You know, I've been To a number of weddings, and I have yet to be at a wedding where it's about to start.
Micah McCormick: The groom's here, the bride's in the back somewhere, and someone comes out and says, Stop the music, hang on a second.
Micah McCormick: The bride fell asleep.
Micah McCormick: She was in the back.
Micah McCormick: Canon and D was taking too long.
Micah McCormick: She got bored.
Micah McCormick: She fell asleep.
Micah McCormick: We're trying to wake her up.
Micah McCormick: Just hold on.
Micah McCormick: Hasn't happened.
Micah McCormick: Not one time yet in all the weddings I've been to.
Micah McCormick: Because the bride is anticipating being united to the groom.
Micah McCormick: She's alert.
Micah McCormick: She's ready.
Micah McCormick: She's excited to be there.
Micah McCormick: Don't sleep on Jesus.
Micah McCormick: Be anchored in his word.
Micah McCormick: Be alert to his coming.
Micah McCormick: And then finally, this morning, be active in his service.
Micah McCormick: Verse number 46.
Micah McCormick: Blessed is that servant whom the master finds doing his job when he comes.
Micah McCormick: We have a trust from God.
Micah McCormick: We've got a job to do.
Micah McCormick: Waiting faithfully is active waiting.
Micah McCormick: We need to be about the Lord's business all the while, yes, with an eye to the return of our Lord.
Micah McCormick: Faithful waiting is active waiting.
Micah McCormick: Be active in his service.
Micah McCormick: It's not like when you're waiting in the dentist's office.
Micah McCormick: You know what I mean?
Micah McCormick: You know your name's going to get called.
Micah McCormick: You know you've got an appointment, but what are you doing in the meantime?
Micah McCormick: Well, I haven't looked at golf digest since I was last here.
Micah McCormick: Is Tiger Woods still playing?
Micah McCormick: Let me check this out.
Micah McCormick: You know something's happening, but it's not actually animating what you're doing for those 15 minutes while you're waiting.
Micah McCormick: So it's it's not waiting like that.
Micah McCormick: This is more like you're an employee at Chick-fil-A and they get you in the morning and say, hey, everybody, listen up.
Micah McCormick: The owner's coming today.
Micah McCormick: How are you gonna wait if you know the owner's coming?
Micah McCormick: Uh hopefully, you correct me if I'm wrong, but hopefully, the the employees aren't gonna, someone's not gonna raise their hand and say, Well, owner coming or not, I need to double break today.
Micah McCormick: Uh Taylor Swift's new album just dropped, and I've got a lot of songs to listen to.
Micah McCormick: Uh, when the owner gets here, let me know.
Micah McCormick: I'll come over and throw some waffle fries in the fryer, and it'll be fine.
Micah McCormick: Of course not.
Micah McCormick: You you want to be eager to have everything prepared, all the samples lined up, everything clean.
Micah McCormick: You're waiting, but that's gonna inform how you serve while you're waiting.
Micah McCormick: This passage describes in more detail unfaithful waiting.
Micah McCormick: So, verse 49 There's a servant who is entrusted with this charge from the master.
Micah McCormick: It's a parable, and he starts to beat his fellow servants.
Micah McCormick: It's a warning there.
Micah McCormick: He eats and drinks with drunkards.
Micah McCormick: So it's unfaithful waiting.
Micah McCormick: It can be abusive tyrants like the character in this parable.
Micah McCormick: People aren't flourishing under their care, they're shriveling under their care.
Micah McCormick: They just want to be in charge and control and let others know that.
Micah McCormick: That's not faithful waiting.
Micah McCormick: That's not active in the Lord's service.
Micah McCormick: Or sometimes it's like being a drunk.
Micah McCormick: Oh, the master will come back when he comes back.
Micah McCormick: In the meantime, let's eat and drink, because tomorrow we'll die.
Micah McCormick: That's unfaithful waiting.
Micah McCormick: Jesus uses a word in verse 51.
Micah McCormick: It's a word he's used before in Matthew.
Micah McCormick: Uh it's a it's a scary word.
Micah McCormick: Not the word cut or pieces or weeping, those are frightening words.
Micah McCormick: The lazy servants in this parable get assigned a place with the hypocrites.
Micah McCormick: It's a very interesting word.
Micah McCormick: He's just been talking about someone who is a merciless drunk.
Micah McCormick: That sounds like he's obviously a bad guy.
Micah McCormick: What's so hypocritical about that?
Micah McCormick: There's nothing hidden about that.
Micah McCormick: But this servant is still presenting himself as part of the master's house.
Micah McCormick: Remember the Pharisees?
Micah McCormick: That's been one of the main groups of people that Jesus is speaking to and warning in the section of Matthew leading up to where we are now.
Micah McCormick: The Pharisees very much saw themselves as servants in the Lord's house, but they were trampling over widows.
Micah McCormick: They might not have been drunks in that sense, but they were so intoxicated with their own pride, they didn't see the coming judgment.
Micah McCormick: I would pray there would be no one here who you take the communion wine today, but you know you're planning to go home and have another drink and another drink and another drink, and you're presenting yourself as part of God's house, but it doesn't actually affect the way that you live.
Micah McCormick: I would I would pray there'd be no one here today who you would flatter some in the church to come across as as a healthy child of God, but then you would belittle the least of these as brothers.
Micah McCormick: Jesus is going to go on, even in the next chapter, to say, Whoever gives a cup of cold water to the least of these, you've done it to me.
Micah McCormick: So what does it look like?
Micah McCormick: Those are the the the negative side, unfaithful waiting, kind of activity that's not the right kind of active service.
Micah McCormick: What does it look like to be active in the service of our Lord?
Micah McCormick: That when he comes, we'd be doing his job.
Micah McCormick: What does that what does that look like?
Micah McCormick: Well, let me make just one before I'll get there, but just one qualification before I do that.
Micah McCormick: I think some people could read these verses, verses 45 to 51, and they could mistakenly think this.
Micah McCormick: They could think what this means is that I have to be really busy doing a lot of good things.
Micah McCormick: And then if I do enough good things, when Jesus comes back, maybe he'll give me that promotion to heaven I've always wanted.
Micah McCormick: That's not what Christ is saying here.
Micah McCormick: These these loyal deeds, this active service, it reveals what's in your heart.
Micah McCormick: It doesn't create the outcome, but it does reveal what's actually there all along.
Micah McCormick: It reveals if you know the Savior, if you've trusted in him alone.
Micah McCormick: So, so understand that.
Micah McCormick: But now we do want to be active because if we know the Lord, if we love him, if we've embraced his son, we want to be doing all that he wants us to do.
Micah McCormick: And that starts with the mindset.
Micah McCormick: This kind of goes back to the last point.
Micah McCormick: You've got to have this mindset of marveling at the Son, loving him, that that would so motivate your service that that changes the way you look, not just at this thing on Sunday or this thing on Tuesday, but the whole scope of your life and what you're living for.
Micah McCormick: Even the problem with the unfaithful servant in these verses, it begins with his attitude.
Micah McCormick: Verse 48.
Micah McCormick: It didn't begin with a crossword to one of his fellow servants.
Micah McCormick: It didn't begin with one drink and then lead to more.
Micah McCormick: It began when in his own heart he said, Maybe my master is delayed.
Micah McCormick: When in our own hearts we start to doubt God's word, that's that's where we're gonna get thrown off track of his service.
Micah McCormick: So this is going back again to the last point.
Micah McCormick: If we're alert to his coming, if we're in love with our Savior, our bridegroom, then we have the right mindset to understand that whatever we do, whether we eat or drink or anything, we do it for his glory.
Micah McCormick: Being active in the Lord's service isn't just being busy.
Micah McCormick: All the time you hear people say, I'm so busy, in and of itself, that doesn't tell us anything.
Micah McCormick: You could be busy about all kinds of things.
Micah McCormick: Are you active in the busyness of loving God and cherishing Him and working for Him in all that you do?
Micah McCormick: So it doesn't mean being active in the Lord's service, doesn't mean you have to be on the paid staff of a church somewhere.
Micah McCormick: But it does mean there's something all-encompassing about the direction of your life.
Micah McCormick: So if you're a businessman, it's it's not only, okay, I don't cheat people in business uh because I'm happen to be a Christian and we have certain, you know, bit of moral rules that we follow.
Micah McCormick: That's true, but it's more than that.
Micah McCormick: It's I've seen Jesus Christ, who's the perfection of all truth, who always spoke and dealt with everyone in integrity, and he's changed and captivated my heart, and I want to live with that same truth and integrity.
Micah McCormick: I want people to see his glory reflected in the way that I live.
Micah McCormick: It's I want to work and earn money because in a world that's so greedy and stingy, if I don't work hard and just give generously, how will people know about the generosity of God who has provided salvation through Jesus Christ, who's given us life and breath and everything else?
Micah McCormick: You know, I want to give money to the Keras School Project over in Indonesia because I'm not so consumed with just my bigger house or my possessions, but I want peoples and nations to have gospel platforms on which to build that others might come to know the Lord.
Micah McCormick: You see how all-encompassing that is?
Micah McCormick: If you're a mom, it is more than I've got to make lunch today for the kids.
Micah McCormick: I know God wants me to do that.
Micah McCormick: Yes, but you're making food for image bearers who bear the glory of God.
Micah McCormick: And you want your life to be part of what shapes them to know the greatness of God and to be image bearers that are arrows in the hand of the king that go out into the world in the future, who knows doing what?
Micah McCormick: But there's an eternal purpose that animates everything you're doing.
Micah McCormick: Plant that apple tree for the glory of God, as Doug said a couple of weeks ago.
Micah McCormick: If we review where we've just been in Matthew 24, going back to last week, the week before that, there's repeated tribulation.
Micah McCormick: There's repeated calls to endurance.
Micah McCormick: One of the chief ways that we're active in the service of the Lord, doing what he wants us to do, is by enduring amidst suffering without complaining.
Micah McCormick: When we are persecuted for the sake of Christ and we endure it happily, that shines the spotlight back on the coming king, the master.
Micah McCormick: That people would look at us and say, Why do they bear up under suffering so well?
Micah McCormick: Because we have a hope.
Micah McCormick: We have a Lord that's changed us and we know he's coming back.
Micah McCormick: We want the gospel of the kingdom to be proclaimed among all nations.
Micah McCormick: We don't want peoples and tribes to mourn when the Son of Man returns.
Micah McCormick: We want people from every tribe to rejoice because they know him.
Micah McCormick: So it's it's all of our life being built around the Son of Man and his significance for us.
Micah McCormick: Be someone who waits faithfully.
Micah McCormick: And I praise God.
Micah McCormick: So many of you model that so well for me.
Micah McCormick: I think of the older saints in our church.
Micah McCormick: I'm so thankful for your example of faithful endurance, faithful belief, of taking each step of life and seeing it as an opportunity to serve the coming king and to make his glory known everywhere.
Micah McCormick: Thank you.
Micah McCormick: Please keep enduring.
Micah McCormick: Let's turn over to 1 Peter.
Micah McCormick: We'll we'll conclude here, but I want you to look at 1 Peter.
Micah McCormick: Christ calls us to wait faithfully.
Micah McCormick: We do that by being first anchored in his word, second, alert to his coming, and third, active in his service.
Micah McCormick: But I want you to see the way Peter, it's almost as though he's taking these words of Jesus and applying them to the people that he's writing to.
Micah McCormick: 1 Peter chapter 4.
Micah McCormick: The end of all things is near.
Micah McCormick: This is verse 7.
Micah McCormick: Sorry.
Micah McCormick: 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 7.
Micah McCormick: The end of all things is near.
Micah McCormick: Isn't that what Christ says?
Micah McCormick: Have you stopped to think about eternity?
Micah McCormick: How it it it's it's so soon to be here, our our lives and everything just rush away.
Micah McCormick: The end of all things is near, therefore be alert.
Micah McCormick: There's another connection point.
Micah McCormick: Be alert and sober-minded for prayer.
Micah McCormick: Now he's going to tell us some of the things that that looks like.
Micah McCormick: Above all, maintain constant love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins.
Micah McCormick: Be hospitable to one another without complaining.
Micah McCormick: Just as each one has received a gift, we'll come to the parable of the talents in the next chapter.
Micah McCormick: As each has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the very grace of God.
Micah McCormick: If anyone speaks, let it be as one who speaks God's words.
Micah McCormick: If anyone serves, let it be from the strength God provides.
Micah McCormick: And here's that grand overarching purpose, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything, to him be the glory and the power forever and ever.
Micah McCormick: Can we say from our hearts, may God be glorified in everything forever and ever?
Micah McCormick: May it be so.
Micah McCormick: Let's pray.
Micah McCormick: Lord, oh how we're longing for this to take shape, to take a root in our hearts.
Micah McCormick: And we need you to root this in us.
Micah McCormick: For any here who haven't thought of coming death and what's beyond it, that they would be sweetly drawn to Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Micah McCormick: For those of us who do know you, let us walk with the greatest humility and at the same time the greatest confidence to know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord, because it's the Lord Jesus Christ that we serve.
Micah McCormick: Thank you for a word that speaks so clearly.
Micah McCormick: Thank you for a word that gives us an anchor in a fading world.
Micah McCormick: Thank you for the promise that Christ is indeed coming.
Micah McCormick: And we we long for his appearing.
Micah McCormick: We want to be marveling at him, the one whom our soul loves.
Micah McCormick: Give us that hunger and anticipation and give us an earnestness, give us a churning desire to work, not simply to occupy our time or to have others look at our deeds, but to work for our master, to work because we love him, to work with all of his goodness and grace coming alongside of our work and under our work, with the hope of his coming motivating our work in our lives.
Micah McCormick: Lord Jesus, thank you for symbols, symbols that remind us of all that we have been given in Christ, all that is yet coming, and the thankfulness and gratitude which sends us on our way in a manner worthy of God.
Micah McCormick: So as we consider these symbols now, give us reflection and give us celebration and joy together, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.