SPEAKER_00: Would you pray once more with me?
SPEAKER_00: Would you bow your heads?
SPEAKER_00: And would you pray quietly to yourself that if there is anyone here who does not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that they would be convicted of their sins and that they would confess Christ as Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray that?
SPEAKER_00: And now would you pray for the person to your right and to your left that the Lord would open their eyes spiritually that they might see Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And finally, would you pray for yourself?
SPEAKER_00: That you would be holding on your thing.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that you would speak through me now in the power of your Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: May you be honored and glorified for Christ's sake.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I invite you to open your Bibles to Titus chapter two.
SPEAKER_00: We've been studying this amazing epistle to Titus.
SPEAKER_00: Paul wrote this to Titus, who was in Crete, with instructions on how to lead in the church and how to order the church.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at all three chapters of Titus, chapter one deals with putting the church into order in terms of the elders and dealing with false teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 2 deals with life in the church, the virtues and character qualities of those within the church.
SPEAKER_00: And then chapter 3 deals with life in the world, how we are to live out there.
SPEAKER_00: Well, chapter 2, we looked at, we've been studying this, we've looked at all the virtues that Paul talks about of the older men, the younger men, the older women, the younger women of slaves.
SPEAKER_00: We've looked at all these virtues and we saw the amazing reality, not to be missed, that the grace of God is the foundation and the fuel of all of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you miss the grace of God, all that you have is moralism and legalism.
SPEAKER_00: Have people been prone, denominations been prone to fall into legalism and moralism?
SPEAKER_00: You bet they have.
SPEAKER_00: That was the problem in the first century with the Judaizers.
SPEAKER_00: But if you miss the grace of God, that's what ultimately happens.
SPEAKER_00: So amazing truth, Paul says, it is the grace of God that appeared, bringing salvation for all men, verse 12, that trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, godly, and upright lives in this present age.
SPEAKER_00: So the grace of God is the foundation of our sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: It's what does this work of virtue in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: And it's easy to see all that and maybe move past this passage on to chapter 3, our life in the world.
SPEAKER_00: But I think if we do, we're going to miss something incredibly important.
SPEAKER_00: Massively important.
SPEAKER_00: Astoundingly important.
SPEAKER_00: And that is found in verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the mindset of the Christian.
SPEAKER_00: This is the mindset of someone who has encountered God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: This is the posture.
SPEAKER_00: He says, they are waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that word waiting, or sometimes it's translated looking.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about looking with the eyes of your mind.
SPEAKER_00: Waiting is a posture of the mind.
SPEAKER_00: It's a posture of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Children, you know all about this.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you, you have your birthday circled on the calendar or Christmas, and you're waiting with eager expectation.
SPEAKER_00: You're carrying about your life, but you're waiting for that day, that important moment.
SPEAKER_00: I think about all the parents that sent off their boys in World War II.
SPEAKER_00: And it might look like they were carrying on with their lives.
SPEAKER_00: They were going to work, maybe going fishing on the weekend, doing those things, but in the back of their mind, what was going on the whole time, those four or five years that their boys were gone, what was going on?
SPEAKER_00: They were waiting.
SPEAKER_00: They were waiting for that day that their boy was coming home.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it's a posture of the mind.
SPEAKER_00: And it's, I remember when I was engaged to Grace Anna, I was I counted down the days from a hundred to the day of our waiting, looking forward to that day with glorious expectation.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the idea.
SPEAKER_00: That the Christian has this mindset, should have this mindset, and in fact, must have this mindset where we are looking to the day when Jesus will return.
SPEAKER_00: And this mindset should dominate the Christian experience.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what Paul calls the second coming of Jesus Christ in verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: He uses one article and he links this phrase, the blessed hope, to the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is that the appearing, the second coming of Jesus Christ, is the blessed hope of the Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that word hope, elpidos, it means a fixed event in the future that will happen.
SPEAKER_00: It's not wishful thinking.
SPEAKER_00: It's not, I hope the Cowboys will win the Super Bowl this year.
SPEAKER_00: It's this will happen.
SPEAKER_00: And notice that word blessed.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word makarios.
SPEAKER_00: You could translate it happy, joyful, glorious.
SPEAKER_00: It's what's used in the Beatitudes.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul says that this expectation of the second coming of Jesus Christ, the appearing of Christ, is the happy, joyful hope of the Christian.
SPEAKER_00: That this hope is in our hearts and in our minds.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we carry with us.
SPEAKER_00: Could you use some happy hope this morning?
SPEAKER_00: What I have found is that so often this eager expectation of Christ's coming, this happy, glorious hope, is crowded out in our minds by all sorts of tribulations, anxieties, fears, where we become so fixated on our own problems here that we forget about these glorious realities that are promised to us when our Lord returns.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just anxieties and trials, it's also looking at the fleeting pleasures of this world, which pale in comparison to what we will experience when the Lord Jesus returns.
SPEAKER_00: So, as Christians, this is the defining mindset that we are to have.
SPEAKER_00: That we are to be in eager expectation of the Lord's return.
SPEAKER_00: Paul numerous times says this.
SPEAKER_00: This is 1 Corinthians 1.7.
SPEAKER_00: He says, wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He describes the posture of the Christian in 1 Thessalonians 1.10 as waiting for God's Son from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Peter said this.
SPEAKER_00: This is 1 Peter 1.13.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you this, Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Is your hope set fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Is it fully there?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you kind of like, well, I really like the things that I'm experiencing now, and it's kind of there?
SPEAKER_00: If that's the answer, which let's be honest, we all struggle with that.
SPEAKER_00: It's because we fail to realize the greatness of the promise.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just being honest with you.
SPEAKER_00: And it's because we struggle with sin, we struggle with the proclivities of our flesh, and we fail to see things as they really are, the glories that we will experience when the Lord returns.
SPEAKER_00: And they are glorious.
SPEAKER_00: There's three frameworks of Paul's mindset in verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Three aspects of his thinking, and I want to show them to you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The first framework is the historical framework.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is more clear than this.
SPEAKER_00: That Paul viewed the second coming, the bodily return of Christ, as a historical event at the end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: It's very clear.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at verse 11, verse 11 is in reference to the first coming of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For the grace of God has appeared.
SPEAKER_00: That's an heiress tense.
SPEAKER_00: It means it's a completed action in history.
SPEAKER_00: The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.
SPEAKER_00: That's talking about the first coming of Jesus Christ, 6 BC to 30 to 33 AD.
SPEAKER_00: That happened, and Jesus brought salvation to all men through his death on the cross, which he's laid out in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: Then he says, but we're waiting for this verse 13, appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He uses the same word.
SPEAKER_00: Look at that word appearing.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Greek word epiphanyia.
SPEAKER_00: It's where we get our English word epiphany.
SPEAKER_00: And it speaks to the reality of suddenly appearing.
SPEAKER_00: You think about an illusionist.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's standing up on the platform and he all of a sudden disappears through a mirror or a cloak or something.
SPEAKER_00: And then the next thing you know, he appears up in the balcony, and everybody is awed by this fact that he suddenly appears.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul uses this word, Epiphany, to describe the second coming of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You think about this.
SPEAKER_00: You're going about your day.
SPEAKER_00: There's maybe some clouds in the sky, and then all of a sudden, Paul's using this descriptive language to describe he's going to appear.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be there.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to see him one second, and then the next second, he's going to be on all the news networks.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be in the sky.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to appear, is what Paul is saying.
SPEAKER_00: And that language is how Paul refers to the second coming of Christ over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: For example, he tells Timothy, 1 Timothy 6.14, he says, keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you be faithful until the epiphany of the Lord Jesus Christ, until that moment when he appears.
SPEAKER_00: He says in 2 Timothy, talking about preaching the word, he says, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And by his epiphany, by his appearing, in other words, you preach as if he's going to appear that moment.
SPEAKER_00: That's how important it is.
SPEAKER_00: That's how real it is.
SPEAKER_00: You preach the word, Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: He tells the Thessalonians, talking about the Antichrist, this final man of lawlessness.
SPEAKER_00: He says Jesus is going to destroy him when he appears.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Thessalonians 2.8.
SPEAKER_00: And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing at the appearance of his coming.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul uses this very descriptive language to describe this second return of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He also uses the word where we get apocalyptic revelation, describes it as the revelation of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus will return.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, this is what Jesus taught his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Remember when Jesus ascended into heaven on the Mount of Olives?
SPEAKER_00: The disciples were there looking up into the sky, and then all of a sudden there were two angels there with them.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus will return.
SPEAKER_00: He will return in a glory cloud in the same way that he was taken up.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul describes it as an epiphany and a revelation.
SPEAKER_00: We will see him instantly.
SPEAKER_00: And why are we to hope in this?
SPEAKER_00: Why is this the happy, joyful hope of the Christian?
SPEAKER_00: Jot these references down.
SPEAKER_00: Paul teaches that when Jesus returns, the dead in Christ will be raised.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 15, 23, and we will all receive resurrection bodies.
SPEAKER_00: Also, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4.16.
SPEAKER_00: When he comes, Paul teaches that he will destroy the Antichrist and God's enemy.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: When he comes, he will judge the living and the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
SPEAKER_00: No wrong will go unpunished.
SPEAKER_00: He will judge.
SPEAKER_00: That's 2 Timothy 4.1.
SPEAKER_00: He will deliver believers from the wrath to come.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians 1.10.
SPEAKER_00: He will hand over the kingdom to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That's 1 Corinthians 15, 24.
SPEAKER_00: And then, amazing.
SPEAKER_00: We will always be with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The believer will always be with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians 4 17.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's important that we emphasize that this is a historical event in Paul's mind.
SPEAKER_00: This gives the Christian a great peace of mind.
SPEAKER_00: A great peace of mind.
SPEAKER_00: How does the secularist look at history?
SPEAKER_00: The secularist looks at history with question marks.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how this world will end.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what could happen.
SPEAKER_00: You could put in every catastrophic movie into that pause in the mind of the secularist.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Independence Day?
SPEAKER_00: Where the aliens show up and it's the end of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Armageddon, uh, asteroid is going to come from heaven and destroy the earth.
SPEAKER_00: You have these other movies where you have pandemics that take over the entire earth and the population of the earth is destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: The believer knows exactly how history will culminate.
SPEAKER_00: History will culminate with the return of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We've read ahead.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to guess at where history is going.
SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, furthermore.
SPEAKER_00: How do we look at evil in the world?
SPEAKER_00: What do we do when we're sinned against, when we're wronged?
SPEAKER_00: How can we forgive?
SPEAKER_00: How can we take in all the injustice that we see in this world?
SPEAKER_00: Remember what Paul says?
SPEAKER_00: Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: When will vengeance be meted out?
SPEAKER_00: When will justice be done?
SPEAKER_00: When the Lord returns.
SPEAKER_00: So we can look at history and we know look, it might seem like people are getting away with it, but they're not.
SPEAKER_00: There will be a day of justice.
SPEAKER_00: And this brings great clarity to our thinking.
SPEAKER_00: We know where history is going, and we know what will be done.
SPEAKER_00: And what a glorious day it will be, by the way, to always be with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's the happy hope.
SPEAKER_00: That's the glorious hope.
SPEAKER_00: Is that when he comes, we will forever then be with him.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the historical framework of all this.
SPEAKER_00: And that's clear in Paul's mind that he is looking with certainty at this event just like he looked at the certainty of the first coming of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But there's another aspect of Paul's thinking here that we need to see, another part of his framework.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the ethical framework in his thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Notice how Paul links verse 12 with verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: So the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what the grace of God does.
SPEAKER_00: It's all ethical.
SPEAKER_00: He says it trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.
SPEAKER_00: Period, right?
SPEAKER_00: Wrong.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Comma.
SPEAKER_00: The thought continues.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, verse 12 is linked to verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: These ideas of godly living and expectation of the second coming of Christ, these ideas go together.
SPEAKER_00: As a kid, you ever hear from your mom, you wait till your father gets home.
SPEAKER_00: What does that do?
SPEAKER_00: It's a cry to straighten up because you don't want to be doing that when your dad gets home.
SPEAKER_00: So there's an ethical dimension of this.
SPEAKER_00: And that word that Paul uses, waiting, it implies an active waiting.
SPEAKER_00: We're not just sitting on our thumbs.
SPEAKER_00: He says we're waiting.
SPEAKER_00: And this waiting for the Lord's coming is linked to renouncing ungodliness and worldly passions and living self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.
SPEAKER_00: Jot this verse down.
SPEAKER_00: This is 1 John 3, 3.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who hopes in him, talking about Christ, purifies himself as he is pure.
SPEAKER_00: So those who hope in the second coming of Christ purify themselves as Jesus is pure.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, thinking about the return of Christ changes how we live.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul is getting at.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus taught.
SPEAKER_00: That thinking about his return changes how we live.
SPEAKER_00: Take a little bit of an excurses here.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to turn to the left to the book of Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: So it's the very first book of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to turn to Matthew chapter 24, which is a section of Scripture known as the Olivet Discourse, where Jesus is talking about future events.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus teaches us three parables in Matthew 24 and 25 that all have ethical dimensions to them about awaiting for his return.
SPEAKER_00: The first parable is the parable of the righteous and the unrighteous slave.
SPEAKER_00: And you find that in Matthew 24, verse 45.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 45.
SPEAKER_00: Who then is the faithful and wise servant or slave, whom his master has set over his household to give them their food at the proper time?
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, when he comes.
SPEAKER_00: That's referencing the second coming.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Truly I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.
SPEAKER_00: But if that wicked servant says to himself, My master is delayed, and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites, in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: Let me explain this very briefly, very briefly.
SPEAKER_00: The servants represent those who profess Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's not comparing a genuine disciple with an outright pagan.
SPEAKER_00: That's the scary part.
SPEAKER_00: He's comparing people that profess Christ in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Two so-called slaves.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one is a faithful slave.
SPEAKER_00: That's the genuine born-again Christian.
SPEAKER_00: The hypocrite is someone who professes Christ with their lips, but doesn't actually believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now the point of this is that in light of the second coming, Jesus says that the faithful slave will live righteously.
SPEAKER_00: He'll do what he's supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: He'll take the food, the master's food, and he'll dispense it properly to the servants.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is saying the genuine believer will live righteously so that when Jesus returns, they will be found to be righteous by him.
SPEAKER_00: The professor, the hypocrite, they say, Well, that's a long way off.
SPEAKER_00: It's free grace.
SPEAKER_00: I've believed in Jesus, I can live however I want.
SPEAKER_00: And he withholds the food from the servants.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says he will return in an hour that he does not expect.
SPEAKER_00: And this is language that Jesus all the time used to describe what you would call hell or later the lake of fire.
SPEAKER_00: He will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites.
SPEAKER_00: In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: The point is, Jesus is saying, in light of the second coming, his disciples will live righteously.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: Second parable.
SPEAKER_00: Really a fascinating parable.
SPEAKER_00: That there's so much spiritual truth in this next parable.
SPEAKER_00: You could study it in a number of different messages, but it's the parable of the ten virgins.
SPEAKER_00: And again, this parable illustrates those waiting on the return of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And in the parable, Jesus is compared to a bridegroom.
SPEAKER_00: And the bridegroom is not yet at the wedding party.
SPEAKER_00: So the bridal party would be at the bride's house.
SPEAKER_00: And they would be awaiting the bridegroom to come from the groom's house to the bridal house.
SPEAKER_00: And normally the wedding ceremonies would happen at the bride's house.
SPEAKER_00: And in this case, this is the wedding party.
SPEAKER_00: There are ten virgins, they are the bridesmaids.
SPEAKER_00: And the tradition would be that they would go out and meet the bridegroom and accompany the bridegroom to the wedding.
SPEAKER_00: And if it was night, they would light torches to do this.
SPEAKER_00: And so an ancient torch would be a long piece of bronze or some type of metal.
SPEAKER_00: On top, you would put, kind of like Indiana Jones, you'd put a cloth up there and you would douse it in oil, and the oil would keep the cloth from burning up.
SPEAKER_00: So you would want the oil to be burning, not the cloth.
SPEAKER_00: So you would put oil there, you would light it, and then you could walk for a long time, or at least until that oil all burned up, and then the cloth would start to burn, and then trimming the wicks, if you will, that's you're trimming off the part of the cloth that has been charred, and then you're re-soaking that cloth in oil so that it will keep burning.
SPEAKER_00: Now, same principle that Jesus taught with the unrighteous and the righteous slave.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the ten bridesmaids, the ten virgins, they're the professing church.
SPEAKER_00: These aren't pagans here.
SPEAKER_00: These are professors.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, five are faithful, and five are foolish.
SPEAKER_00: Five are wise, five are foolish.
SPEAKER_00: And they go out, and there's a period where it seems like the bridegroom has been delayed, and they all fall asleep.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe there's something to read into that about the church not being awake.
SPEAKER_00: But suddenly the bridegroom is there, and the five wise virgins, they wake up, they put oil on their lamps, they get them lit, and then the five foolish virgins are saying, Hey, can we borrow some oil?
SPEAKER_00: They say we don't have enough oil.
SPEAKER_00: So they have to run to the market, and by that time the bridegroom goes with the wise virgins into the banquet hall, and then by the time the foolish virgins come, the door is shut, and it's too late.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, what's going on in the banquet hall?
SPEAKER_00: A party.
SPEAKER_00: A banquet.
SPEAKER_00: The marriage supper of the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're invited to.
SPEAKER_00: So, what's the point of the parable?
SPEAKER_00: What's the singular point about what distinguished the wise virgins from the foolish?
SPEAKER_00: They lived alertly.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they they they were ready.
SPEAKER_00: Football, we used to say, keep your head on the swivel.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that the receiver, he's not running for ice cream, he's going to the you you will you watch.
SPEAKER_00: They were watchful, they were ready, they were alert.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: You live with your soul ready to meet the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: No unfinished business, no unrepentant sin, no secrets in the closet, but you are ready.
SPEAKER_00: You live ready to meet the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And then this third parable, sometimes called the parable of the talents, or you could say the parable of the stewards.
SPEAKER_00: So you so the first one, the righteous and the unrighteous slave, teaches you to live righteously.
SPEAKER_00: The second parable teaches you to live alertly, and then this third parable teaches you to live faithfully.
SPEAKER_00: Faithfully.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, this is what this period in time of redemptive history is like.
SPEAKER_00: He says, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property.
SPEAKER_00: Who does the man represent?
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has gone on a journey.
SPEAKER_00: He has gone to the right hand of the Father, where he rules and reigns in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And he has entrusted his servants with talents who are his servants.
SPEAKER_00: That would be us.
SPEAKER_00: A talent is a massive sum of money.
SPEAKER_00: Today it would be equivalent to six to eight hundred thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_00: It's probably the amount of money that it would take a worker to earn in 10 to 12 years.
SPEAKER_00: It's a massive investment.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, this is what the kingdom of heaven is like now.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Jesus has gone.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15, he says he gives to one slave five talents, to another two, to another one, each according to his ability, and then he goes away.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He who received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more.
SPEAKER_00: So also he had two talents, made two talents more, but he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he does nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
SPEAKER_00: What does he do with God gives him?
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19, after a long time, the master of those servants came.
SPEAKER_00: That's the second coming.
SPEAKER_00: Settled accounts with them.
SPEAKER_00: He who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, Master, you delivered to me five talents.
SPEAKER_00: Here I made five talents more.
SPEAKER_00: His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over little, I will set you over much.
SPEAKER_00: Enter into the joy of your master.
SPEAKER_00: And he also, he who had the two talents, came forward, saying, Master, you delivered to me two talents.
SPEAKER_00: Here I have made two talents more.
SPEAKER_00: His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant.
SPEAKER_00: You've been faithful over little, I will set you over much.
SPEAKER_00: Enter into the joy of your master.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, what you do with your time, your talent, your treasure now matters for the position and reward that you will have in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_00: How you steward the talents that you have now is indicative of what you will be given to steward at the final judgment in the eternal kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing to think about.
SPEAKER_00: But, he says, Verse 24, he who also had received the one talent came forward, saying, Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Here, you have what is yours.
SPEAKER_00: But his master answered him, You wicked and slothful servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I scattered no seed, then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was mine own with interest.
SPEAKER_00: So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents.
SPEAKER_00: For every one who has more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
SPEAKER_00: And again, the same judgment as before.
SPEAKER_00: This is the final wrath of God.
SPEAKER_00: He says, cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness.
SPEAKER_00: In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the point.
SPEAKER_00: Those that are true believers, those have received grace, they will be faithful.
SPEAKER_00: They will be faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, to different degrees, that's part of Jesus' teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Some with the five talents, they're faithful with that.
SPEAKER_00: Those with the two talents, they're faithful with that.
SPEAKER_00: So we shouldn't look and compare, but nevertheless, with the genuine Christian, there will be faithfulness with what Jesus has given.
SPEAKER_00: There will be generosity.
SPEAKER_00: They will love to give to the church.
SPEAKER_00: There will be a willingness to serve of my time.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I want to give my time to evangelize.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give my time to serve with the children.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give my time to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, does anything that you have actually belong to you?
unknown: No.
SPEAKER_00: The day that you have tomorrow, is it yours?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that we own belongs to Him.
SPEAKER_00: And we have been called to be faithful, Jesus said.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus teaches three parables.
SPEAKER_00: He says, you better live righteously in light of the fact that I'm going to return.
SPEAKER_00: You better live alertly in light of the fact that I'm going to return.
SPEAKER_00: And third, you better live faithfully in light of the fact that I will return.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the ethical framework that Paul is thinking about.
SPEAKER_00: If you turn back, that was the excursus.
SPEAKER_00: So turn back to the right to Titus.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul is thinking, okay, this is historical.
SPEAKER_00: He is going to appear in history.
SPEAKER_00: Second, this is ethical.
SPEAKER_00: It matters then how we live.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that he's going to return, it trains us to renounce ungodliness and to live for him.
SPEAKER_00: And then the greatest aspect of Paul's thinking is found here at the end of verse 13, this final phrase, and this is the doxological framework of Paul's thinking.
SPEAKER_00: The doxological, that's a fancy word for glory.
SPEAKER_00: Notice this amazing, exalted language that he uses to describe the second coming of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He says the epiphany of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
SPEAKER_00: That's loaded language.
SPEAKER_00: You can't get a higher Christology than that.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what he calls Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
SPEAKER_00: What does he call Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, this is translated absolutely correctly.
SPEAKER_00: There's one article that's used to describe great God.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people have separated this, the appearing of the great God and the Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, great God doesn't necessarily refer to Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There's one article that goes before all of it, it's talking about the same person.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus Christ is God.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is teaching the doctrine of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: There's one God, yes, but God is three: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The Father is truly God, the Son is truly God, the Holy Spirit is truly God.
SPEAKER_00: Paul calls Jesus the great God.
SPEAKER_00: He is the great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And notice that he uses this word glory.
SPEAKER_00: The appearance of the glory of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus was on this earth, his glory was concealed.
SPEAKER_00: It was revealed, remember, on the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John, and Jesus said, Come up, and he revealed in a moment his marvelous glory.
SPEAKER_00: They were stunned.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, When he comes back, it'll be in that glory.
SPEAKER_00: John, if you read Revelation chapter 1, he has a glimpse of this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I saw the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I saw him.
SPEAKER_00: And he says he had white hair like wool.
SPEAKER_00: He's wearing a robe, a golden sash, a sword, which is the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: The sword is not a literal sword.
SPEAKER_00: He's speaking the word of God, and it's like a sword.
SPEAKER_00: And John described him, he said, his eyes were like flames of fire.
SPEAKER_00: And his face shone like the sun.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus comes back, we'll be caught up with the saints.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to see, you're going to see the Apostle Paul in a resurrection body.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to see Abraham in a resurrection body.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to see Moses in a resurrection body.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to see if your mother or father were Christians, you're going to see them in that resurrection body.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe children that you've, it's going to be amazing.
SPEAKER_00: But the most amazing thing you will see is the glory of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And the fact that that doesn't wow us like it should.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, this is our blessed hope.
SPEAKER_00: John says, when we see him, we will become like him.
SPEAKER_00: This is an amazing reality.
SPEAKER_00: Not only will we see him in all of his glory, we will become changed with resurrection bodies like his.
SPEAKER_00: We will be made completely holy.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what that means: it means that we can gaze on his glory without the problem of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, even Moses, take off your sandals, for you are on holy ground, and he's groveling in the dirt, afraid to even look up.
SPEAKER_00: No, we will gaze with unveiled face, having been purified and cleansed from all sin.
SPEAKER_00: And we will be made like him, and we will forever be with him, and we will worship him forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: So, Christian, do you long for his appearing?
SPEAKER_00: That's the mindset of the Christian is that you long for that day.
SPEAKER_00: You can't wait for that day.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you several things to think about in light of that.
SPEAKER_00: Several things to think about, very important.
SPEAKER_00: If only you can answer these questions.
SPEAKER_00: Are you a true servant of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Or merely a professor?
SPEAKER_00: Lots of people grow up in the church, lots of people go to Christian schools, lots of kids in homeschool.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Wear the Jesus t-shirt.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but do you really know Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Do you really love him?
SPEAKER_00: Do you really live for him?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you just a through the motion type of Christian, which by the way is no Christian at all?
SPEAKER_00: Don't let that be you.
SPEAKER_00: Repent.
SPEAKER_00: Confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, and you will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Repent of your sins.
SPEAKER_00: Trust Him.
SPEAKER_00: A child simply believes in faith, and that's all the Lord asks of you that you call out to Him in faith.
SPEAKER_00: Second question.
SPEAKER_00: Again, only you can answer this.
SPEAKER_00: Are you living in light of the coming of his glory?
SPEAKER_00: Are you living righteously?
SPEAKER_00: Are you living alertly?
SPEAKER_00: Are you living faithfully in light of the coming of his glory?
SPEAKER_00: And third.
SPEAKER_00: Does your heart long to see him?
SPEAKER_00: Listen, listen, if if you don't, that can change right now.
SPEAKER_00: If you're just cold, if you're just, I've just been going, you know, I I don't really, if I'm being honest, I don't really want that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not really longing for that.
SPEAKER_00: The thought is nice, but it's not the the and the wellspring of my soul.
SPEAKER_00: That can change now.
SPEAKER_00: Pray now, Lord, fan of flame in my heart, that I would love you.
SPEAKER_00: Awaken my soul.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be the type of Christian that's sold out for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I want to see your glory.
SPEAKER_00: Make me that type of person that longs for the return of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You think if God did that work collectively here, it would make a difference?
SPEAKER_00: Man, that would be amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not be a lukewarm church.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you set our hearts aflame for you?
SPEAKER_00: With these realities of the glory of your return, may this not be a merely academic thought.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you are coming at the end of history.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that spurs us on to live righteously and ethically in this world.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, we are stunned by the reality that we will see your glory.
SPEAKER_00: And when we see your glory, we will be changed.
SPEAKER_00: So Lord, stir those affections in our heart for this, that we would desire to live for you, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If there's anyone here, Lord, who perhaps is merely a professor, just going through the motions, I pray, Lord, that you would open their eyes that they might believe in Jesus and become a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray this in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.