What is the most important item you have in your home? Is it your TV, maybe your computer? Do you keep jewelry at home, or have you bought furniture recently for Christmas? If for some reason, a thief managed to break in to your home, what would you fear the loss of the most? We think about this before it happens. We think about ADT or other services after it does. If insurance does its job, the things we have, should be replaced (though with fine print that may never quite happen). But I would venture to say there are things way more valuable than what I mentioned above. The people you live with, would top the list. When we look to protect and defend ourselves, the purchase of a gun comes to mind. But no matter what scenario happens that robs us of what treasure we have, the common element is surprise. Its not as if the would-be thief leaves a note on the door, scheduling the day and time they are expecting to come in and rob us. That would be so far fetched no one (including the police I imagine) would believe it. It just does not make sense. No, the thief must count on the element of surprise to successfully rob us of our treasure. We are just so complacent in our normality, we never expect it, until we are shocked that it happened to us.
Jesus understood this. Though never having sinned, Jesus understands well both the motives and the methods of every thief ever born. And frankly Jesus would redeem everyone of them if they would but let Him. In the gospel of Matthew to his Hebrew contemporaries, Jesus discusses the element of surprise as it relates to His second coming. In this case sad to say, but we just never seem to see it coming. He picks up with this same analogy in verse 43 saying … “But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. [verse 44] Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” There is more to this simple analogy than might first meet the eye. It relates to the context of the previous texts in Matthew’s gospel of this same chapter. Where it comes to being prepared for the Lord’s second coming; Jesus states one would be ready and taken, the other not. One person, even one Christian, would be ready, the other not. One person who truly understands the love of Jesus, that transforms, and teaches us to love others – the other not.
Imagine this statement is true, even within the household walls of one single family. Imagine a husband who is ready, and his wife not. Adam faced this. Imagine a set of children ready, their parents not. Imagine a sibling who is ready, and their other not. It is most painful to think that even within a single family unit, one might be ready, with another not. It is possible though; because salvation is personal and not transferrable. As much as a parent might wish to lay down their own lives to see their children sparred, they cannot. As much as a husband might wish to lay down his life for the sake of his wife; he cannot force his wife to truly know Jesus, and vice versa. Sometimes when there is a person within a family who has great faith, perhaps a mother or grandmother, all the other family members look to her in matters of religion. But her faith, is not your faith, her stories not your stories. Her knowledge of the love of Jesus, is not your knowledge. Each person must come to know Jesus for him or herself. No one can be forced.
And so, even within the walls of our own home, not everyone may have accepted what you have accepted. If this is true, then the finality of the second coming is an event that seals life long trends, and life long rejections of a loving God. If this happens, it would very surely cause our home to be “broken up”. It is not the treasures of this world we would ever miss, compared to the infinite world we can barely imagine. But the treasures of our family, of those we love – those are treasures that we would miss for eternity if we were to be deprived of their company and their love. There are some treasures we will lose at His second coming, and find they were never really treasures at all. And there are some treasures we could lose at His second coming, we will find had no price tag high enough in our eyes and hearts. And worst of all, it is the surprise that might settle which is which.
This was the point of Jesus who treasures each of us more than His very own life. It will be in an hour we think not. In an hour when normal life looks so incredibly normal. When everything that has carried on, continues to carry on, just like before for what seems like a million years. Plans we make. Lives we live. Movies we watch. Entertainment we pursue. Careers we wish to grow. And the love of families we enjoy. All of it so utterly normal, so utterly routine. Nothing special to catch the eye. And then BAM!! The clouds appear in the eastern sky, about the size of a man’s fist, growing as it approaches our world and becoming brighter. Until a host of angels arrive led by Jesus Christ so enormous the sight of it cannot be contained across the entirety of our world. That heavenly trumpet will blow. No need for TV coverage, the naked eye will see it just fine. And how we react to it, whether in fear for our existence, or in joy for our eternal reconciliation; will say a lot about whether we were ready despite normality, or lulled into the sleep of complacency up until then. Will we suffer the tragedy of broken homes, because we just assumed each member of our family knew Jesus like we did? Or is it we, who still need to know Him?
Jesus continues on the theme of continual readiness picking back up in verse 45 saying … “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? [verse 46] Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. [verse 47] Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.” A few things to zero-in on in these words. To begin, note that we are not God, or Lords of any kind. All of us on planet earth are servants of one sort or the other. What we are given to manage (our treasures), are gifts from our Lord. Our households, our families, our real treasures – are as much a gift and blessing from Jesus as anything else we might claim to “own”. In point of fact, we “own” nothing, we “manage” His gifts because of His love for each of us. To provide meat (or harvest) in due season; that is to say, to see the love of Jesus so fully infect us, that we cannot help but pour it out upon those around us. Making the harvest greater by pointing the other seeds to the Master of the vineyard. This is our highest honor, and best role, as manager of the gifts He bestows upon us.
Being faithful to Jesus Christ, that is, keeping our eyes transfixed on Jesus in submission. Allowing Jesus to change how we think, what we want, and how we love – is being faithful to Jesus. Our purpose here is only one role we are to play. Our service continues into the new world. Finding us willing to serve here, allows Him to assign us new things, a new purpose in the new world. Again not as kings, or Lord, but as willing servants, set to manage whatever tasks He would assign us to do. Ever dependent upon Him. Ever filled with joy at whatever He would assign. We will have learned that following the Lord’s instruction or plans, is infinitely better than trying to follow what we think is best. A lifetime on earth is supposed to teach us this as well. An extension of our service, is what is planned for the new world. Not the beginning of it, but the extending of it. For those who think they will begin to serve only after they have to, or only after the grave, they are mistaken and have misunderstood the joy of being a servant of the Lord in the first place.
Jesus compares those who are happy to serve, with those who think they are no servants at all as He continues in verse 48 saying … “But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; [verse 49] And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;” Notice what happens to the behavior of the servants who believe the delay in the Lords coming gives them a license to assert control. They begin by trying to dominate other servants themselves, instead of accepting each one as an equal. Husbands might try to dominate their wives instead of serving them and loving them so much they would give their own lives for them. Relationships within families disintegrate as the role of servant is abandoned to seek the role of authoritarian. We wish to see ourselves as benevolent dictators (like God) instead of servants equally praised and valued by the same Lord of Lord, and King of Kings.
After asserting control over others which we should have never done, the next step in the regressive behavior is to fall into normality of seeking fun above most else. This is not so much a condemnation of eating particular things, or drinking to excess – it is a warning about the normality of believing control rests with us, and pleasure seeking is the most important pursuit we have. It is in this cesspool of complacency where evil is nurtured until the love-of-self blinds us completely to the love-of-others. We fall completely out of harmony with God, and find ourselves completely in harmony with the world around us. Each man or woman looking out for number one; because if I don’t, who will? The degenerative addictive disease of evil can so overtake its human host, the human eventually becomes indistinguishable from the evil that grows wildly within it. Without submission to Jesus, instead of asserting control, salvation becomes a theory never tested. We talk about it. But have no experience with it. And our lives, and the evil of our deeds, testify to that lack of personal experience with salvation.
But evil cannot last forever. There will one day come an end to it. An arbitrary end enforced by a loving God after every chance has been offered and refused. It is hard for us to believe this would be a willing outcome, but for those infected by evil, and devoid of love for others, it is not so hard to imagine. Jesus describes the outcome for such individuals with heavy heart as He continues in verse 50 saying … “The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, [verse 51] And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Evil will one day be cut off from this world, and then from eternity. The rewards for those who refuse to submit look nearly identical to those who falsely claim they submit. Weeping and gnashing of teeth; not over who they are, or who they became, or even what they do – but of being caught at it, and busted by The Truth.
Evil never wishes to die, it only wishes to continue, and get worse. Satan did not start out as Satan. He was once Lucifer who broke trust with God over whether loving self was indeed harmful or not. Who he has become answered the question of self-love and its real dangers for the entire universe. The entire universe has learned that there is no “different” from God that is good. God is the embodiment of all that is good, so if it is different from God, by definition it is evil. The universe was forced to learn this lesson by the breaking of trust with God, that Lucifer did way back then. The invention of pain and death was born into a universe who had never seen either, until “different” was introduced by Lucifer as an “alternative” to God. And because Lucifer became Satan, pulled with him a third of the angels (now demons) and has spent 6000+ years trying to further hurt God by tempting His creations to abandon His love – we are the casualties of a war our Lord is trying desperately to save us from.
But evil does have an expiration date. It will not last forever. To save our treasure, we must submit it to Jesus. We must stop looking for control over others and start looking through His transformative love to serve others as He did. Submission to Jesus leads to continual readiness. No other path does that. No other self-described deity offers that. And the idea of independence is merely a myth, one of Satan’s lies, to get you to believe that Satan does not even exist. To save our treasure we can eliminate being surprised - by being continually ready, in continual submission, in continual service. The changes that makes in our own lives, might serve best as the witness our own families need in order to see Jesus clearer. And while salvation may not be transferrable, the love of Jesus for others is highly infectious, and appealing, and leads to a happiness none can take away. To point others to His light and love, is to be prepared in a world that is not. Let us make our servitude an extension of our lives into the new world of eternity, rather than a new discovery at that event.
But even so Jesus had more to say about being prepared …
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