A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on November 23, 2025.
“Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, 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 unfaithful. And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more (Luke 12:35–48).[1]
By God’s grace through faith in Christ, we become children of God and citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, we are to seek the kingdom first, setting our hearts on the heavenly: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34). The apostle Paul likewise directs us to set our “minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For [we] have died, and [our] life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is [our] life appears, then [we] also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:2-4). And yet, how many of us find it hard to set our minds on things above while we’re still here and living now? By God’s design, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night,[2] life goes on, doesn’t it? Yes, “he who began a good work in [us] will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6), but are we ready for that day? Perhaps, some days more than others?
For this reason, Christians throughout the centuries have found great value in emphasizing various aspects of our faith throughout the year: Christ’s first and second coming during Advent, his incarnation during Christmas, the last Supper on Maundy Thursday, Christ’s passion and death on Good Friday, his resurrection on Easter, and so on. There is nothing in Scripture that commands our use of such days and seasons, and so we should be careful in our emphases, but they can be very helpful to our sanctification, as God told the children of Israel frequently to erect various reminders of what God had done for them. And so, as we draw close to the beginning of Advent, for example, we should remember Christ’s first coming and also remember what the angels told the apostles, “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). We should remember that “the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thess. 4:16). Of course, we should also remember, “It is not for [us] to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7), but we are to expect the unexpected.[3]
Sadly for some, such seeming uncertainty leaves them thinking it’s all one, big hoax, saying, “So what’s happened to the promise of his Coming? Our ancestors are dead and buried, and everything’s going on just as it has from the first day of creation. Nothing’s changed” (2 Pet. 3:3-4 MSG). And maybe at times we’re tempted to think so too. In the hubris of our age, some may wonder, “What good is the promise of his second coming if he doesn’t come in my time? Prognosticators and their predictions don’t help, primarily because it leads to a fixation on time as we know and experience it, forgetting “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8). So, there’s no mathematical calculation or code to figure out, just a healthy reminder that our thoughts are not God’s thoughts, our ways are not God’s ways,[4] and to be sure our timing is not God’s timing.
By faith then, we live with an eager expectation of our Lord’s return rooted in a daily dependence in his provision. Living like sojourners in in this earthly kingdom, we do not bury ourselves in holy bunkers but live our lives in the abundance that faith in Christ gives. Like the Babylonian exiles, we are to “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce,” marrying, having children, and grandchildren, and seeking the welfare of the place in which God has providentially placed us, because in this God has plans for us, for “welfare and not for evil, to give [us] a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:5-7, 11). But the houses we live in are not our home, for we are destined for our Father’s house.[5] And the gardens we grow will never be Eden, but eternity will. And our marriages and families, which foreshadow Christ’s love for his church, are an imperfect depiction at best of perfection to come.
In other words, this world in all its life and beauty, but also its death and destruction, is not heaven. Which is why we must set our minds on things above, where Christ is, and look to his return with eager expectation. Are you ready?
Be Fit
We are to be like, Jesus says, “men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast” (Luke 12:35). In this parable, Jesus describes his return like a master returning from a late-night party. Would he be home before 10:00 p.m.? Or 2:00 a.m.? Or 6:00 a.m.? Who would stay out so late? God only knows. But the time’s not the point; our readiness, our fitness for the moment is: “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes,” Jesus says.
Blessed indeed because it is far easier to fall asleep. There is a reason Jesus challenged the doubts of Thomas saying, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). To believe in what we have not seen requires faith, as does waiting for what has not yet happened. But it is very easy to grow accustomed to our Lord’s absence, especially if we are not regularly in his spiritual presence. Rightly then do we gather in worship, for Christ promised his presence among us.[6] When we gather in worship, we are, as it were, awake, dressed for action, lamps burning.
But note carefully how Jesus describes the master who comes, as one who “will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them” (Luke 12:37). Of course he could be foreshadowing the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, but the description still leaves us wondering: What kind of master does that? What kind of master serves us? One “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:5-8). One who said he “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). One who knew no sin, but for our sake was made to be sin, “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).
And while not one of us knows the time of his coming, we do know he first came “when the fullness of time had come . . . to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). Our fitness for his coming then is not by our works but looking to his, not by fixating on what we can do but focusing on what he has done. “Readiness for the return of Christ to this world,” J.C. Ryle says, “implies nothing which is impossible and unattainable. It requires no angelical perfection. It requires no man to forsake his family and retire into solitude. It requires nothing more than the life of repentance, faith, and holiness.”[7] In other words, the faithful servant is the one who believes the gospel. Are you ready?
Be Faithful
Like the Old Testament prophets, Jesus often spoke figuratively, employing similes and metaphors, and telling parables to make his point. But given the interpretive challenges that come with them, sometimes you just want a simple yes or no. Perhaps that’s where Peter was when, following Jesus’ parable, he asked, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” (Luke 12:41). I imagine Peter expected a clear “you” or “all” (Or, maybe “y’all”?). Instead, he got another parable . . . and in it the answer to his question.
“Who then is the faithful and wise manager,” Jesus asks, “whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time?” (12:42). The prior parable is helpful here, helping us understand that Jesus is telling again of his coming. But on this side of the cross, we hear this and understand that the Lord Jesus, came and died for his church, “the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:20-21), as the apostle Paul described it. From the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ’s church grows through “their portion of food at the proper time,” which in our time is the written Word of God. And, God raises up shepherds or pastors, elders or overseers, preachers and teachers to lead and feed the household of God.
There is a reason that preaching and teaching are a central part of the ministry of this particular church. We take very seriously our Lord’s directive to Peter, to “Feed my lambs . . . Tend my sheep . . . Feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17). I step into this pulpit not to entertain but to “preach the word,” to “be ready in season and out of season,” to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2), as the Word of God instructs me. Yes, there are other things that I do, even some I shouldn’t and some that can be a distraction, but preaching is primary. And as the other elders of this church and I share this burden, “There is,” Ralph Davis says, “a certain simplicity about it,” as we are “simply doing what Jesus called [us] to do.”[8] It is indeed a high calling to be about the care for God’s church, one which we intend, Lord willing, to continue until Christ returns and rewards us with greater service for his glory.
But this, sadly, is not the case everywhere and in every church. Not every servant will be found faithful upon our Lord’s return. Into Christ’s church slip the unfaithful and unwise and some will even be elevated into leadership. It will not be obvious at first, and they will likely play the part well, but they are like wolves in sheep’s clothing. Rather than tending the flock, they will devour them; rather than feeding the sheep, they will serve their own sinful desires, leaving the flock malnourished and suffering. There are few things more tragic than to see a particular church being led like lambs to the slaughter by a pastor they trusted. But such a wolf is not without a promise: “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 unfaithful” (Luke 12:46). Unfaithful shepherds will be called to account by the Great Shepherd of the sheep.
Be Fruitful
Jesus’ parable is not, however, only for the church’s leaders but for “all.” We are all called to be faithful stewards of what God has given. Consider this liberating thought: Neither you nor I are the “master” of the house—God is! Everything we have, from our material goods to the gospel, has been entrusted to us. And, as Jesus explains, “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48). What has God given you? Everything, of course. What has been entrusted to you? All you have, of course. The question is not what’s yours and what’s God’s? Rather, what are you doing with what he has given?
And this includes, most importantly, the gospel. Have you believed it, treasured it, shared it? Or have you denied it, ignored it, even discredited it? For the one who has never heard the gospel, or even the name of Jesus, judgment will indeed come but differ in severity from the one who has heard the gospel, read the Bible, and sat under the preaching of God’s Word but never believed. The false teacher’s judgment will be greater than the ignorant, but in the end, at the final judgment, all who have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ will be counted among the unfaithful. As Phil Ryken explains, “The most severe penalty in this passage is not to be cut into pieces, or to receive a beating, but to be counted unfaithful by God, and therefore condemned to everlasting destruction in hell.” The greatest stewardship we have been given is the gospel.
The problem is we have not been the most faithful servants we could be, the wise stewards we should be. How often have we fallen asleep rather than been “dressed for action” with our “lamps burning”? Many times, I can say, if Christ had returned at a certain moment, he would have found me unfaithful or unwise, and probably both, and maybe you too. What you and I need most is a faithful and wise Savior, one who is faithful morning, noon, and every watch of the night, a faithful and wise servant to save us from our unfaithfulness. The good news is: What is required he has given in himself, meeting the perfect demands of the master, and giving us his faithfulness too.
And so, we do not fear his return, because he is our Savior. We long for his coming, because no one knows us better or loves us more. We long for his coming, because he has promised that we will be made like him, perfect and complete. We long for his coming, because he is our friend and brother, and we will reign with him forever, the King of kings. And so, we pray, maranatha, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20). Are you ready?
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
(Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] Gen. 8:22
[3] 2 Pet. 3:10
[4] Isa. 55:8
[5] John 14:2 KJV
[6] Matt. 18:20
[7] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, Vol. 2 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 65.
[8] Dale Ralph Davis, Luke: The Year of the Lord’s Favor (Fearn: Christian Focus Publications, 2021), 231.
Planter, Pastor, Preacher 