What kind of service prepares us for Jesus’s return? Pastor Tim continues our series in Matthew 24-25, looking this week at how we are “good” in God’s eyes.
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
Well, good evening and welcome to Steadfast. I am so glad to be here with you tonight as we delve into the next part of our passage. We’ve been exploring Jesus’s Olivet Discourse, thinking about how the future is here and what he tells us about the future that speaks to how we should live today.
Last week, we looked at preparing for the end times, preparing our hearts to serve our God. That serving part is really important. We touched on it at the very end of last week, thinking about the wicked servant who, when the master was away, instead of doing what was pleasing to him and taking care of the people in the household, was lazy and sought his own benefit. And then on top of that was mean, beating the other servants. It started to make us think about how do we serve?
So the next question is, what kind of service is pleasing to God? And how does that service play out in our lives? How do preparation and service go together? And that’s what we’re going to be thinking about tonight.
So let’s come before God and ask for his guidance, and then we’ll delve in. Would you join me, please? Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the means you’ve given us to share in the study of your word together, your scriptures that we have here, printed, available widely, the internet and the streaming that we’re using. Lord, thank you for each person who is here tonight. Lord, would you help us as we think about what it is that you’re calling us to do to seek clearly your will for our lives? Would you speak through us and apply your truth to our hearts? We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Let’s go ahead and look right at this next passage. It’s a very familiar parable. As we look at that, then we’ll think about what’s it saying to us. We’re going to look at Matthew chapter 25, starting at verse 1. It says, then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, here is the bridegroom, come out to meet him. Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out. But the wise answered, saying, since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.
And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward, the other virgins came also saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered, truly, I say to you, I do not know you. Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
There’s a lot of parallels in this passage to what we were talking about last week about preparation and not knowing when Jesus is going to return. That’s actually been one of the key themes throughout this series. If you think about what we’ve been looking at week after week, looking at Jesus’s warnings and encouragement, it’s an encouragement to be prepared, to be focused on what he’s called us to do all the time, not trying to figure out when he’s coming.
But this next part is interesting because it applies it specifically to service. What does it look like to serve and to be ready to serve? What does it look like in our own lives? Sometimes we feel like we’re really prepared, and then we’re not. So many times I’ll gather up the things I think I need, say, we’re going to have an event at Faith Tree like we’ll be doing again soon, and you gather up all the supplies you think you need to get ready for it, and you get there and something breaks or something isn’t working. And the one thing that you thought you didn’t need is the thing that you need. You probably had that experience.
Or you go on a picnic and you pack everything, and you get there and you realize that you have the chips and you have the different condiments, but you don’t have the sandwiches. We do those sorts of things. We think we have everything in order, and then we realize we don’t. When we’re talking about eternal life and salvation, it takes on an even weightier matter for us because we think, well, here clearly there’s a division between the wise and the foolish. What does that actually look like for me? How do I know that I’m not one of the foolish? And it should make us a little bit taken aback at first.
Because if you think about we’re reading the story of 10 bridesmaids that are there waiting for the wedding party, and what you do in an ancient Near Eastern wedding is the bridesmaids would wait. The wedding took place in the evening, and they’d wait and they would come and escort the groom to the bride’s house and then escort the bride and the groom back to the groom’s house with their lamps or their torches.
And up to this point, if you were just looking superficially at all the bridesmaids, none of them look more foolish than others. They all have their lamps, and these items called lamps were probably actually wooden poles that would have some cloth wrapped around them and dipped in oil, and they’d light those, and that would provide the light for the celebration. And if you went and you looked, you would have seen 10 bridesmaids. They all have their lamps, and they all look prepared, except we learned that five of them don’t have any extra oil.
But they probably felt prepared. How do we know that we’re not the equivalent of them? And I think that’s what Jesus is really challenging us to wrestle with specifically in this parable because it repeats a lot of the themes we’ve been seeing. But there’s a crucial difference and we need to think, what is the difference between these two groups?
The first thing, and if you think about what I’ve been describing, is that we think very superficially, and I believe Jesus is telling us, don’t be superficial when you’re thinking about serving me. Yes, the different bridesmaids had the oil-soaked cloths wrapped around their poles. They were ready to escort the bridegroom into the celebration and to celebrate, but quite literally half of them became burnt out.
And we use that metaphor oftentimes, but it’s worth asking the question, how do we avoid becoming burnt out as we seek to follow Jesus? They looked the same, but half of them didn’t have the reserve, the stored oil, to allow them to continue to do what God had called them to do. What is that oil? That’s the real question. Half of them have it, and they’re labeled wise, and half of them don’t. What is Jesus referring to there?
And commentators have argued back and forth on this. Some people think it’s being willing to go through spiritual disciplines and being discipled in an arduous fashion. And there’s probably something to that. Certainly, there are plenty of people who follow Jesus and are willing to do some of the superficial initial steps of following Jesus but aren’t willing to go on and really grow in the faith, grow in what Jesus has called us to do. And so there could be an aspect of that.
But I think really what we see here is a difference in the level of excitement, of anticipation for the bridegroom coming. You see, half of these bridesmaids are looking at this and thinking, oh, here’s enough. I have my oil dipped lamp and I have enough. It’ll be okay. The others, though, they’re so excited about the coming of the bridegroom, they don’t want to risk anything that might prevent them from being able to be part of that full celebration.
And it’s no coincidence that throughout scripture, we see the coming of the Lord compared to the coming of the bridegroom for his bride. We see that apply to Jesus coming back. His return is him coming as the bridegroom, as the groom, anticipating with excitement coming to his bride, the church. In other words, his followers coming to us.
So we, in some sense, as we look at this parable, both play the role of the bride and the bridesmaids. And as we wait, we’re really more in that role of the bridesmaids anticipating, trying to set the table, trying to set the celebration, get everyone ready for what’s coming. Are we being superficial about it? I think we really need to ask ourselves that question. Am I being superficial in my following of Jesus? Am I a superficial follower?
Now, we could try to read something into the fact that all 10 bridesmaids fell asleep. But notice, Jesus doesn’t say they were foolish for falling asleep. This isn’t arguing that every single moment, as we talked about last week, every single moment needs to be constant action, somehow doing something, somehow growing in the faith. Sometimes we need to rest. Even Jesus rested. Both wise and foolish can take time to rest. Both wise and foolish are asleep when the call comes out.
So it’s okay not to be standing on guard, eyes alert, totally ready at the moment that Jesus returns. That’s not the issue here. The issue is, are we ready when he arrives? And the problem is that missing empowerment, that oil. They’re prepared. And I think as we think about that excitement that half the bridesmaids have to be ready, what we see is that the oil in some sense is representing the experience of God’s grace in his Holy Spirit.
Now, some commentators have said it can’t be that because the wise bridesmaids tell the foolish ones to go buy more oil. And it’s true, you can’t buy God’s grace and you can’t go and buy God’s spirit being in you. But I think that’s where they’re trying to push the metaphor too far. What Jesus is saying is half of the bridesmaids want to make sure they have the thing that’s really important, and half of them don’t care. Don’t care enough at least. They’re content with the superficial.
And in that sense, I think it really does relate to our relationship to Jesus. We need to have genuine faith, not just the trimmings of it. We can’t just be those who go to church and say the right things and know how to open the hymn book or flip to the right chapter of the Bible, who have the right bumper sticker on our car, or even those people who do some good works throughout the week. So often we’re willing to be contented with that. But Jesus says that’s all like having your lamp ready.
But you’re going to have those times you need to rest. You’re going to have those times that you’re caught off guard. You’re not going to be prepared for when I arrive. And what’s more important than simply those superficial trimmings of good works, what’s more important is what’s happening in your heart. Are you actually in relationship to Jesus? Because otherwise what’s going to happen is when that moment comes, you’re going to find that your lamp is burnt out.
And we see that time and again. And to be fair, there are going to be times that we’re serving Jesus and we start to feel burnt out. And that doesn’t immediately mean that we’re not really believers. I don’t want to say that. But I do think we see people burn out sometimes because they’re trying to do it all on their own. They’re not receiving the power of the Holy Spirit. And so what happens is that our own inner reserve of energy goes away and we don’t have that power from the Spirit to keep going.
And more than that, when we grow weary, we don’t have anything when we wake up. Crucially, not only do we need to be ready by having that power from our God, we need to do it now and not put it off. That’s what we see at the end of this passage. Let’s look again at verses 10 to 13.
It says, while they were going to buy, that’s the foolish virgins, the bridegroom came. And those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward, the other virgins came also saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered, truly, I say to you, I do not know you. Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
You need to be ready at the right time. We need to have that extra oil at the right time. The foolish bridesmaids eventually get the oil. They go to the store, and that isn’t as odd as it sounds. These wedding feasts were such big deals and the preparations were so extensive that shopkeepers would sometimes keep their stores open in case some supplies were needed during the festivities. So it’s not surprising they could get oil. The problem is they didn’t get it ahead of time.
The problem is if we’re content to just sort of skate by in this life and we’re not actually going and seeking after Jesus, a genuine relationship with him now, we say, well, I’m a good person and I can always have a relationship with Jesus later. I can always connect with his body later. I can always be a part of his mission later as long as I’m just doing some good things. And that’s not going to cut it.
The bridesmaids get that oil, but they come too late. Reminds me of earlier this year, and if we actually rewind to the end of last year, if you watched our Sunday night live stream at Little Hills, we did an Advent wreath lighting, and it was so much fun. We had different people from the community light Advent wreaths and they each had their own Advent wreath to light. And so I had ordered those back in November, getting ready for the wreath lightings, and most of those wreaths came right away. But one of them got delayed. I actually had to replace it with something else because it didn’t come.
Advent came whizzing by, Christmas came whizzing by, New Year’s came by, Valentine’s Day came by, and then we rolled around to about St. Patrick’s Day, and what do you know, one day there was a little box that showed up on my porch. It was the missing Advent wreath. Now, since it’s just an Advent wreath, I can always use it next year. But at least for its intended purpose, its purpose in that moment was too late. It was no longer of use. It was no longer going to be a part of that first Advent wreath lighting celebration that we did at Little Hills. It couldn’t be a part of it. It missed the boat.
And that’s what happens to these bridesmaids. Yes, they arrive. They arrive with their oil, but they’ve arrived too late. The doors have been locked so people can’t sneak in and cause trouble in the fellowship and the celebration of the wedding. That people can’t sneak in and try to just get free food. And in fact, it probably is a playing out of an insult.
The bridegroom knows that these five virgins didn’t actually prepare. They weren’t actually taking it seriously enough. And so even if he could recognize them in the sense that he knows that they were originally part of the wedding party, he realizes he doesn’t genuinely know them. He doesn’t genuinely have a relationship with them because they weren’t worried about having it ahead of time. They weren’t concerned until the moment of crisis came, and then it was too late. He says, don’t be like that.
Now, one thing might bother us here, and that’s that the five wise bridesmaids had extra oil and the foolish ones say, give us some of the oil. And it seems like Jesus is maybe saying that we should be selfish here because the five wise ones won’t help the five foolish ones. Shouldn’t we help someone in his or her time of need? Of course we should. That’s not the point here.
The point here is that it was too late to do anything about it. Now, of course, if we stretch the metaphor too far, we could say, well, they could share some oil. But the wise virgins recognize they don’t have enough oil to light all the torches and have the celebration work out. And when we actually look at what Jesus is applying this to, to our spiritual health and spiritual growth, it makes even more sense.
Because while with physical objects, we can share them with people, people can’t share their spiritual growth with us. We can’t have someone else grow in the grace of Jesus for us, experience what it is to be in relationship with him for us. We can’t ride on having our family having been faithful over generations or our parents having been committed to the faith. We can’t ride on our friends being around us, being faithful and saying prayers for us.
Yes, those prayers are heard by God, and oftentimes God answers those prayers by calling us closer to him. But notice what happens there. It’s not that the friend somehow earned grace and then it’s given to us. No, they’re praying that we experience God’s grace. It requires us to actually be involved. And that was the problem for those foolish bridesmaids. They hadn’t been involved enough. They had acquired just the facade.
Maybe that’s you tonight. Have you acquired the facade of following Jesus where you have some of the trimmings people would say you were a Christian if they were asked what your faith is? Or they’d at least say you’re a good person and think that was enough? Or have you actually taken the time to have a relationship with Jesus, to actually experience what it is to have his grace in your life, to experience the Holy Spirit in your life? Because being good isn’t enough. Having family connections isn’t good enough. Having even a vast network of friends or a church membership isn’t enough.
The way that we get to be a part of the celebration of the bridegroom coming is to be in relationship to him. To have that oil stored up in our lives. That’s what God really wants. Not just the works. He calls us to serve. The wise virgins are there to serve. They’re there to take part in the celebration, to make everything flow smoothly. But it’s more than that.
Notice what David says in Psalm 51. He says, for you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise.
You know what David recognizes here is he comes before his God and our God. He says, I could give you a ton of sacrifices, but I know that’s not what you want. Sure, there were appropriate times to sacrifice to the Lord. There are times for us to do good works. As we just discussed, all the bridesmaids are trying to do what they’ve been called to do.
But there’s a notable difference. And there’s a notable difference that David sees in this Psalm. He sees that he could go and as the king, he could give a ton of sacrifices. But if that’s it, he’s not coming before his God humbly with a contrite heart, with a broken heart, recognizing that he has failed and that he needs God’s grace. And what he needs most of all is to be in relationship to his God. Then all the sacrifices and all the noble accomplishments as king, and all the things he could do that would put up a nice facade of being a good person and a good king will never be enough.
David could be the best king in history. But unless he had that relationship with his God, unless he really genuinely cared about that most of all, then all that other stuff was going to be useless.
We see this in a fuller development in Jesus’s parables elsewhere in the Gospels, where he has very similar phrasing to what we see in the parable we’ve been looking at. Take a look at Luke 13. In a different parable about a master of a house, it says that when once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door saying, Lord, open to us, then he will answer you, I do not know where you come from.
Then you will say, we ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets. But he will say, I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil.
On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy? This is over in Matthew. Another example. Did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
We see two different examples here where people come and say, Lord, Lord, don’t you know me? Just like we see here in this parable, where the foolish bridesmaids are knocking on the door and saying, we’re here, we’re here with the oil that we’re ready to celebrate. But they’re left outside.
In that first parable of Jesus that we just looked at in Luke, we see another development. There are people who say, but we were around you all the time. We heard you teaching. We saw you in the streets. We had dinner with you. And there, Jesus seems to be speaking of that danger that we fall into that we think, again, if I just have the right membership in church, if I just go enough times, if I just go to enough events, if I take the Lord’s Supper enough, if I hear enough sermons, if I tune into sermons on podcasts or live streaming—although I’m really glad that you are—if I do those things, that’s going to be enough.
Jesus says, no, if you don’t actually know me, then that’s the equivalent of no relationship at all. It doesn’t matter if you can say, I’m aware of all this stuff that you do, Jesus, and I know your teachings. Those are good things, but you need to actually have a relationship with them.
And likewise, in that second reading we just looked at in Matthew, we see even if people were doing miracles and prophesying and preaching and doing all those sorts of things, if there is no actual relationship with Jesus happening, he’s going to say, get away from me, you doer of evil. And there, we’re reminded that just because someone seems to be doing even gospel ministry, if that person isn’t in a relationship with Jesus and showing the good fruit of actual grace from our God, that’s not enough.
Jesus isn’t interested in a resume. He’s interested in a relationship, and he’s interested in it now, not sometime later. And that’s our challenge. Because I think sometimes we think, well, I can have more control if I focus on doing good works. I’ll be a good person, and someday I’m going to straighten out my relationship to Jesus and make more time. Maybe when I retire, I’ll have more time and I’ll go to church more. And then I’ll pray more, and then I’ll be more concerned with that. Right now, I’m just focused on being a good person and discovering who I really am as a good human being.
Jesus says that’s not enough. That’s like trimming your lamp and soaking it with oil. But you’re going to fall asleep. You’re going to have a time when you’re tired. And when you’re tired and you fall asleep, and that lamp is still burning, it’s going to burn out. And then I’m going to come. You’re not going to be ready.
It reminds me of when we have family get-togethers. We often play a game called Catchphrase. And if you ever played it, it’s a wonderful game. You have these phrases, and you have to get people to guess what that phrase is without ever saying the words of the phrase. And so you can act it out. You can use other words. You can do all kinds of things. And oftentimes there’s a little cheating involved in the family, but it’s so much fun.
And one of the strategies you can do with it is, since there’s a timer, and you don’t know exactly how long that timer is going to go for, but you know the closer it gets to the time that it expires, the higher the likelihood it is that it’s going to buzz when you’re trying to get other people to guess, is if you’re towards the beginning of a round, you take a longer time to get your teammates to guess your phrase because that means that the other opposing team is going to have less time later on.
It’s a great strategy, but it starts to get more and more challenging as the game goes on because as you get closer and closer to the end, there’s the risk that if you try to stretch it out, the timer might just buzz while you’re stretching it out. You’re trying to eke out an advantage and get everything to work in your favor, and trying to make sure that you can earn as many points during the game as possible.
But sometimes you just need to actually complete the mission right then, so you don’t get stuck holding the little Catchphrase game when the timer goes off. That’s what Jesus is saying to all of us. Don’t get caught when the timer goes off. Don’t just do some of the work now and focus on being a good person. Don’t place your stock in good works. Don’t place your stock in a good lineage of faithful people in your family, or membership, or anything else that would make you feel safe. Only place it in me.
My prayer is that you, if you have not done that, will do that tonight. And that for those of us who have, Lord, would you tonight give us all the more confidence that that is where our value is, in being yours, and being in your family, and being washed clean by your grace, and having your Holy Spirit dwell in us, and in nothing else. We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, we’ve talked a lot about what really matters to God, and that that is the fuel that provides us with the means for service. And so you can even be doing some forms of service, but it won’t work unless you have that oil of the Holy Spirit, of God’s grace in your life.
But then another question arises. Well, some people do more good works than others, and it’s clear that they do that. How do I know that I’m doing the right good works, and enough of them? How will God react if I don’t quite do as much as someone else? Am I going to lose out on my heavenly commission?
If you’re ever worried about these sorts of things, or if you know someone who has, please come back next week. Next week at 7 p.m., we will turn to types of service. And after that basis of being in relationship to Jesus, what does it look like to you? How do we know that we’re doing enough to go and serve right now? How do we know that we’re doing enough? I hope you’ll join me next week for that.
In the meantime, if there’s any way I can be praying for you or encourage you, I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me an email at the email address on screen. Leave a prayer request in the comments below. It’s always great to hear from you. It’s great when we can pray together.
I hope you have a wonderful and blessed week. I cannot wait to join you again next week as we delve into a really important question. Please, if there’s any way I can be of encouragement to you, it’s always great to hear from you. We’re those who are anticipating the bridegroom together. Hope you have a blessed week. See you next week.
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