Turning on the Lights! Tuesday, August 6, 2024. Matthew 25 the Final Parables and the Final Judgement.
Good Morning, Good Morning – it is good to be back talking with you.
this morning we begin to wrap up our look at the parables of Jesus by looking at Matthew chapter 25. this chapter discusses our preparedness, our worthiness, and the actual final judgement to come at the hands of Jesus Christ Himself.
It is powerful stuff and well worth a listen.
Be ready. Let your lamps shine.
Have all the extra “oil” that you need by having an intentional and purposeful relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
I pray that this both strengthens and challenges you as you reflect upon your salvation.
may God bless you, and we will talk again soon!
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, August 6, 2024. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, August 6, 2024. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, August 6, 2024
Good morning. Good morning, my brothers and my sisters. Uh oh. We’ve been playing with that light for quite a while now, haven’t we? Hey, we are into the month of August 2024. Oh my goodness. Can you believe it? Camp still going on at Yalijua. Got all these things going on with birthdays and celebrations. Hey, come get what you need. Times are tough. There’s a lot of stuff out there. I don’t care where you live. Come get what you need. There’s a lot of stuff out there. The neighborhood Northex, right? The front of the church. You can’t miss it. It’s got a big open sign on it. Ladies Fall Retreat. Look at that. Celebration Sunday and some of the charities that we’ve been blessed to be able to give to this year. Very good stuff. Very good stuff. What else is happening here? Kids for our King, August 11th. August 11th. That would be this Sunday, wouldn’t it? Here we go. Kids for our King and God’s not dead too. That’s September 6th. Tortured for Christ was last week. Always something going on at the little church on the hill. Giving to missionary Joseph Musa and family. Right? We have a little station set up there so that we can help support that ministry to the Arab-speaking peoples locally and globally. Always something going on. Did I mention the neighborhood Northex? All right, come get what you need. There’s a lot of stuff out there. Don’t be shy. Times are hard. Here we are at the church. There’s the altar of the church. Oh, yes. Good morning, Sharon. Take off my flip-flop so I can get around a little bit better. We’re going to go down and turn on one more light and then we’re going to get started for the day. If you are listening on podcast, go ahead and give us a five-star review. There we go. That’s better. If you’re listening on Spotify, make sure you’re all subscribed all of that stuff. If you are watching live. Hello. Hello. Welcome to Tuesday. Let me show you what my view is. Good morning. Good morning. I’m telling you what last week was a week. It was a week for the record books, but we pulled it off and you guys were very kind on Friday. I didn’t mean to like make turning on the lights the lesser of all of those things, but I had to figure out how I could manage my voice. Let me get you all square. Coming on the tail end of that cold as I was having a meeting on Wednesday, Thursday, having a big rehearsal outside Friday with a big wedding party and then having the wedding on Saturday and then church on Sunday. I was trying to manage my voice and I did pretty well. I was actually able to sing a few bars on Sunday and now you can hear things are getting much much better nearly 100% recovered that little summer cold thing that’s going around is no joke. Kelly’s finishing it up now and I know a lot of people that have been down with it. So if you’re one of them, may God be with you. Keep your eyes up. Keep pressing on. There’s not much you can do about it except take some medicine to relieve the symptoms and keep on keeping on and that’s what we do here. We keep on keeping on. It is a beautiful day outside. They say that the weather is going to change. We’ll see maybe storms this afternoon storms tomorrow high of 74 crazy stuff. But anyway, we’re here right now and we are getting ready to finish up our little summertime adventure into the parables and I thought that we would do that. I don’t care how long it takes. It may take two sessions. It may take two weeks to talk about Matthew chapter 25 one of the most important chapters in all of Scripture. Now you can say that nearly about any right depending on where what you’re talking about at the time you can say that about nearly any passage of Scripture, but Matthew 25 really speaks into the lives of the individual believers and it speaks into the life of the church local and the life of the church Universal and that would be believers around the world. Good morning. Good morning, everybody is so good to be back. It’s so good to be healthy. It’s so good to have a lawn that needs mode. Oh my goodness. Everything’s growing and with this rain is going to be crazy. It’s gonna be fun. So I’ve still made do that from time to time. You have to forgive me not 100% but probably 80. I’d say 87.5% that’s what I am today 87.5. So father we pray that as we open your word and discuss today that you by the power of your Holy Spirit would teach us and lead us and all things that you would wish us to know so that we may learn and grow and become the disciples that you know, we can be in Jesus name. Amen. Oh, yeah. So that’s that here we are. Like I said back in action. It’s amazing that it’s August a very soon. We’re going to be having our meeting our big music meeting talking about music for the holidays Thanksgiving and Advent and Christmas and trying to you know that that all happens here in late summer and fall. We’re going to be talking about the him saying and you know, Thanksgiving Eve service all kinds of things and it’s hard to believe but it happens every year everything as Ecclesiastes talks about moves in cycles that are seemingly never ending. Of course, they do end with the ends of our lives and the key here’s the end of Ecclesiastes which will be this week at Church Town the last that the final piece of Ecclesiastes which will end with the follower of Jesus Christ being present with the Lord upon his or her passing spoiler alert. Everything is okay in the end, even though we may read all of Ecclesiastes and go. Oh my goodness. Well, we all know what life is all about and how much truth there is in Ecclesiastes one of my great points and like I said about Ecclesiastes last week. The book is one big preaching point. The book itself is one big preaching point my goal if you will of going through at least parts of it this summer is to demonstrate that it is worth reading and worth understanding. That’s my goal. You can’t like many of the gospel like the Gospels take pieces of it and say here’s a great preaching point or here is a passage and here are three great preaching points Ecclesiastes is a gigantic preaching point and you can’t read Ecclesiastes sort of without knowing the ending. If you know why it’s all worth it, don’t you but my goal was to demonstrate that the book is worth reading worth understanding worth, you know, it asks so many questions of us that we should get in front of the mirror and ask of ourselves. That was my point in Ecclesiastes not it’s not all hey pump up summer Bible school type stuff. But here at Churchtown we go where the Spirit is leading us and we’ve had a lot of really great feedback about wow, you know, we never thought of things that way. Wow, that really punched me in the face today. Wow Ecclesiastes like so yeah, so it’s all good. The last of the parables culminating in the parables of judgment and the final judgment that will be placed upon humankind by the judge. Jesus Christ. Wait a minute. Jesus doesn’t judge man. Jesus loves everybody. There is a twist of scripture that the modern church is embroiled in right now because the truth is yes, Jesus loves everybody loved everybody who has since passed. Love them loves them so much that he gave his life so that upon their repentance, they may be saved and have eternal life with him. In order to determine who is saved and have has eternal life with him. There must be judgment and we know as a poem. We’re going to read this in 25. You can read this all throughout Revelation Jesus Christ the Word of God. The Logos is the judge. Now, these are parts of his of who he is. That we want to either set aside completely or twist like I just did God love Jesus loves everybody. Right? There is no judgment for your choices or your life or your decision to live with an in sin. There is there is no consequence for you choosing not to repent of your sin. Yes, there is and we read these all throughout scripture all throughout the Gospels and we’re going to read this big time here in chapter 25. So if you’re following along we’re in Matthew 25, I’ll just keep reading the New Living Translation. I’ve got four translations here in this particular Bible so we can take a look at different words if we need to the parable of the 10 bridesmaids. Now, this is going to be leading up to final judgment. So keep that in mind the parables that are that are being told here are leading up to final judgment. So Jesus is trying to teach us. How to get to that point that when we are judged we are with him. Does that make sense? The terminology to try to use there is difficult, but Jesus is trying to teach us how we can become disciples stay disciples. And when we do leave this body, we will be present with the Lord. How about that? Much better theological statement there. The Kate then the cake then then then so we’re moving through the kingdom of God, but as the kingdom of God is ending on Earth the kingdom of God on Earth this in-between time is ending then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom five of them were foolish and five were wise. We’ve been talking so much about wisdom. The five who were foolish didn’t take enough olive oil for their lamps, but the other five were wise enough to take along extra olive oil. Remember every word counts not just enough olive oil extra olive oil. When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep at midnight. They were right roused by the shout. Look the bridegroom is coming come out and meet him all the bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps. Then the five foolish ones asked the others, please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out but the others replied. We don’t have enough for all of us go to a shop and buy some for yourselves. But while they were gone to buy oil the bridegroom came then those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast and the door was locked. Later when the other five bridesmaids returned they stood outside calling Lord Lord open the door for us, but he called back. Believe me. I don’t know you. So you two must keep watch for you do not know the day or hour of my return. A couple of key elements there. Or based on that very last sentence, which is the anchor of the parable, right? It is the eminent thought of the parable. You do not know the day or hour of my return. And that is linked to the idea if we’re going to follow the parable in the imagery of not only having enough oil in our lamps because we don’t know how can we have enough oil in our lamps if we do not know the day or the hour we must keep extra oil in our lamps. You see how the bridesmaids they fell asleep. They had enough oil for that period of time. And that was used up in their waiting. Now those who did not bring any extra they were done. They used it up and they were done. They had to run out and try to do more get more by more and as they were doing that the Lord returned. And those who had prepared well. Entered into the feast with him and then keywords here. The door was locked. So this is the opening parable of chapter 25 and it is about how we are living today as individuals and how we are living today as a church. There is no doubt about that. If we are believing and there is no way to to go apples to apples with this but we must understand that we do not just our Christianity our faith our walk as disciples does not have an expiration date. We must be very intentional on a daily weekly monthly yearly lifelong basis to walk with the Lord. Good morning, Mama D. Our lamps must not always just have oil in them, but there must be oil to spare. Because as we move along this life and you see this in the life of the new believer all of the time on fire for God on fire for God on fire for God and then that tempers out into a now what? Right, so we asked the question. So what I am and the answer is I am saved. I am in dwelled by God’s Holy Spirit. I feel the transformational power of God’s Holy Spirit within me and then we ask the question now what does that last for a week? Does that last for a year? Is it just for a reason? Is it just for a season or is it for a lifetime and by lifetime I mean the life that you have in this earthly body. Does that make sense? The oil that we have in our lamps is not just for use when we seem to be called upon by the church or seem to be called upon by the Lord himself to do something the oil in our lamps is there and our lamps are burning constantly and we are very intentional about that. It is the intentionality. It is the understanding of Ecclesiastes that even though life may seem like we’re on a hamster wheel God is with us that we have been saved and we are being sanctified and regardless of what it may seem to us at this time regardless how we may feel at this time. God is with us and it is our responsibility to be intentional in our relationship with him. But pastors will say I’m here I am but I’ll use myself. I won’t interject anything or anybody else, but I’m only the pastor of a small town church. 70 80 people like come on Lord. I can do more. Come on. I want to do this. I want to do that. Let me are you going to be faithful in your calling and doing exactly what you are called to do when you should do it how you should do it. Or in your own Humanity and your ego and your strive for position power money, whatever ego strokes. Do you need more the Lord will have me do what the Lord will have me do as a pastor of a small church. The Lord will have you do what the Lord will have you do as fill in the blank wherever you are in life doing good morning Wanda doing whatever you are doing. However long you are doing it the oil is intentionally kept in our lamps. And if you want to use that again use the parable in the imagery all of the extra oil that we have is God’s Holy Spirit. He doesn’t run out. But we can say, you know, what? Not waiting anymore. You know what? I gave it five years and I didn’t get any better. You know what? I gave it two years and my mom and my husband my wife. They didn’t get any better. You know what? I tried this Christian thing and I was praying and praying and praying and so and so still died of this illness. You know what? I’m not doing anything especially important for the kingdom of God. I’m just a mechanic. I’m just a fill in the blank. I’m just a pastor of a small church. What’s the point? We can do that. We can do that. And when we do that we can feel and watch metaphorically and spiritually the oil burn out of our lamps. Being prepared means living intentionally as a disciple of Christ. It means living intentionally in spite of or regardless of good morning, Megan, regardless of your circumstances. Your circumstances may be amazing and you have maybe you may have the temptation of being distracted by wealth and possessions. That’s a that’s one of the worst temptations that there are it is easier, you know for a rich for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into the into heaven. Because of the great temptations and the distraction. So your circumstance may be that your circumstance may be the exact opposite. Your circumstance may be somewhere in the middle and you’re living well and doing okay your circumstance may be somewhere in the middle and you’ve got disease or you’ve just lost your job or whatever the case may be. We are called to live a life worthy of that calling regardless of circumstance. And again, if there went you the value of Ecclesiastes is to demonstrate that. Exactly. We often say around here because we are a small Church. Okay, we look around and we see this incredible. Wickedness of the world on full display. We see the corruptness of our political system and pretty every other political system. We see the corruptness of human beings in their pursuit of power and wealth and position. We see the satan the opposer of God’s will destroying God’s image bearers in the womb and out of the womb telling children. Anything about their identity other than the fact that they are image bearers of the Most High God. We see confusion and dysphoria and mental illness rampant and on full display. Not only that it is it is we are told that it is we are to accept and to affirm and to embrace this new culture because it is so progressive. If it is so progressive, why does it so sound so much like Romans chapter 1 and 2? 2,000 years ago. And so we face all of this as individual Christians as individual churches and we can feel like it. The time is now to gather inside of ourselves create a bunker and just pray to the Lord and wait to die so that to we may be present with him and that is not what we’re called to do. So what do we do in the face of this great tide of evil this great tide of corruption? That’s what we ask, isn’t it? What can you do? What can you do as an individual? What can we do as a church? Let’s let’s not be overwhelmed by the picture. Let us ask the question. What can you do? You can be kind you can help one person you can be salt and light in the wicked world wherever you are. You can live as a disciple of Christ speaking truth into the lie. You can live as a disciple of Christ bringing light into darkness, but they don’t want to hear when they hear I’m a follower of Christ me that really lights them up. Of course it does because there’s power in the name of Jesus. Living and speaking the Word of God in an Antichrist world. Yeah, that’s easy. Not. But it is what we are called to do and that means that we are intentional with our lives and we are intentionally walking with the power that raised Christ from the dead in us. He is the extra oil. We are the lamps. And we must stay lit. Until the bridegroom returns. And we sit with him at the great banquets. And the reality as Jesus always teaches and preaches the full gospel. Is that when that time comes? The door will be locked. Behind him. People will pound on the door. So I never I had an idea. I was told as a child. I followed you for a while or even those who are falsely following him today calling themselves Christians and he turns and says. I never knew who you were. That’s the reality of judgment. And it’s coming. And we know no, no, no, how dare you preach that in this world where we are to embrace evil where we too are absolutely to embrace and to celebrate every form of debauchery that human beings can come up with because it is a mark of our Progressive freed nature to express ourselves. No. It is a reversion to the days of Noah. You want to be a rebel today, right? Don’t paint your hair pink and call yourself a woman carry a Bible. You want to be a rebel today? Carry a Bible. That’s where we are folks. So my prayer is that you are lamps, right? Here we go. Parable time. My prayer today is that you are lamps that your lamps are full and burning and that by the power of God’s Holy Spirit because of your intentional walk with him every single day. You have all the extra oil that you need for the day of his return. That’s my prayer for you today. That’s my prayer for your church today. Dear Lord. Let your church be submitted to you. Let your church burn brightly. As a lamp into the night and let your church by the power of your Holy Spirit have all the extra oil. We need to endure to persevere to the end. Dear Lord. Persevere to the end and we know that it is our intentional. Repentive lifestyle. Submitted to you as our Savior and our Lord that keeps that oil flowing in Jesus name. I pray it for you. I pray it for church local wherever you are and I pray it for his church Universal. The Word of God is enough. In Jesus name. Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise which it might this week Mama D because it’s actually supposed to rain after I don’t know six years hasn’t been that long. Good Lord willing in the creek don’t rise and you can hear see right? Still working on it. I’ll see you Friday for turning on the lights. Keep the conversation going like it share it. If you’re listening on the podcast like it share it do all those things. If you believe that it is worthy the Word of God a dime will never be charged. There is nothing to be made other than disciples. That’s my motto as a pastor. There’s nothing to be made other than disciples. There’s nothing here to grow other than the kingdom of God. So let’s share the Word of God. Let’s change those algorithms around from the demonic. To the heavenly in Jesus name.
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