Ephesians 4:7-16; the faithful steward fears the Lord (Luk 12), part 2.

Class Outline:

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

 

Those humbled by God’s majesty and holiness most experience personal closeness to Him.

 

ISA 57:15

For thus says the high and exalted One

Who lives forever, whose name is Holy,

“I dwell on a high and holy place,

And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit

In order to revive the spirit of the lowly

And to revive the heart of the contrite.”

 

God is transcendent (more majestic and holy that we can imagine) and immanent (near and present). It is vital that both are understood and appreciated.

 

ACT 17:27-28

that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His offspring.'

 

DEU 29:29

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever.”

 

We should do our best to remember the words of our Lord leading up to these parables. The hypocrites; a God that sees all; a God to fear and a world to not fear; a God who rewards and a world that cannot reward; beware of every form of greed, for the world cannot reward; do not be anxious, for God takes perfect care of His own; be exceedingly gracious, for God has gladly given you the kingdom; where your treasure is, there is your heart.

 

Then the Lord will give us two parables. These have parallel passages in Matthew and Mark which Jesus spoke during the Olivet discourse (from the Mt. of Olives just days before His death).

 

The parable of the porter (LUK 12:35; MAR 13:33-37) emphasizes watchfulness and readiness.

 

LUK 12:35

"Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps alight. 36 "And be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks. 37 "Blessed are those slaves whom the master shall find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them. 38 "Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. 39 "And be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. 40 "You too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect."

 

God sees our good and bad perfectly every day, while to us it is somewhat opaque. We will only know for sure at the JSOC. Live as a faithful steward knowing you cannot examine it all.

 

This is the point of the parable of the faithful slave. He doesn’t know when his master is returning, but he is ready at every watch, even the second or third watch (6pm to midnight, and midnight to 3am), when there seems very little chance that the master would return. The point is that none of know when that day of judgment will come, and more importantly, the day of our death when the deeds in the body cannot be done anymore. We don’t know how much more time we have to please Him, so while absent it is our ambition to please Him. We are manifest to Him every moment.

 

Upon Peter’s question on whether the parable is for disciples only or for all, the Lord expands the same theme and leaves Peter to answer that question for himself.

 

Remember that the disciples often showed their personal ambition in the discussing who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven (LUK 9:46; 22:24).

 

The parable of the faithful steward emphasizes laboring.

 

LUK 12:41 (parallel: MAT 24:45-51)

And Peter said, "Lord, are You addressing this parable to us, or to everyone else as well?" 42 And the Lord said, "Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? 43 "Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. 44 "Truly I say to you, that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 45 "But if that slave says in his heart, 'My master will be a long time in coming,' and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; 46 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour he does not know [the slave is not watchful], and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers. 47 "And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, shall receive many lashes, 48 but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. And from everyone who has been given much shall much be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.

 

The slave has unsupervised control over both his fellow slaves and the material resources of the household.

 

vv. 43-44 reads like a beatitude - “blessed is.” There is reward to the slave for faithful, dutiful service to the master in His absence.

 

Notice that the good slave is not waiting by the window, looking down the path for his returning master. He is contented to day by day do the work that is required of him, not knowing when the master will come. Jesus makes sure that His command to be watchful isn’t misconstrued as meaning to sit around doing nothing but watching the sky. We are to work, doing the good deeds we are called to do while we wait for Him, either death, Rapture, or for believers in the Tribulation, His second coming.

 

The problem of an extended period of time before the return of the master (or the Rapture) is understood by Matthew and Luke and it is addressed.

 

The long period enables a wicked slave to imagine that the master will not know what he has done.

 

Yet, if this wicked slave knew that the master was returning very soon and he did the work required of him, he still hasn’t solved his problem. The wicked slave doesn’t love the master. He doesn’t love serving the master. He would rather beat the other slaves and gorge himself on food and drink to drunkenness. Jesus is warning and instructing Peter and the disciples that just going through the motions is not life. If they, or we, would rather do other things or sinful things rather than serve the Lord then our hearts do not contain the Lord’s treasure. If we are doing what we ought to do with the hope that whenever we finish, we will have some time for ourselves, our hearts are not enjoying His treasure.

 

And, if you find that that is the case, rather than condemn yourself, see with the eyes of your heart and start changing as quickly as you can.

 

This fact of the long period from the promise of His return to His actual return, which we must remember is allowing many to come to salvation, can easily affect our minds with spiritual procrastination. It affords the flesh to convince us that serious commitment can wait for tomorrow and that personal satisfaction alone can be the pursuit of today. God knows what to tell us and what not to tell us for our own good. He leaves us in the dark as to the day of the Lord’s return to Rapture the church as well as the day of our death. If we’re going to be faithful stewards, we must be found today, all day (second and third watch), doing what God has called us to, and that with love and joy.

 

If you find that your heart would rather do something else than His will, then start changing it as quickly as you can.

 

LUK 11:33-36

"No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar, nor under a peck-measure, but on the lampstand, in order that those who enter may see the light. 34 "The lamp of your body is your eye; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 "Then watch out that the light in you may not be darkness. 36 "If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it shall be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays."

 

We can include our physical eyes as well as the inner eye of our conscience. The eyes of the heart often direct the physical eyes. This has become a much greater problem for the human race because of the internet, because of its anonymity.

 

“The behaviors that characterize the sexual revolution are not unprecedented: homosexuality, pornography, and sex outside of the bounds of marriage, for example, have been hardy perennials throughout human history. What marks the modern sexual revolution out as distinctive is the way it has normalized these and other sexual phenomena. It is not therefore the fact that modern people look at sexually explicit material while earlier generations did not that constitutes the revolutionary nature of our times. It is that the use of pornography no longer carries the connotations of shame and social stigma that it once did and has even come to be regarded das a normal part of mainstream culture.” [Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, p. 21]

 

Jesus tells to not compromise one bit. The whole body is to be full of light with no dark part in it. He tells us not to fool ourselves or to be a hypocrite, “Watch out that the light in you may not be darkness.”

 

Jesus is warning us to learn and behold only that which is light, which is of His life. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (JOH 1:4).

 

2CO 7:1

beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

 

LUK 12:45-46

"But if that slave says in his heart, 'My master will be a long time in coming,' and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; 46 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour he does not know