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What’s in your lamp? · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:35
  Welcome to Faith Is.
• 0:37
  I'm Pastor Rick Stevens, and I'm really glad you've joined us today.
• 0:40
  Well, I'm really glad every day, but this is a special weekend, and I'm really glad you joined us for this special weekend.
• 0:49
  I am the pastor of Diplomat Wesleyan Church in Cape Coral, Florida, church that does all the things churches do and tries to be all the things churches try to be.
• 1:00
  We stretch toward God's high calling.
• 1:03
  We understand the need to be faithful, and we live out as best we can our understanding of what it means to be faithful and to be a faithful follower of Jesus because we understand that faith is absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
• 1:25
  And so welcome to the program, welcome to the adventure, and let me be the first.
• 1:32
  I'm pretty sure I'm going to be the first here.
• 1:36
  Probably no one will have even mentioned this to you in the way that I'm going to mention it until now.
• 1:42
  It's possible someone might have, but I want to be as much as possible the very first to wish you a happy new year.
• 1:53
  Yes, happy new year.
• 1:55
  It is a happy new year right here, right now.
• 2:00
  Now, unless you think I've lost my mind, and occasionally people do, then I understand that, and I'm happy with that really.
• 2:08
  But in case you wonder what I'm talking about, I'm talking about this is the weekend.
• 2:13
  Specifically, November 30th is the day that we begin a new year, a new church year.
• 2:23
  Now I know the calendar turns over in January, I get all of that, but we have the great privilege as the people of God to begin the new year on the first Sunday of Advent, and the new year begins with telling the story of Jesus.
• 2:39
  And I think that is so important, probably more important these days than ever before.
• 2:45
  I recently had a conversation with a university professor who I came to respect because he had some really interesting insights.
• 2:53
  And one of the things that he said was that his students don't know the stories of the Bible.
• 3:00
  And I thought that's fascinating.
• 3:03
  I grew up learning the stories of the Bible.
• 3:07
  A faithful school teacher, she wasn't my teacher in school, she was in the class across the hall from mine, but she went to my church, and every Sunday, every Sunday evening, while the teenagers were having the youth group, the children, and I remember distinctly thinking I was too old to be with the children.
• 3:27
  I don't remember how old I was at the time, but I was too old, you get that.
• 3:31
  But we learned the Bible stories all through the Bible.
• 3:36
  And I have often said that this faithful woman, Clara Goodman, taught me more about the Old Testament than anybody else that I can remember.
• 3:46
  Well, we don't know the Bible stories, and one of the great privileges we have as the church now is to begin the new year, the first Sunday of Advent, telling the story of Jesus.
• 3:58
  And so we begin the story with the anticipation of Jesus' birth.
• 4:03
  Now that's the easy part.
• 4:05
  We all love looking forward to Christmas.
• 4:08
  We all anticipate some special things about Christmas.
• 4:12
  I don't know if you have certain traditions that your family particularly enjoys.
• 4:18
  Maybe you enjoy certain aspects of the season, maybe you like the decorations, maybe there are certain things that people make to eat, that you enjoy certain treats, Christmas cookies come to mind.
• 4:32
  Perhaps that's something important to you.
• 4:34
  Our family does a few things that have kind of developed over the years.
• 4:38
  One of my favorites, I guess that wouldn't surprise too many people, is that I enjoy the Christmas music.
• 4:44
  There's no music during the year that I enjoy more in terms of the seasonal emphasis than Christmas.
• 4:51
  There are some other music that I enjoy.
• 4:53
  In fact, I sometimes think I enjoy too many kinds of music, but that's a different conversation.
• 4:58
  But anyway, we look forward to Christmas and we enjoy it.
• 5:01
  We anticipate it.
• 5:03
  And that's a wonderful celebration.
• 5:05
  And so Advent, as the anticipation of the arrival of Jesus, that's what Advent means, arrival, as we anticipate the arrival of Jesus at Christmas, we have a lot of fun doing that.
• 5:17
  And we look forward to lots of things related to Christmas.
• 5:21
  Now, Advent also includes the anticipation of Jesus' second coming or his next coming.
• 5:30
  Now, I've observed that people have a little bit different relationship with the anticipation of Jesus' second coming.
• 5:48
  But there's often been more reluctance about the second coming of Jesus than celebration.
• 5:56
  Now, why might that be?
• 5:58
  It doesn't really make sense when we put it in a certain context, and that's why I want us to think about it a little bit today.
• 6:05
  Why might we be reluctant?
• 6:09
  Why might we have a strained, could we say, relationship with the second coming of Jesus?
• 6:14
  And I and I know we all don't have that, but I've noticed that in my lifetime.
• 6:18
  Well, one of the reasons that that people have a little bit of discomfort with the second coming of Jesus is because we have been taught about the second coming of Jesus in the context of fear.
• 6:32
  Now, certainly there's a certain seriousness about the second coming of Jesus because the readiness that the Bible emphasizes is a real thing, and we need to be ready for his coming.
• 6:48
  In the same way people prepared for the arrival of Jesus way back when, and the same way we prepare for the celebration of Jesus now, we must prepare and be prepared for the second coming of Jesus.
• 7:05
  That's absolutely a given.
• 7:28
  There's no doubt about that, and that he will crush evil.
• 7:34
  Toss it in the lake of fire.
• 7:36
  That's a finality that is real, and that we should anticipate.
• 7:43
  Not because we're anyone's enemy, but because we realize that salvation cannot be fully realized until evil is dealt with and we are delivered from evil.
• 7:57
  How often do we pray when we pray the Lord's Prayer, deliver us from evil?
• 8:02
  One day that will happen.
• 8:06
  And so we need to rethink our relationship with the second coming of Jesus.
• 8:12
  Maybe we can think of it this way.
• 8:14
  We like the stories of Jesus, we like his birth.
• 8:16
  We're even intrigued by the stories of his life, the miracles, the baptism, all of the things we could say.
• 8:24
  Those are intriguing and fascinating, and we like them.
• 8:29
  All right, great.
• 8:55
  We also revel in resurrection, and we remind ourselves that he is risen.
• 9:02
  We remind ourselves that resurrection never ends, and we rejoice, just like the disciples rejoiced at the risen Christ.
• 9:12
  We share their sadness when Jesus ascends to the Father, and now we live between those comings.
• 9:29
  Well, if we like the disciples, learned to know Jesus and to develop that friendship that the Bible talks about, then why are we so reluctant for the return of our friend?
• 9:45
  Well, I think because of what I mentioned earlier, so often the second coming of Jesus was framed in fear instead of eager anticipation.
• 9:55
  And because we heard a lot about judgment, and we don't want to be
• 10:00
  Judged.
• 10:00
  We want to be welcomed into heaven.
• 10:02
  Well, that's about preparation.
• 10:05
  In the same way we prepare for Christmas, we need to prepare spiritually for the return of Jesus.
• 10:13
  So we're going to talk about preparation during Advent, and we're going to talk about anticipation, and we're going to try to frame all of that in a way that helps us stretch toward God's high calling.
• 10:26
  Because we have hope that He'll return.
• 10:28
  Now, we also at our church and many churches, we use an Advent wreath to help us celebrate and look forward to Christmas to remind ourselves of some important things and to just kind of revel in the reality that Jesus is coming and has come and all of that.
• 10:47
  And so each week has an emphasis in the first Sunday of Advent, we light the first candle, which reminds us about the prophecies that predicted the coming of Jesus.
• 10:59
  And there are many Old Testament prophecies that predict the coming of Jesus.
• 11:04
  Now you might say, why do I mention Old Testament specifically?
• 11:07
  Well, the New Testament begins with the arrival of Jesus.
• 11:11
  So there were approximately, and you'll find different numbers, but let's just make it easy this time and say there were 300, probably a few more than 300 prophecies predicting the coming of Jesus in some very specific ways.
• 11:27
  300 is a very large number.
• 11:30
  And people have wrestled with that and wondered about what's the likelihood of somebody fulfilling those prophecies.
• 11:37
  Well, a man named Peter Stoner, some years ago, decided to do more than wonder about it.
• 11:44
  He was a mathematician.
• 11:45
  He understood the science of probability.
• 11:48
  And so he wrote a book, and in his book, Science Speaks, he laid out his analysis of the probability that one person could fulfill the prophecies concerning Jesus.
• 12:02
  Now this was reviewed by the American scientific affiliation, and uh or well, I should say it was there was a foreword by someone from the American scientific affiliation that wrote that the analysis of Peter Stoner did wasund mathematically, and it followed the principles of probability.
• 12:25
  So it was what we might say today in shorthand.
• 12:28
  It was peer reviewed.
• 12:30
  So what did what did Peter Stoner do?
• 12:33
  Well, probability is an involved situation, and when you get into the use of large numbers like 300, or even smaller numbers than that, you get into enormous numbers when you talk about probability.
• 12:49
  So Peter Stoner selected eight specific prophecies referring to the coming of Jesus and did an analysis to answer the question what is the probability that one person in all of history could fulfill these eight prophecies.
• 13:08
  And so he calculated that all out, and he discovered that to fulfill all eight prophecies would be one chance in 10 to the 17th.
• 13:21
  Now it's been a long time since I've dealt with scientific numbers like 10 to the 17th.
• 13:26
  But what that means is there's one chance in a one with 17 zeros behind it.
• 13:35
  That's a very large number in case you aren't aware.
• 13:39
  He said, one chance in 10 to the 17th, or one out of one with 17 zeros behind it.
• 13:47
  Well, that's a uh a number that's really hard for us to comprehend.
• 13:51
  So Peter Stoner did us a favor.
• 13:54
  He illustrated it and said it's like this.
• 13:56
  He said, if you take 10 to the 17th silver dollars, that many silver silver dollars, and you spread them out all over Texas.
• 14:05
  Now, I don't know why he chose Texas, but we know Texas is a big state, and so everything's bigger in Texas, the phrase used to go, maybe still does.
• 14:14
  But he said you can spread those silver dollars, 10 to the 17th silver dollars all over the state of Texas, and it would cover the state of Texas.
• 14:23
  Are you ready for this?
• 14:24
  Two feet deep.
• 14:26
  That's a lot of silver dollars.
• 14:27
  If anybody ever offers to give you 10 to the 17th silver dollars, don't hesitate, say yes, thank you.
• 14:34
  It's a lot of silver dollars spread out over Texas, two feet deep.
• 14:38
  Now he said, if you will take one of those silver dollars and mark it, mark it maybe with a red X, mark it somehow, and toss it back into the pile.
• 14:50
  Now stir them all up, stir them thoroughly.
• 14:54
  Now, blindfold someone, pick someone, someone at random, blindfold them, and tell them they can go wherever they want to in the state of Texas, travel all over, however they want to, from the panhandle up and down to the Gulf Coast, all over Texas, wherever they want to go, but they only get one chance to pick that one marked silver dollar.
• 15:21
  How likely do you think that would be?
• 15:24
  Well, that's pretty obvious.
• 15:26
  It wouldn't be likely at all.
• 15:27
  That's what Peter Stoner says is the chance that even one person would fulfill eight specific prophecies of Jesus from the Bible.
• 15:39
  Well, I like to remind myself that, and that's one of my favorite stories.
• 15:44
  I like to tell that every year on the first Sunday of Advent, because it reminds me, and I hope it helps you realize that God was very deliberate about sending Jesus and very careful to make sure we had all the evidence we could ever need that he, Jesus, was the right person, that when God promised to send Messiah, he sent Jesus and the man from Galilee that we identify, he is the one, the Messiah, the one sent from God.
• 16:25
  Now that's important for us because we need to have confidence in the one sent from God.
• 16:31
  We need to have confidence that when we believe what Jesus says, we know he is the Son of God.
• 16:39
  When we listen to the stories about Jesus, we understand that we're hearing from the creator of the world, and we know he is the one who is the way, the truth, and the life, and we can trust him.
• 16:55
  That's why we can have faith.
• 16:57
  One of the compelling reasons we can have faith and have confidence, absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
• 17:07
  So welcome to the new year.
• 17:10
  Welcome to the first weekend, the first Sunday of Advent, and let's begin our Advent journey with a reminder that Advent celebrates the birth of Jesus, and Advent celebrates the second coming of Jesus, and we can be confident that what the Bible tells us about him is true and will come to pass.
• 17:38
  All right, so now let's shift gears a little bit.
• 17:41
  Now I want to look at a parable that helps us think about the second coming of Jesus.
• 17:46
  And I want to help us with the context of that.
• 17:50
  We know some things about the way weddings were celebrated in Jesus' time.
• 17:58
  We don't know maybe every detail we'd like to, it depends where you read how much they seem to think we know.
• 18:04
  That's kind of normal in scholarly things, but in general sense, the wedding traditions in Jesus' day involved a betrothal, a period of waiting, a time when the bride was claimed by the groom, and then a celebration.
• 18:19
  Now we have a glimpse of the celebration idea because that was what took place in Cana of Galilee, where Jesus turned the water into wine.
• 18:27
  That was a wedding celebration.
• 18:30
  So let's let's flesh that out a little bit so we understand, and then let's get into the parable itself because it's it's really interesting, really interesting.
• 18:41
  So a wedding, what we might call a wedding, and that's a pretty general term right now.
• 18:47
  I'm using a uh joining of a man and a woman to form a new household, if you want to say that involves several steps.
• 18:56
  The first step was the betrothal.
• 18:59
  Now, in those days, marriages were pretty much arranged, and that still happens in some some cultures today, and that's fine.
• 19:08
  But the first step would have been a visit by the groom and his parents to the house of the potential bride to talk with her and her parents.
• 19:22
  Now, probably near as we can understand, this was all a foregone conclusion, but they did go through the steps that that led to the finalizing of this agreement.
• 19:36
  Probably the fathers in this case had already agreed that these two were going to get married, and probably they had consulted their son, their daughter, to find out about that and to begin the process.
• 19:47
  But anyway, they sit down and they have a conversation, and the invitation is extended for the bride to become the bride of this young man, the wife of this young man.
• 20:00
  And they go through the steps and they finalize it, and they conclude their conversation with the young man saying to the bride, I go to prepare a place for you.
• 20:11
  Now you might recognize that phrase as the one Jesus used with his disciples so that they would know when he ascended to the father he was preparing a place and he would return to to get them.
• 20:24
  We all understand that we've heard that in the Bible stories.
• 20:26
  So, okay, so the the young man, the groom, returns with his parents to their family home and begins to prepare a place, maybe a room in the family home, someplace, whatever was appropriate to their situation where he would bring his bride.
• 20:47
  Now, I heard one man explain this, and he said, like all young men, that guy, that young man, he would have slapped it together as quick as he could to figure out okay, now I can go get my bride.
• 21:00
  In his eagerness, he would have just done whatever he could do to get it ready to go.
• 21:05
  Except that readiness to claim the bride depended upon the father's permission.
• 21:12
  And only his father could tell him when everything was set so he could go claim his bride.
• 21:19
  So there's a period of waiting involved here.
• 21:22
  The bride is getting ready.
• 21:24
  She and her girlfriends, we might say, bridesmaids, could we say, are waiting and preparing for when the groom arrives because they don't know when he's going to come.
• 21:35
  Now, in reality, that may have been leaked.
• 21:39
  I don't know.
• 21:39
  But you get the idea.
• 21:40
  They were waiting.
• 21:41
  Well, at one point, then the father would say to the groom, okay, you can go claim your bride, and the groom and his friends would take off in a joyous celebration, a joyous procession to go to the bride's house and claim his bride, where they would then return for the celebration.
• 22:00
  All right, that's a rough idea of what happened.
• 22:04
  They returned for the wedding reception, we would say.
• 22:07
  So that's kind of an outline that we can piece together from what happened in those days.
• 22:14
  Now, we want to consider this parable that I want to read for us in that context.
• 22:21
  The context of what we know of a wedding celebration, a courtship, we could say, I guess, all the way to the wedding itself and the celebration after the wedding.
• 22:33
  So I want us to turn to the scriptures, and I want to read that story from Matthew chapter 25.
• 22:41
  And it's we get different names for it.
• 22:45
  Um, this particular edition of the English Bibles calls it the parable of the ten bridesmaids.
• 22:50
  So we'll stick with that one for now.
• 22:53
  But let me read that starting Matthew 25, verse 1.
• 22:58
  This is the new living translation.
• 23:01
  Then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.
• 23:08
  All right, now I didn't say it, but you probably picked up on this because you're a smart audience.
• 23:12
  That's Jesus speaking.
• 23:14
  Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.
• 23:20
  Five of them were foolish and five were wise.
• 23:23
  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 oil.
• 23:33
  When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
• 23:39
  At midnight, they were roused by the shout, look, the bridegroom is coming.
• 23:44
  Come out and meet him.
• 23:46
  All the bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps.
• 23:50
  Then the five foolish ones asked the others, please, give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.
• 23:58
  But the others replied, We don't have enough for all of us.
• 24:02
  Go to a shop and buy some for yourselves.
• 24:06
  But while they were gone to buy oil, the bridegroom came.
• 24:11
  Then those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was locked.
• 24:16
  Later, when the other five bridesmaids returned, they stood outside calling, Lord, Lord, open the door for us.
• 24:24
  But he called back.
• 24:26
  Believe me, I don't know you.
• 24:30
  So you too must keep watch, for you do not know the day or hour of my return.
• 24:40
  Jesus' words, using the illustration of a wedding celebration and bridesmaids to remind us that we need to keep watch to be ready for his return.
• 24:55
  Now, remember, keeping watch for the arrival of the bridegroom was not considered an onerous or unpleasant situation.
• 25:06
  It was just part of the ritual, part of what happened.
• 25:10
  We should not think of keeping watch and preparing for the return of Jesus, except in the sense that it's what is and it's where we live.
• 25:20
  See, we live between the birth and the return.
• 25:25
  And we live with eager anticipation that one day Jesus will come and make all the wrong things right.
• 25:31
  We'll be right back.
• 25:32
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• 31:26
  Welcome back to Faith Is.
• 31:28
  I'm Pastor Rick Stevens, and we are celebrating the new year today on Faith Is.
• 31:33
  That's right.
• 31:34
  Remember, the beginning of Advent this weekend, November 30th specifically, is the first day of the new year as the church celebrates it, and we're remembering to anticipate the arrival of Jesus at Christmas and to anticipate the return of Jesus one day, a day we do not know, only the Father knows.
• 31:57
  But we have determined that it's important to be ready.
• 32:02
  In the same way we want to be ready for our Christmas celebrations, we want to be ready today and every day for the celebration for the anticipation of the return of Jesus.
• 32:13
  So we started out a few moments ago talking about a parable that's referred to in a lot of ways, and I said we'd refer to it as the parable of the ten bridesmaids.
• 32:26
  And we understand the context of the wedding celebration of those days, and we understand better why Jesus used that illustration, that parable to remind us of preparation, being ready.
• 32:43
  But I want to ask a question that that I saw asked by another preacher, and I thought it was a very good one.
• 32:50
  Well, what's in those lamps?
• 32:54
  You know, what what's in those lamps?
• 32:56
  Well, the parable says olive oil.
• 32:57
  Okay, I get that.
• 32:58
  But if but if he told that parable, and remember, parables are earthly stories with heavy meanings, they use earthly stories, things we understand to teach us about things we don't understand.
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  That's what a parable does.
• 33:12
  So if we can understand that the people and the things in a parable symbolize something else, then we can ask, what's in those lamps?
• 33:25
  And maybe even more specifically, we can ask, what's in your lamp?
• 33:30
  Well, one of the things about the parable is the romance of anticipation.
• 33:34
  And we see that because it talks about the bridegroom and the bridesmaids being ready.
• 33:39
  Interestingly, the parable doesn't mention the bride at all.
• 33:43
  Mentions the bridesmaids and the bridesmaids are eagerly anticipating the arrival of the groom.
• 33:50
  Now, the bridesmaids are usually understood as representing the church, the people of God, you and me, eagerly anticipating the return of Jesus.
• 33:59
  And there is a romance of anticipation.
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  We love to anticipate things.
• 34:05
  We anticipate holidays.
• 34:07
  Right now we're anticipating Christmas, because very quickly in our culture, we put Thanksgiving in the rear view mirror and start thinking about Christmas.
• 34:14
  Okay, that's just the way we do.
• 34:17
  So we anticipate the coming holiday, the trips that we take.
• 34:22
  If you have a trip planned, maybe for Christmas or something else, you anticipate, you look forward to that trip.
• 34:28
  And part of the enjoyment is the anticipation.
• 34:31
  It's the same way for birthdays.
• 34:34
  We anticipate celebrating a birthday, and we look forward to that, and the anticipation is part of the joy of the celebration.
• 34:42
  Even something as simple as weekends.
• 34:44
  How many times have you heard people talk about how they're looking forward to the weekend?
• 34:48
  Well, we we have a romance with anticipation.
• 34:51
  We live for the next big thing.
• 34:53
  As soon as Independence Day is over, we start thinking, okay, what's the next holiday?
• 34:57
  Oh, Labor Day.
• 34:59
  Well, that's just how we have learned, taught ourselves, our culture has begun to celebrate the next thing, the anticipation.
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  We manage the law between big events because we just realize that you can't have a high level of anticipation all the time.
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  It's just not sustainable.
• 35:20
  We understand that.
• 35:21
  And so we learn to manage that anticipation.
• 35:24
  And in a similar way, we are not always going to feel as eager for the return of Jesus as we do one day to the next, because we understand that we can't maintain that kind of emotional level.
• 35:38
  So we learn to manage our emotions.
• 35:40
  We learn that anticipation is part of the experience and that anticipation kind of rises and falls day by day, looking forward to it.
• 35:49
  But it is a significant part of the experience.
• 35:52
  And so it's it's good for us to have anticipation of the coming of Jesus.
• 35:59
  We should teach ourselves to anticipate that.
• 36:03
  And in the context of being ready when we have the assurance of readiness, then the anticipation is different.
• 36:10
  Now, we're going to talk about readiness as we go along, but if you have trouble anticipating, is it because you know you aren't ready?
• 36:20
  Now that's a serious realization.
• 36:23
  And the remedy is get ready.
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  Get ready for the coming of the Lord.
• 36:29
  Because when he comes, there will be no time for getting ready.
• 36:32
  We saw that because when the bridegroom arrived, the bridesmaids that didn't have extra oil didn't get in to the celebration.
• 36:43
  So it reminds us of the importance of being ready.
• 36:46
  And we need to understand that.
• 36:49
  And if we have trouble anticipating, we need to reorient our understanding so that we can begin to anticipate.
• 36:56
  One day, he is coming to make all the wrong things right.
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  And that's going to be what a day.
• 37:03
  As we sometimes have sung, what a day that will be.
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  Absolutely it will.
• 37:08
  Now, so we understand the romance of anticipation, and that was involved in the story.
• 37:13
  The bridesmaids were ready for the groom to come.
• 37:16
  They were anticipating his arrival.
• 37:18
  But we also, and we've started talking about this a little bit, understand the reality of delay.
• 37:26
  That's just life, okay?
• 37:27
  And we live in the reality of delay.
• 37:32
  We live today in the unrealized certainty that Jesus is coming.
• 37:37
  Well, he's coming, but we haven't experienced that yet.
• 37:41
  It's as though, and I like to say this on Holy Saturday, the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter.
• 37:48
  What do we do with that?
• 37:49
  Well, what we realize is that that's where we live.
• 37:53
  We live between Jesus, death, burial, and resur and the resurrection on Sunday.
• 38:00
  And so we live between the coming of Jesus and the return of Jesus.
• 38:06
  That's just how we live.
• 38:09
  And we wrestle with things like in the book of Revelation in the early, I think it's in the first verse, maybe the second.
• 38:17
  The book of Revelation says that this is a revelation of what must soon take place.
• 38:24
  And so, so we think soon.
• 38:27
  Well, you and I, uh, it's just kind of the the way we understand the concept of soon.
• 38:33
  We think soon should be this afternoon, or or maybe tomorrow at the latest.
• 38:38
  We think soon should be, well, soon.
• 38:41
  Well, obviously, the concept that's portrayed or communicated to us in Revelation is different than that, but we still understand that it will happen, even though we live in a time of delay.
• 38:57
  We have to learn to understand that delay, manage that delay.
• 39:01
  It's a reality, but it doesn't change the romance of anticipation because we anticipate the coming of Jesus.
• 39:10
  We just understand that, well, we have to wait.
• 39:13
  Now, we can rest in that, even sleep.
• 39:16
  Uh sleep's a necessity.
• 39:18
  And you know the parable talks about how they went to sleep, but it doesn't condemn them for going to sleep.
• 39:26
  So, you know, we might have heightened anticipation of the return of Jesus at some point, but then the law that we talked about sets in, and maybe we sleep.
• 39:38
  Figuratively speaking.
• 39:40
  Well, and sleep as a reality of the physical condition.
• 39:44
  That's it's not criticized, it's understood.
• 39:46
  It's it's the way it is.
• 39:48
  And and when we rest during these delay periods that we experience, then we rest in the consolation of his coming.
• 39:59
  You know, we can.
• 40:00
  Rest during the delay because we still know he's coming.
• 40:04
  He's not here yet, but he's coming.
• 40:07
  He's coming.
• 40:09
  He will be here.
• 40:11
  And so we rest in the consolation of that reality.
• 40:15
  But we rest also in readiness.
• 40:20
  And that's this third point that we should make out of this parable is the recovery of readiness.
• 40:26
  And that's where the question comes in what's in your lamp?
• 40:29
  Are you ready for the coming of the Lord?
• 40:32
  Get ready.
• 40:34
  The old song, kind of a popular song that most people would not remember because it was here and there and gone.
• 40:40
  But get ready for the coming of the Lord.
• 40:42
  Well, there's a lot of songs that talk about that.
• 40:44
  So what do we make of the oil?
• 40:48
  What's in your lamp?
• 40:51
  Now, it's easy to equate the reference to oil with the oil of the Holy Spirit.
• 40:58
  And I don't think that's improper.
• 41:00
  Remember, when we have these kind of images in the Bible, the idea is for it to appeal to our imagination to get us to think about things.
• 41:11
  If it meant to be a specific, carefully described and defined entity, it would do that.
• 41:20
  The Bible would do that.
• 41:22
  But Jesus uses this to fire our imagination and to help us think about things like what's in your lamp.
• 41:29
  Is your lamp ready?
• 41:31
  Do you have an extra supply of oil for your lamp so that your readiness is assured?
• 41:38
  And we're trying to get our arms around this idea.
• 41:41
  And so I want us to think specifically about that.
• 41:45
  It's easy to say, okay, it's the oil of the Holy Spirit, but what does that mean?
• 41:50
  Well, maybe we can think of it this way.
• 41:54
  In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 13, the last chapter or the last verse of this chapter, the chapter we often refer to as the love chapter, we read these words.
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  Three things will last forever, faith, hope, and love.
• 42:14
  And the greatest of these is love.
• 42:17
  So when we sing the song, give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning.
• 42:22
  Maybe we should think about the oil being the oil of faith, the oil of hope, the oil of love.
• 42:31
  And of course, the summary, the greatest of these is love.
• 42:34
  Well, how do we how do we make those more concrete?
• 42:38
  Well, the reason I came up with this definition of faith that we use here is because I struggled with how do I make something that's abstract like faith more concrete so people can actually live into and live out their faith.
• 42:53
  And so I came up with the idea that faith is absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
• 43:00
  Often people doubt or wonder or question God, but faith is absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
• 43:10
  And we don't put our confidence that God will do what we tell him we want done.
• 43:15
  That's not the point.
• 43:16
  The point is that we trust God to manage life and living because we have absolute confidence that he's trustworthy.
• 43:26
  So the oil in your lamp could be faith.
• 43:30
  I hope it is.
• 43:31
  The oil in your lamp could be hope.
• 43:33
  Remember Corinthians said these three things will last forever, faith, hope, and love.
• 43:39
  Well, so you have faith.
• 43:41
  What about hope?
• 43:42
  Now, what is hope?
• 43:43
  Now, hope is part of the celebration of the first Sunday of Advent.
• 43:48
  We understand that.
• 43:49
  That's kind of normal because of the predictions, the prophecy that Jesus would come, so it reminds us of hope.
• 43:56
  But but what is hope?
• 43:58
  You know, sometimes people think of hope as pie in the sky by and by, and that is not what the Bible wants us to think of.
• 44:05
  When we think of hope, we're not thinking of, well, I hope my team wins the game next week.
• 44:11
  Well, you might hope they win.
• 44:13
  Sometimes I hope my team wins.
• 44:15
  But that's not the hope the Bible's talking about.
• 44:18
  We might hope we get a certain gift for Christmas, but that's not the hope the Bible's talking about.
• 44:26
  I mean, we have gotten the gift because God gave us the gift of Jesus.
• 44:30
  So we've gotten the gift we need.
• 44:33
  But but we think of hope in those terms in a hoped for outcome.
• 44:38
  And there are a lot of things that we hope will turn out right.
• 44:41
  And I understand that.
• 44:42
  We all understand that.
• 44:44
  But hope, as the Bible talks about it, is a more active acceptance of and understanding of and realize of, in a certain sense, what God is going to do.
• 44:57
  So perhaps we can think of hope this way.
• 45:00
  Perhaps hope is the unrealized certainty of God's promises.
• 45:06
  The unrealized certainty of God's promises.
• 45:10
  See, that that puts hope in a different category because, well, we know it hasn't happened, but we know it's going to, because God is God and He promised it.
• 45:18
  It's not the Keserah Sarah of whatever will be, will be.
• 45:22
  That's not hope, as the Bible talks about.
• 45:24
  No.
• 45:25
  Hope is the confident assurance that God will keep his promises.
• 45:30
  Now, you might say, well, I think God promised this and he didn't do this for me.
• 45:34
  No, no, be careful.
• 45:37
  This kind of hope in God's promises is not a selfish hope that we'll get our way.
• 45:42
  That's not it.
• 45:43
  Or we'll get what we want.
• 45:44
  There'll been plenty of things that I would have liked God to have done differently in my life.
• 45:48
  Plenty.
• 45:50
  But that's not my place to tell God what he must do.
• 45:56
  My place is to have assurance, confidence that I can trust God, and I live in the unrealized certainty that he will keep his promises.
• 46:05
  If you want support for that idea, think about it this way.
• 46:09
  Because a lot of people want, give me some evidence that I can have confidence in God.
• 46:12
  Well, consider this.
• 46:13
  God entered into covenant with Abraham and the people of Abraham's tribe, the Hebrew people, the Jewish people.
• 46:23
  And in spite of their unfaithfulness, and you can read the stories in the Old Testament.
• 46:28
  Terrible stories, uh brutally honest, difficult.
• 46:32
  In spite of their unfaithfulness, God never wavered in keeping his promises.
• 46:39
  Never once.
• 46:55
  I realize that's a kind of a peculiar way of saying it, but think about it.
• 46:58
  The unrealized certainty of God's promises.
• 47:03
  So we have faith.
• 47:04
  We have faith in our lamps.
• 47:06
  We have hope in our lamps.
• 47:08
  What about love?
• 47:08
  Do we have love in our lamps?
• 47:10
  Because readiness involves preparation, having oil for the coming of the bridegroom.
• 47:19
  So maybe we should think of love now.
• 47:21
  Faith, hope, and love.
• 47:22
  Three things that'll last forever.
• 47:24
  Well, now, what's love?
• 47:26
  That is probably the hardest concept for us to wrestle with because we use the word love in so many crazy ways.
• 47:34
  From I love my dog to I love pizza, and you could go on and on and on.
• 47:38
  I'd love to have a conversation with you.
• 47:41
  I love that, I love this, on and on.
• 47:43
  We insert the word love.
• 47:46
  But the Bible's view of love is different.
• 47:48
  And so I was thinking, how could I describe that better for us?
• 47:54
  And I borrowed this from another definition of another concept.
• 47:58
  But I think it kind of helps.
• 48:00
  What if we think of love as an understanding and practice of life that puts the well-being of others ahead of our own self-interest?
• 48:13
  What if love is, let me say that again, an understanding and practice of life that puts the well-being of others ahead of our own self-interest?
• 48:25
  Could that be love?
• 48:28
  Yeah, sure could be.
• 48:30
  How many times are we irritated in life because we don't get what we want?
• 48:36
  And yet, how many times have we known the joy of helping someone else get what they want and putting their self-interest ahead of ours?
• 48:44
  Years ago, the concept of joy was spelled out in a song that said, Jesus and others and you, what a wonderful way to spell joy.
• 48:52
  Well, that's one way to think about love, too.
• 48:55
  Love and understanding and practice of life that puts the well-being of others ahead of our own self-interest.
• 49:02
  So if that's the oil we need for our lamps, where do we go for a refill?
• 49:06
  In the parable, the bridesmaids that needed more oil went off to a shop to purchase more oil.
• 49:13
  And they were successful, they got more oil, but by the time they got back, the door had been closed and they could not enter the celebration of the return of the bridegroom.
• 49:25
  Where do we go for a refill?
• 49:26
  If we want to have oil in our lamps, how do we refill that oil?
• 49:30
  Because some of you are thinking, well, I don't know if I'm ready for the coming of Jesus.
• 49:35
  Some of us are thinking, well, I I'm a Christian, but I don't know if I have enough oil in my lamp.
• 49:42
  Where do we go for a refill?
• 49:44
  Well, it's really quite simple.
• 49:47
  And every time I mention these things, I get the feeling that people say, Well, that's what I've always heard.
• 49:52
  And as though they're looking for some special formula, some extra remedy, some
• 50:00
  Silver bullet idea that'll just solve the problem, but I don't really have that for us because God has given us the way to refill our oil supplies over and over and over.
• 50:13
  We just have a tendency to reject the idea because we don't like it.
• 50:19
  I can assure you that whether you like it or not, having a full supply of oil is going to matter on the day that it matters.
• 50:27
  So where do you go for a refill?
• 50:30
  Probably won't surprise you, but the first answer to that is to church.
• 50:34
  You go to church every weekend.
• 50:38
  Now I know some churches have service on different days other than Sunday these days.
• 50:42
  The Bible doesn't object to that.
• 50:46
  What I'm saying is, find a church that believes what the Bible says and practices it and show up for worship every weekend, every Sunday or whatever day that church has service that you can attend.
• 51:05
  Show up to church.
• 51:06
  Repeatedly in the book of Revelation, we saw worship pop up, and it's an important vital practice for us to keep our lives centered on God and in the context of this parable to keep our oil supply filled up.
• 51:22
  Secondly, Bible study.
• 51:25
  A conversation about the Bible goes a long, long way toward resupplying the oil in our lamps.
• 51:32
  Now, people get a little how should I say uncomfortable with even that idea.
• 51:38
  Well, where do I go for a Bible study?
• 51:40
  Well, you can find them.
• 51:42
  It might not be easy to find one that suits you, but real remember, the first time you go, it's not going to feel comfortable, but you need to go a few times, and maybe it will be comfortable, but find a Bible study, a conversation about the Bible that helps you grow.
• 51:56
  And the third one is this actually serve.
• 51:59
  Do something for your church to help the church accomplish its mission of building up the body of Christ.
• 52:06
  Find something you can do.
• 52:08
  Don't just go sit in the pew or in the chair, whatever arrangement your church has.
• 52:15
  Actually do something.
• 52:17
  What a refreshing idea.
• 52:19
  You go for a refill to church to Bible study and to a place of service, a ministry for yourself.
• 52:25
  Now, how do you measure your reserves?
• 52:28
  I think that's important.
• 52:29
  I mean, we can see in the parable that it says they ran out of oil, they didn't have enough supply.
• 52:34
  So how do we measure our reserves?
• 52:36
  Well, that's not as easy as we might think it is.
• 52:42
  We measure our reserves in the crucible of life because life happens, and how we respond is a measure of our oil supply.
• 52:52
  Do we have an adequate supply to respond to the things of life?
• 52:58
  So there's an illustration of that that happened some years ago.
• 53:01
  You may remember when a young man walked into a church in Charleston, South Carolina on a Wednesday evening for their Bible study.
• 53:10
  Some historically black church.
• 53:13
  He walked in, a white young man, terrible story, attended the Bible study, in the course of time pulled out a gun and shot and killed nine people, including the pastor in that Bible study.
• 53:26
  Terrible, terrible incident.
• 53:28
  You probably remember hearing about it.
• 53:35
  Well, the church responded in a way that shocked some people, amazed some people, but warmed the heart of many people.
• 53:47
  Because the church did not respond with anger.
• 53:51
  It did not respond with blame.
• 53:53
  It did not respond with recrimination.
• 53:56
  It responded with faith, hope, and love.
• 54:02
  It responded because they had stored up oil for a time like that.
• 54:09
  They had lived through the difficulties of life, and they had learned to turn to God to Bible study, to serving so that they would have oil supplied for such a time as that.
• 54:24
  And people were kind of amazed.
• 54:26
  They didn't know what to think.
• 54:28
  Some of them gave unneeded advice.
• 54:32
  But the church responded in a way that we would hope all churches would be able to.
• 55:20
  We see light.
• 55:40
  It's the people of God.
• 55:41
  And we need to be ready to embrace really the best news of the parable.
• 55:47
  You probably caught it.
• 55:50
  That when the bridegroom arrived, those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast.
• 55:57
  When the bridegroom arrives, we who are ready, we get to go to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
• 56:05
  And we get to celebrate the words of Revelation.
• 56:10
  When Jesus said he was coming, we celebrate with the writer.
• 56:14
  Amen.
• 56:14
  Come, Lord Jesus.
• 56:16
  And may the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's holy people.
• 56:21
  And everyone said, Amen.
• 56:24
  I'm Pastor Rick!