For meals, "ready to serve" is great; someone else did all the work for you. For living faithfully, "ready to serve" means you need to get to work and keep at it. We look at how young Samuel and Jesus' stories about the faithful servant and the moron householder speak to us.
Young Samuel had been committed into the care of old, useless priest Eli of the Temple of Shiloh. This would hardly have seemed the right conditions to raise up one of the most outstanding, pivotal leaders. Eli's sons were known to be thoroughly corrupt, and Eli himself refused to restrain them. Still, Samuel learned through it all, made himself ready to serve, and grew into God's constant favor.
Jesus is continuing his discussion about values - remember last week was the foolish rich man. Here, the concern is about knowing the date and time of the coming of the end of the age. Jesus cites the servant who diligently remains alert, awaiting the return of his master. The servant doesn't know when the master will return and simply remains faithful to the master. Jesus gives a surprise twist to that story.
Then Jesus switches to a different scenario, from servant-awaiting-master to householder-and-the-thief. If the householder knew when the thief would come, the householder could prepare. Of course, the wise householder had already prepared - been faithful! - but the moron householder left the door open, had cash and keys on the counter, and left out a handtruck so the thief could cart off the big screen TV, the refrigerator, stove, and washer-dryer.
Get the whole story in the sermon video below and from the downloads below the video panel.
Young Samuel had been committed into the care of old, useless priest Eli of the Temple of Shiloh. This would hardly have seemed the right conditions to raise up one of the most outstanding, pivotal leaders. Eli's sons were known to be thoroughly corrupt, and Eli himself refused to restrain them. Still, Samuel learned through it all, made himself ready to serve, and grew into God's constant favor.
Jesus is continuing his discussion about values - remember last week was the foolish rich man. Here, the concern is about knowing the date and time of the coming of the end of the age. Jesus cites the servant who diligently remains alert, awaiting the return of his master. The servant doesn't know when the master will return and simply remains faithful to the master. Jesus gives a surprise twist to that story.
Then Jesus switches to a different scenario, from servant-awaiting-master to householder-and-the-thief. If the householder knew when the thief would come, the householder could prepare. Of course, the wise householder had already prepared - been faithful! - but the moron householder left the door open, had cash and keys on the counter, and left out a handtruck so the thief could cart off the big screen TV, the refrigerator, stove, and washer-dryer.
Get the whole story in the sermon video below and from the downloads below the video panel.
| 08-11-19-sermon.mp3 |
| 08-11-19-ff-answers.pdf |
| 08-11-19-ready_to_serve.pdf |