The Choice to be Prepared

today, what we're going to do is we're going to be in Matthew chapter 25 looking at a parable that Jesus shared with his disciples, that I truly believe illustrates the importance of choices that we make, and the responsibility we take of those choices as it relates to our relationship with Jesus. Okay, here's my hope is that we would be able to assess our own spiritual condition. Where am I at spiritually? That's the question that I want you to have in the back of your mind as I'm talking today. I want you to assess your own spiritual condition. Over these 21 days of prayer and fasting, one of the things that we're praying for is a spiritual awakening, that we would be awakened to the things of the Spirit. This is an opportunity for us to be awakened to our own spirits. What's going on on the inside of my life? What's going on? How's my relationship with Jesus? And so that's our prayer today as well. So let me pray, and then we're going to hop into some scripture, father. I thank you so much for today, and I thank you for the word that you want to deliver God. And I pray that today we would be awakened to our spiritual condition God, that we would not point fingers, that we would not cast blame, but we would take responsibility for where we are, that we would examine our own hearts and allow you access to examine our hearts. God to show us what you see and how our spirits are, whether they're healthy or whether they're hurting, help us to grow today in Jesus name, amen. Amen. Okay, alright, guys, well, we are going to be like I said in Matthew chapter 25 and we're going to read a little bit of Scripture, verses one through 13. If you don't have your Bible, that's okay. It's up on the screens, or you can follow along in the Mercy city app. Okay? This is Jesus talking to His disciples, and He says this, then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 bridesmaids who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 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. When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight, they were roused by a 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 the 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 too must keep watch for you do not know the day or the hour of my return. Pretty intense, right? We have two groups of people here, and both groups of people have the same opportunity, the same information, but the wise bridesmaids have made the choice to be prepared, and the foolish bridesmaids have made the choice to be unprepared. A few interesting things about this parable that I found was that the issue wasn't that the bridegroom was delayed, okay? It wasn't that he was was not on time. The issue was that one group had enough oil and the other group did not. The group that was prepared was welcome into the wedding feast of the bridegroom, and the unprepared group was locked out of the party, which is the worst. Nobody wants to be locked out of the party, right? Like everybody wants to be included in the party. But here's the key to this, and I think we have to imply this as we get started today, they were locked out of the party because it said they didn't know the groom. And they didn't know the groom because they didn't have enough oil. So we have to infer that having oil equaled knowing the bridegroom. Okay, so we're going to just make that connection early on. When you have the oil, it means you know the groom. Okay, so I just want you to tuck that away and we're going to talk about that in a little bit. So just so we're all clear and we're all on the same page, this parable is speaking Jesus is talking about his return. Okay, he's letting the disciples and everybody reading this passage, that means us be aware that there will come a time that we need to be ready and prepared for his return. This parable comes at a time in Scripture when Jesus knows that his. Time with His disciples is coming to an end. Chapter 23 and chapter 424. Of the book of Matthew are talking a lot about the signs of the times. They're talking a lot about things that are going to happen in the end times, in the last days, okay, and then what happens in the very next chapter? In chapter 26 is the Last Supper. So we find chapter 25 is kind of right here in sort of the end of Jesus's time on Earth, the end of Jesus's time where he's deciding, like, guys, I don't want you to miss the point. I gotta say some things to you, to prepare you and to prepare us, so that you don't miss the very reason why I came. We believe, as a church, that Jesus is coming back later, after Jesus ascends into heaven. We see in the book of Acts, and I'm going to show you this in Acts chapter one, just so you guys are clear, just so everybody we're on the same page. It says this. After saying this, he Jesus was taken up into a cloud while they the disciples were watching, and they could no longer see him as they strained to see him rising into heaven. Two white robed men suddenly stood among them, Men of Galilee, they said, Why are you standing here? Staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go. This is letting us know that the point that Jesus was making was to be prepared and to encourage others to be prepared, and so we don't miss the the main thing so we don't get sidetracked today. Today is not a debate on the end times. You don't want me to preach on the end times. It would be a very short message. I would say it's happening. Be prepared. That's it. Alright. Let's all go home, right? Like I don't know the Bible literally said no one knows the day or the hour, so I'm not going to waste my time trying to figure it out. What I'm going to do is make sure I'm prepared and make sure that everybody around me is prepared, so that we can be ready when Jesus returns, and that's what I want to encourage us with today. I want to examine this parable so that we don't miss the point and we can make the choice to be prepared. We have a choice. Look at your neighbor and say, You have a choice. You have a choice. Okay, so we're going to start with the unprepared bridesmaids. And I gotta tell you, like, this can feel a little heavy. Okay, so I just need you to, like, loosen up a little bit. All right, like, just elbow your neighbor. Maybe just make sure everybody's awake. Get a mint if you need one, cough, drop, whatever, whatever we need to do. Okay, unprepared bridesmaids, four choices they made to be unprepared, because they did make a choice to be unprepared. Right? Even being unprepared is a choice. The first one, obviously, they ran out of oil. They did not have enough oil. Oil in Scripture, represents the Holy Spirit. And remember, what we inferred earlier is that oil gave them the ability to know the groom or Jesus, the in the parable, Jesus is the bridegroom, okay, the active power and the life of God is found in the Holy Spirit. If we took a look at this lamp, and the lamp represents our salvation, it was an empty vessel. They thought it looked good, but in reality, they were lacking the very thing that gave that lamp life. There was nothing in the lamp. It was an empty lamp. It couldn't actually do what it was meant to do. There was no power in the lamp. There was nothing active in the lamp. It had no purpose or action. It had a form of godliness, but it lacked the power because there was no oil. There was no oil. These bridesmaids thought they were good. They thought, maybe because, hey, I go to church on Sunday, I'm good. Or maybe they thought, hey, we're around the gals that have it going on, so we're good. We're around the right people. We're in the right place. But their lamps were empty. There was actually nothing on the inside of them that connected them to the power of God. They were lacking in personal preparedness that was required to meet Jesus, and they didn't know him. They looked good on the outside, but they were empty on the inside, they didn't have any oil. The second choice that they made to be unprepared was they slept instead of getting oil, they slept instead of getting oil. While they were waiting, they went to sleep instead of preparing. They took a nap, right? This might be referred to as our friend called procrastination. And. Going to make you raise your hand. We are not going to shame any procrastinators in the room. Okay? We are not I find myself procrastinating on certain things and not procrastinating. It just literally depends on what it is, right? Procrastination is defined as the act of delaying or putting off tasks. Listen to this, even when you know it could have negative consequences, even when you know   I should probably do that, but I'm not going to anyways, like you know this is going to come back to get me, but I'm not going to do it. These bridesmaids didn't take the time that they needed to prepare it and said they made a choice, I can only assume was based on how they felt right to miss the opportunity. This is what I like to call the I'll do it later mentality. Do you ever have the I'll do it later mentality? The worst place that shows up in my life is filling up my gas tank, especially when it's cold out, man, I will ride that gas tank. As soon as that light comes on, I flip on the miles to empty, and I'm like, 30 I am good for like, two days, like I know it is. It is seven miles to the building. I got a good seven miles to get Lila to school. Okay, I'm doing pretty good, but without fail, I forget about it, because, you know, you just it blends in, then with all the other lights, and then all of a sudden, I've got one mile to empty and I'm on O Street, and I'm like, Hmm, this could come back to bite me, negative consequences that I have ignored, right? Like it was the I'll do it later mentality. It was the but what happens when we do the I'll do it later? Mentality is we forget about it until it's too late, and then all of a sudden we realize, oops, it's too late, and I've missed what I needed. I missed the opportunity, and I have excuses, excuses, excuses why it didn't happen. Number three, they expected others to prepare for them. They expected others to prepare for them. This is something that can be the blame game, right? They expected others to prepare for them. When these bridesmaids realized that they didn't have what they needed, they expected those who had prepared to provide for them. They probably thought, Oh, those girls will just share with us. I'm not going to do what I need to do. Instead, I'll just rely on someone else they expected to receive a reward for someone else's work or the blessing for someone else's effort. And I really felt, as I was preparing for that this, that this was a great time to talk about the age of accountability. Okay, the age of accountability. What am I talking about when I say that? Well, there's a space where as young people, and I'm not just talking about age young people, but also in faith, young in faith, or young in age, where we become responsible for getting our own oil, for making sure that our walk with Jesus is growing and life giving, like for the beginning, you know, you kind of rely on other people you you rely on them to help you, rely on them to teach you rely on their prayers and their faith and and that's perfectly normal. But there comes a point in time where maturity would say that now you become responsible to handle yourself. You become responsible for your own oil. The writer of Hebrews talks about this specifically in chapter five, verses 12 through 14. He says, You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. So he's actually bringing kind of a rebuke to the church that he's addressing. He says, instead, you need someone to teach you again about the basic things of God's Word. He's addressing a church that should have been growing, but they're not growing. They're having to re, teach and relearn, going through the same basic things over and over and over again. They're not taking ownership of God's Word and beginning to walk. That's why we encourage you to read the Bible. That's why we encourage you to say, Amen, and that's what Pastor Matt says every week. Like we take ownership of God's Word. We don't just want you to listen to us and and say, Okay, well, they said it so it must be true. No, we don't want you to do that. We want you to go we want you to read the word for yourself. We want you to hear from God yourself and take ownership and begin to develop some spiritual maturity, so that you can hear from God for yourself. So you're not waiting for somebody to tell you what to do, but you can go to prayer and God can speak to you. You can get in God's word, and he will deliver a message to. You, He will show you. I love Proverbs, three, five and six. It says he will show you what path to take. It doesn't say he will show your city group leader what path you should take. He will show your mother what path, sorry, moms, he will show your mother. I wish it did Sometimes, though, right? Like I wish the Bible would hook us up as our kids get older, sometimes there's not a verse that says that, as they get older, it's time to let them develop the Word of God in their own lives. And that's age or faith. You could be 30 and be a new Christian, and you need someone to walk with you in that. And that is perfectly normal. You could be 60, right? It doesn't matter. But as you mature, it's appropriate for you to take that word for yourself. It says you need someone to teach you you're like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn't know how to do what is right? Solid food is for those who are mature, who, through training, have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong. I love this word training. What does that imply? It means that there's some activity right? There's some training that goes into this. There's some activity that goes into this. It doesn't just happen overnight, but there's some some action that's put to our faith. We are trained in the things of God. We get skilled at what we're doing. Skill comes through training. Skill comes through practice. If you've ever started a new hobby or done anything new. You know this, you have to have some training that takes place when you first begin. You stumble around. It's not easy, but the more you do it, the easier it gets, the better you get, the more skilled you become. It's the same with your walk with the Lord. The more you do it, the more practice you get. You get more comfortable with it. You get more confident in it. You're like, oh, I don't want to pray. Okay, I'm going to try to pray. Oh, that was weird. It felt awkward. It was okay, let's try it again. I'm going to try it again. You're training your prayer life. You're training it feels weird. It feels that, hey, I'm feeling a little better. Okay, that wasn't as weird. I didn't feel as awkward. And then all of a sudden, you're skilled in your in your walk with the Lord, all of a sudden that's maturity that's growing in spiritual maturity, because we are each 100% responsible for our own spiritual growth and our own spiritual condition. You are the only one that knows how your health is spiritually. Finally, they were not where Jesus was. This seems obvious, because the bridesmaids missed the party, right? But these bridesmaids were not prepared, and so they were not ready for the opportunity, and they missed it. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They totally missed out on what God had for them, because they were not where they were supposed to be. I know that this has happened to all of us before, where we've been in a moment where we were maybe supposed to be in an environment where God wanted to deliver something to us, but we overslept, or we made a choice not to go. I can think of times when things happened in my life and I'm like, wow, that was weird. I can't believe I met that person. I can't believe I encountered that situation. I can't believe that happened to me, and that was God, setting up a moment for me where I encountered an opportunity to get to go to a new level, right? But if I had missed that opportunity, if I had made a different choice, I would have missed out on being in the right place at the right time that God had for me. Man, I can think of so many instances where God opened doors of opportunity. You ever meet somebody and you're like, Wow, I can't believe we just ran into each other. How weird it's because you were in the right place at the right time, but if you had made a different decision that day, you know, if you weren't doing the things that God don't know what those are for you. But I can think literally. I'm thinking in my mind how God got me to where he wanted me to. He opened doors because I was in the right place at the right time. I was preparing myself for those opportunities, all of these choices that the foolish bridesmaids made, led them to this moment. And here's the deal with these ladies. They knew why they were there. They were there to meet the bridegroom. They knew that that wasn't a surprise. It says they fell asleep while waiting for the bridegroom. They didn't take time to have everything they needed. They made a choice not to prepare, and we don't know why they didn't possibly they didn't want to do it. They didn't feel like it was necessary. They thought they had enough. Maybe it just didn't feel good. Maybe it wasn't easy. And so they let that flame burn out, or they let the oil dry up, or they figured, I'll do it later. I.But later came and they missed it, so that's not fun. So now we're going to look at the prepared bridesmaids. That sounds better, doesn't it? Okay? These ladies were ready to go. Four choices they made to be prepared. Number one, obviously no surprise here. They had enough oil. They had enough oil. They were filled with oil. They had enough, not just for the night, but they had enough. They had extra, just in case they had to wait. They were not operating from a place of just enough, just getting by, just here. Okay, maybe I can make it. But they made sure that they had what they needed to light their lamp. They knew that they might have to wait, and so they had extra. How did they get this oil? We know because of the parable that it had to be purchased, that it cost them something, they chose to give whatever was necessary to get the oil, because they needed to stay full of the Spirit. What does this look like? Practically, so many of us, I think if we are, if we do have oil, we have just enough to get by right? Like, maybe we can make it through the day. Like, maybe we can get okay, we went to church on Sunday. Usually Sunday, church can get me to, like, monday at 10, right? And then we're, like, running on fumes. Okay, well, maybe then Tuesday, Tuesday morning prayer comes. Okay, great. Now maybe then I can get to, like, Tuesday at 5pm but, like, that's like, just enough to get by, like, just skating by. But these bridesmaids, they had more than enough. That means that they were making the extra effort to be with Jesus. That's where you get the oil. You make the effort to be in God's presence. You make the effort to soak in his presence, to hear His voice, to worship, to spend time with him. That's where the oil comes from. The presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. It doesn't just show up because you're in church. It's something that has to be cultivated as you spend time, as you make the effort, as you pay a price, to begin to develop and refill those reservoirs of your life, so that you're not operating on empty or you're not operating on fumes, but you have more than enough. So when somebody comes up to you and they need something for you, you have the ability to pour out of your life. It doesn't empty you. It doesn't drain you. You have enough of what you need. You have enough of what you need. These daily encounters with Jesus is how we have more than enough. The second thing that they did is they got enough rest. Now you might be thinking, Well, man, when the unprepared bridesmaids fell asleep, they were procrastinating, and that's true, but when you're prepared, when you're sleeping and you're full, it's called rest. They were able to rest in a way that prepared them for the arrival of the bridegroom. This is called holy Rest, rest, or Sabbath rest. It's what kept them filled and prepared for the bridegroom to come. This rest didn't drain them. It sustained them. It kept that oil full in their lives. The this only comes when you're already full of the Holy Spirit, when you're already aligned to what he's doing, when you're engaged with him, when you're ready for what he's doing, when you're walking in obedience to His voice, you can find true rest. The third thing they did is they set appropriate boundaries. Okay, now this is an interesting one, because I've read this parable before, and it's kind of bothered me that they didn't share their oil. Has that ever bothered anybody else? Like, I'm kind of like, man, you couldn't have just given them, like, a little oil and then everybody could have gone to the party. Like, I feel like that was kind of like selfish, you know, kind of mean. But I really, actually feel like God's trying to show us something here, something that he's trying to teach us here is that, as Christians, you know, we think we should always give others what we have that we should always be willing to just give, give, give, give, no matter what, no matter how we end up, no matter what happens to us. Isn't that the Christian way, right? But here's what I think this illustrates. I think it illustrates a different principle. I think this shows us how to have appropriate boundaries giving the foolish bridesmaids oil would have done a couple of things. It would have enabled them to continue to be unprepared. So it would have just wasted their oil, because those foolish bridesmaids would have just continued to learn, oh, I can just rely on somebody else, and I don't have to be prepared for myself. But the second thing that it would have done is would have caused the wise bridesmaids to potentially miss out on what Jesus had for them. And many Christians, we find ourselves feeling guilty or obligated in the giving and the doing. Ing and the pouring out for people who refuse to prepare for themselves. And this is not always hear my voice, not always what God's asking us to do. We have to stay sensitive to the Holy Spirit. This is one of those moments where we have to be willing to pause and pray and ask God, is this something you want me to do? Is this something I need to do? Is this a decision I need do? I need to help here, or is my helping actually enabling this person to continue to stay in the cycle of being unprepared? This is true for our kids, our spouses, our friends, our city group members, our family, our neighbors, whoever strangers on the street. We've got to stay sensitive, because we have resources that God's given us, and we need to be good stewards of those resources and continuing to give our resources in the wrong places, we are responsible for that, 100% responsibility. Pause and pray. Ask God, is this something that I need to be a part of? Boundaries? The final choice that the wise bridesmaids made was they were in the place where Jesus was because their oil lit their lamps, they were able to be in the place that God had prepared for them. It led them into an even greater opportunity, to the wedding feast, to spending eternity with Jesus. This oil gave them access. It gave them access to something even greater. That's what the Holy Spirit does. He draws you closer in relationship with Jesus, so that we have access to everything God has for us and the choices that we make to be prepared, to be full, to be ready for these moments, they open the door to these opportunities. It's how we stay continually filled as believers. We don't ever have to know a day where we're lacking in the presence of God. That's always our choice. It is our choice how much oil we have in our lives, how much time, how much of God, how much of the Holy Spirit we have in our lives that's up to us. I love this verse in John eight. Jesus says this. He says, I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won't have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life. Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. He's telling us, I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the life. And then he's also showing us the way to have you, the light lit is by having enough oil, by having access to the Holy Spirit, by continuing that daily relationship, that fresh in filling man, some of us, I feel in this room, we are dry. Our oil has gone out, our lamps are empty. We're feeling dry. We're feeling like we don't have anything left to give. And I just believe today that that the Holy Spirit is here to refill and refresh our lamps, to begin to help us see what God has for us, the places that God wants to do, we have to take a moment to examine our own lamp. Are you out of oil? Maybe you are the person that has just enough to get by, or maybe you are the person that has more than you need.
Either way, God has something to give us today, I really believe that. Can we just stand on our feet today? I don't want a lot of people moving around right now, if we can just kind of keep this moment, because I really felt that strong when we were in praise and worship. I just really felt that there was a lot of us in here that are feeling really dry, and we're feeling like our relationship with Jesus is kind of stagnant. Some of us are like, I don't even know what that feels like. I've just shown up here. I don't really know. I don't really know what, what it would feel like to feel like there's fresh living water, that there's peace, that there's joy, that I have access to something that leads to life.
Let's all just close our eyes for a moment. If you just need fresh oil today, would you lift your hands  whether you run out? Whether you've never had it, if you need fresh oil, just lift your hands. Lift your hands in every room, in every space. I believe the Holy Spirit wants to pour out fresh oil on us. This morning, He's inviting us into a place of overflow. The great thing about the Holy Spirit is we just have to make that first step, that first reach, and then he meets us there. That's all we have to do, Father, I just pray that you would pour out on your people right now, God, as we reach to you, Lord, I pray that you would pour out Your Spirit upon us. I pray that you would fill our lamps, that you would fill us fresh, that you would consume us today, God, that we would experience you in a fresh way this morning in Jesus name.