Prepared for His Presence

There are certain times in life where you just really want to make sure your words are right. This is one of those days. Normally, I’m pretty comfortable to speak extemporaneously, but I’ve typed out some words here.

So I’m sure that some of you all are shaken by the news of what happened yesterday, attempted assassination of former President Trump that left him injured, others critically injured, and multiple folks dead. I personally am extremely grateful this assassination attempt was unsuccessful, and I grieve personally over those injured and killed in this senseless violence.

These times for us, unfortunately, are not unprecedented in American history. Some folks here in this church can recall the attempt on President Reagan or the assassination of President Kennedy. We know that political violence always waits around the corner like a crouching lion of sin that Cain himself did not resist as he took his own brother’s life.

What marks our uniquely Christian response, though, right now are a few following commitments, which I hope that we as a church family will practice in the coming days and months.

The first commitment for us as followers of Jesus is a commitment to peace. The people of God, followers of Jesus, uniquely understands that human kingdoms rise and fall, but the kingdom of heaven alone is eternal. And knowing this, we are called to be a unique people of peace filled with trust and hope in Jesus Christ the Lord. As Jesus said, peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give you as the world gives. No, do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

You see, friends, violent rhetoric is inseparable from violent actions. So I urge us as a family to be people whose language and actions are seasoned instead of peace.

Our second commitment as followers of Jesus is to the kingdom of heaven. You see, our citizenship as followers of Jesus is in heaven, which means that our partisan commitments, whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or whatever you may be, wherever you may vote, those things are always backseat to our identification as followers of Jesus. Jesus had no political party and has no rivals for His power in the kingdom. Praise be to Christ. He alone is seated on the throne that rules all thrones. How great indeed is our God. To Him alone we swear allegiance for all eternity, and from Him alone will come all blessings, and in Him alone is eternal hope.

So finally, then we commit when we recommit to the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ alone is our hope in this life and the next. Unfortunately, no policy or politician can satisfy our deepest needs. As we sang a few moments ago, that old, old story satisfies the deepest longings of all of our hearts. The good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection offers eternal life and peace with God for all who call on Him as Lord. And that is what we need to rely on in the midst of tragedy. And it’s also what our fellow countrymen and citizens need to hear.

Let us then, as a church and as followers of Jesus, stand firm on this truth and let us proclaim its power to those around us. Let the people in our spheres of influence, our radius spiritually so to say, let them know who exactly our Lord and Savior is before they know who we will be voting for.

So then, as we have been doing over the last few months in a time of corporate prayer, if you are new to us, this may be new to you. But we spend a few minutes before the preaching and we pray as a congregation. So this morning, as we buddy up, as we grab a neighbor to pray out loud for just a few seconds, as Pete, he’s going to come up and play the guitar for us. I want you to pray for the folks that were injured or killed yesterday and their families. Pray for our church. Pray for believers in America to respond with these commitments to peace, to the kingdom of heaven, and a commitment to the gospel. Let’s pray for a few moments now.

Up buddy. Friday till this saw God working some share some story. Really just thank you for sending us. So Al’s going to lead us off. For the week was revival generation. 1,200 students pretty high on generation with some of the things that they’re doing. Watching 1,300 students actually love the Lord, praise the Lord in unison was absolutely amazing to me. I want to first thank the deacons, especially the finance committee, the church council, and Just you, Sauldam Baptist Church, for making this trip for the youth possible. You guys didn’t even hesitate. I had numerous individuals who not only believed in the mission trip, but wanted to make sure that the finances weren’t the reason any youth couldn’t go. I just want to say thank you.

Every year I always wonder how in the world is the Lord going to work? He never disappoints. I don’t believe any of our youth had ever been to camp, so it was quite the first experience. Our destination was Ridgecrest Conference Center, a Southern Baptist retreat center just outside of Asheville, North Carolina. It’s the only place I know where every step you take is uphill. And I also forgot how many stairs are in this place.

But I want to tell you something. Our youth represented us well. They were where they needed to be, when they needed to be there. They followed instructions and were literally a joy to be around. They mingled well with almost 1,300 youth from 57 churches and were right in the middle of everything. Eating, sleeping, traveling, and worshiping with them. I want to tell you from an old guy like me, it was just a great experience.

Waking them up, however, at 6:30 in the morning was a different ballgame. They always had their Bibles and watching them on site at a track actually made me proud. Whether it was a government housing project and working with little kids, prayer walking, talking to residents at a nursing or rehab facility, or doing construction, painting, and yard work, it made you proud. It was just again a joy to be with them.

I want to tell you too about Carter and Becca. They were simply amazing. Carter, for only being here a month, was thrown into the deep end of the pool and he led us well. He was a great leader. He not only loves our youth, but truly loves the Lord. And that was really evident. Becca defied human expectations, especially being seven months pregnant. She was a model for what a chaperone should be and hard to keep up with. They showed how in a short time they could come to not only love our church, but love our kids. I watched God work, soften hearts, bring us close, and reveal Himself.

I just want to say thank you, Sauldam Baptist Church, for investing in the kingdom. Also had three girls with us, but they weren’t able to make it today, but they had a wonderful time. So I’ll just say thank you on their behalf and thank you for sending us. It was just an honor and privilege to see God working in each of their hearts. And like Al said, I think they made us proud.

And I’d like to thank Sauldam Baptist Church for sending us to the MFUGE camp. And my favorite part of this trip was being able to play sports with the kids at the outreach sites. And God saved me this week.

Jackson Simpson, thank you, Sauldam Baptist Church, for sending us to the MFUGE camps. I saw God today at the MFUGE camp. homes because how we played with the seniors and God changed me by showing this week He gave the Son for me.

My name is Gage Schweitzer. Thank you, Sauldam Baptist Church, for sending us to summer camp. I saw God at the apartment complex we served at because we got to brighten the day of a lot of kids and teach them about God. God changed me this week by making me more responsible.

All right, you can sit down. Awesome. Yeah, just to echo that, we had an awesome time. My favorite part of the trip was getting to worship alongside of the 1,300 students there. There’s just nothing like it being in a room of people just wanting to love Jesus and just follow Him. Man, it was awesome.

This morning, I want to start us off, kind of shift gears a little bit. I got a video that I want to play of some people getting scared. I think it’s pretty funny, and I hope you all will too. We’ve all been in this situation, right, where we’ve gotten scared by someone. And the bottom line of getting scared, especially when someone jumps out from behind a wall to scare us, is that we were not aware of their presence, right? We weren’t, we didn’t know they were coming. We didn’t know that they were about to scream. We weren’t prepared for their presence.

And that’s what I want to talk about this morning. I want to ask you this question. What do you think it means to be prepared to meet God? And I would just propose to you this morning that the answer to this question is super important, that all of eternity depends on being ready to meet God and ultimately being right with God when you meet Him. And so this morning, I want to open up to Matthew chapter 25. So if you’ll have your Bibles, you can open there with me. Matthew chapter 25. And just some context to this, in the chapter before, Jesus has been talking about the signs of the end of the age and how no one knows the day or the hour that Jesus is going to return. In Matthew chapter 25, we pick up here with Jesus talking about the same idea. And so I’m going to pray and then I’m going to read this section.

Lord, thank you for this day and thank you for just the opportunity to gather together today. Lord, I thank you for what you have done for us and your son Jesus. And thank you, Lord, that He is our hope. God, I pray that each of us would come into a deeper relationship with you today and be ready, be prepared for your coming, Lord. I sing your name. Amen.

So Matthew chapter 25, verses 1 through 13, the parable of the 10 virgins. This is what it says. Then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them. But the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, “Here is the bridegroom, come out to meet him.” Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” But the wise answered saying, “Since there will be not enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.” And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast. And the door was shut. Afterward, the other virgins came also saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us.” But he answered, “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.” Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

The first thing that we have to understand about this passage is that the bridegroom is Jesus. In Ephesians 5, Christ is referred to as the husband of the church. Back in Isaiah 54, verse 5, it says this, it says, “Your maker is your husband. The Lord of hosts is His name.” Jesus is the bridegroom. Jesus is telling this parable to His disciples. And when He’s talking about the bridegroom, He’s referring to Himself. And if you’re anything like me, the first thing that stuck out to me was in verse, oh, sorry, verse six, when it says, the cry came at midnight. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been to some weddings before. Some of them kind of late, maybe 6 p.m., 5 p.m. But this one, the groomsmen came at, or sorry, the bridegroom came at midnight. Something must have gone really wrong for him to come at midnight. This is super late. But what we have to understand is that this is a Jewish wedding. And I believe I have a screen up here that talks about the stages of a Jewish wedding, but there’s three stages. The first is the bride price. And this is when the father of the groom and the father of the bride make an agreement that their children will get married. And the father of the groom would pay the father of the bride a payment to basically purchase the bride for his son. And this could be land. This could be animals. This could be money. But there would just be some purchase that the bride was going to marry his son. And the second stage is the betrothal. This is what you and I know as the vow ceremony, the ceremony where they meet together and they make their promises to one another. And then the bridegroom would go off and would build the house that the bride and the groom were going to live in together. And this could take anywhere from a few months all the way up until a year. And it was expected of the bride to be ready. No matter what the time was, they were expected to be ready. And isn’t it beautiful that this is how God relates to His people in a marriage relationship? That this is absolutely how God wants to have a relationship with you like a marriage, this deep fellowship with you. And so the first question I have for you this morning is, is your relationship with God, would you describe it as this deep marriage-like relationship, walking with Him? Because that’s what God invites us into.

We see that there’s five foolish virgins and five wise virgins. And a lot of the characteristics of them, they look the same from the outside. They’re all virgins, they all have lamps, and they all became drowsy and went to sleep. But what’s the difference between them? The difference between them is that the wise had oil with them. And oil is put inside of lamps, that when the bridegroom came, they would light their lamps to light the way for the bridegroom. And this points to the internal readiness, the internal state of our heart. That when God comes back, it is not about the religious things that we’ve done, but much more about the internal state of our heart. Are we right with Him? It’s possible to look good on the outside, but not look good on the inside.

If any of you watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, this is one of my favorite movies. And there’s a scene in it that I think portrays this idea really well. “This turkey tastes half as good as it looks. I think we’re all in for a very big treat. Save the neck for me, Clark. Okay, Eddie. A little dry, it’s fine.” So in this scene, it is apparent that even though something can look good on the outside, that doesn’t always mean the inside is good.

It is easy to go to church and to be doing all the right things, but on the inside, in our hearts, not be right with God. And that’s what God calls us to do, to not just do the external stuff, to not just do the activities, but to have a right relationship with Him and to walk with God each day.

And so we see that the cry in verse six, it comes at midnight. “Here is the bridegroom, come out to meet Him.” It says, “Then the virgins, they rose and they trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out.’” When this cry came, the foolish, they were not ready. They were not prepared for the bridegroom.

My track coach in middle school, I’m a terrible runner, I hate running. I don’t really remember much about this season of track besides that it was terrible and I hate running. But my track coach, she would always say this, she would say, “Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready. Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready.” And I think that this idea really relates to this. It’s like, man, at the last moment, any of you ever woke up late for your alarm, woke up late for work or a trip? Like you’re just scrambling, you’re putting everything in your bag as fast as you can, you run out the door, and then you realize you forgot your car keys. Like this scrambling, this is not what God intends for us. God wants us to stay ready, because at the last moment, whether He comes right now or whether we die first, we must be ready. There will not be any time to scramble and to rush to get ready. We must stay ready for His coming.

In verses 10 through 12, “And while the foolish were going to buy oil, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with Him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterwards, the other virgins came, also saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’ But He answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’”

You see, this is the bottom line. This is the bottom line of what it means to be prepared for the coming of Jesus. It’s knowing Him. It’s not doing a bunch of religious things and checking off all the boxes. It’s knowing Him and having a relationship with Jesus. The foolish, they were distracted by going to get more oil at the time that the bridegroom came. And Jesus’ response, the bridegroom’s response to the foolish was, “I don’t know you.”

So I ask you this morning, if Jesus were right here in this room talking to you, would He know you? Would He say, “I know you”? Would He say, “I don’t know you”? Do you have that relationship with Him? Do you talk with Him?

Do you cultivate your relationship with God? Or is it just a Sunday thing, just a check off the box thing? Because when Jesus comes into our life and when we begin this relationship with Jesus, He wants this marriage-like relationship, a deep fellowship with us. He doesn’t just want us to look good on the outside.

And so I think today that there’s three spots that you could be in. Three spots that you could sit in today. And the first one is after hearing the story or just reflecting, you would say, man, I’m not ready for the bridegroom to come. I’m not ready to meet Jesus because I realize I’m not right with God. The Bible says that our sin has separated us from God and that that has caused an eternal consequence to be deserved for us. But Jesus, God’s eternal Son, has paid the cost for us. When Jesus was on the cross, He said, “It is finished.” Jesus worked for us. And what we need to do to believe in God, it’s done. We don’t need to strive and work our way up to God. That’s what every other religion in the world says. We work our way up to God and let your good outweigh your bad. That is not the gospel. Jesus has come to fulfill God’s will and to give us the opportunity to be made right with Him because He died for us in our place and rose again.

And so that next step for you is to begin a conversation with me or with Pastor Jeremy. What does that look like to follow Jesus and to believe in Jesus, to be made right with God? We would love to sit down to coffee with you or go out to eat or just even have that conversation after the service to begin that conversation about what it means to follow Jesus and to know Him.

The second group, the second spot you could be in today is maybe you’ve let the religious activities get in the way of relationship. In Luke 10, there’s a story where Jesus comes into these sisters’ house and one of them, Martha, she is getting ready for this dinner. She’s busy. She’s serving. She’s trying to make the meal. And Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to Him. And this is what Jesus says. He says, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.” It says that Martha was distracted by her serving. Has your serving in the name of God, doing a bunch of activities replaced your relationship with God? Are you still walking with God or is it just the external stuff? He invites you to come into deep fellowship with Him because He desires that for you. He loves you and He wants to know you.

And the third group is people that, man, we are following Jesus. But it’s easy sometimes to get fed up and say, God, I’m just ready to be in Your presence. I’m ready for You to come. It’s easy to just kind of forget about the work that we have to do here.

Any of you guys ever been to the Bojangles drive-thru? I hope that you all have had a better experience at the Bojangles drive-thru than me. But a few months ago, I went to the Bojangles drive-thru. And the point of going to a drive-thru is that it’s faster than going inside, right? I’m in a rush. So I go to the Bojangles drive-thru and I sit there for 15 minutes. 15 minutes. I’ve already ordered. I’m sitting at the pickup line for 15 minutes. I’m looking through the window. I’m like, bro, I see my food. Just put it in the bag, you know? But, man, sometimes this can be our attitude when it comes to Jesus coming. Bro, come on. What are You doing?

The Bible reminds us in 2 Peter, it says this, 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” What would it look like for us to wake up in the morning and when Jesus hasn’t come back, not be frustrated by all the things we got to do today, not be frustrated by, man, all the things on our plate, but to say, “God, I thank You that You have work for me to do. God, I thank You that You’re at work in the lives of people around me.”

We as followers of Jesus have been commissioned to tell people the gospel with our words because, as Jeremy was saying earlier, the gospel is the only hope of the world. Jesus is The only hope of the world. And so, at your children’s, at your grandchildren’s ball games, at the grocery stores you shop at, your families, your friends, like, what would it look like to share the gospel? God has empowered us through the Holy Spirit to share the gospel. It’s not a personality type. It’s the Holy Spirit in us that urges us to share the gospel with people because Jesus is the only hope of the world.

And so, I ask you today, are you prepared for His coming? And what’s your next step? What do you need to do to be prepared for the coming of Jesus? Let’s pray.

Lord, I thank You for this day and thank You, Lord, for just Your word. God, I thank You that Your word is powerful. Lord, I thank You for how You’re working on our hearts and how You want to know us, God, in this deep relationship. Lord, You are our only hope. We know that without You and without believing in You, we will be separated from You from all of eternity. And so, Lord, we want to know You, God, and thank You that, Jesus, You have made a way for us to know You through Your death and Your resurrection, Lord. So give us boldness in preaching the gospel to people, Lord, and help us to make our next step, whatever that looks like today. It’s in Your name. Amen.