This week we get to continue in the collection of talks that we've been in. This is the fourth week of this five -week collection. So next week is the last week of this. But we were in this collection called Stories as Told by Jesus. And what it is is it's looking at the stories that Jesus told, which are called parables in the Bible. And so in the Bible, Jesus tells these parables that a lot of times we scratch our head and go, what does that even mean? And so we're
unpacking these parables. We're unpacking these stories that Jesus tells us. And so as we hop in today, let me ask you this. Have you ever thought you were ready for something until the time actually came? You know what I mean? You're like, man, I'm prepared. I'm ready. And then you actually have to do it. I mean, I remember when I got into high school. And the way that my church did youth group is that we had life groups that met in homes. And so I went to this
house. And I was really lucky because my leader, he was a single guy who wanted to have a family in the future. And so he had just bought a brand new four bedroom home. And so a single guy living in this four -bedroom home, some of his rooms were empty. And as I got there, I was wondering, I was like, where's all the people? There's more cars outside than there are people. And someone says, oh, they're in the boxing room. And I was
like, the boxing room? What is that? Well, it was an empty room, like I said, where a bunch of high school guys decided to bring boxing gloves, go in there, beat the snot out of each other, and then open the Word of God. It was awesome. All right, it was amazing. And I was like, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen. All the people are in there. We're just boxed, just fighting each other. And so the guy next to me who's also a freshman, it was his first time. And he looked
at me and he goes, we gotta jump in there. And I was like, you said we. Why'd you say we? I ain't going anywhere. He's like, no, we gotta challenge some people. We gotta hop, us two versus them two. And I'm like, that's not happening, man. He goes, next week, you gotta get ready. I'm like, OK, I'll get ready. So that week, I'm asking people, I'm like, can you give me some advice on boxing? I don't know what to do. I'm trying not to die next week. Can someone help
me out here? And I kind of got ready. But as I showed up the next week, I asked this guy, I was like, hey, are you ready? And he's like, yeah, I'm ready. I was like, did you do anything to prepare? And he's like, no, man, I'm good. I'm ready. I'm like, okay, here we go. And so we get the boxing gloves on and we're about to hop in there and I look over at him and this guy already had big eyes, but his eyes were like the size of saucers. And he's like, let's go.
And I'm like, this is not the type of energy I need right now. Like, and he just ran in and all of a sudden we're in there boxing. And I'm not kidding you. It was five seconds before this dude got popped in the nose and started bleeding everywhere and he was out. The fight was over. It was done. We lost. And I was like, bro, you said you were prepared. You said you were ready. And he's like, I thought I was ready until the time came to actually do it. See, I think in
our faith, sometimes that's us. We, we think that we're prepared. We think that we're ready. And we, until the time actually comes, because what we do, our preparation is really just coasting. We just coast along and we're not actually ready when the time comes. It reminds me of the dad joke. When my kids started losing teeth, I used to tell them, Hey, you have summer teeth. And they're like, what is summer teeth? I'm like,
some are there, some are not. I think we have summer Christians in the church where sometimes you're at church, sometimes you're not. Sometimes you open the word of God, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you pray, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you actually think about God and invite him into your life, and sometimes you don't. And I think we live this life sometimes where we miss what God has called us to. We don't understand the seriousness of this. This is serious. And we
have to take it seriously. And because it's serious and we have to take it seriously, we have to ask ourselves the serious questions. And we have to search ourselves to go, man, am I actually prepared? Am I actually ready? We're going to be in Matthew chapter 25 today, Matthew chapter 25. And to set this up, I love this because the disciples, man, they started asking questions. And the disciples are amazing because they give me hope. They're just as big of idiots as I am.
If you've read through the Bible, a lot of times I'm reading it and I have questions. I'm going, what does Jesus even mean? And then I read one line further and the disciples ask the exact same question that I ask. And then you get to understand what they're saying. So Jesus is teaching and he's saying, hey, I'm going to leave, but then I'm coming back. It's called a second coming. I'm going to come back again. And his disciples are like, what does that mean, Jesus? When are
you coming back? I don't get it. When are you coming back? And Jesus says, I don't know. Jesus himself said, I don't know, the angels don't know, only the Father knows. And the reason Jesus didn't tell us when he's coming back, the reason why God the Father did not even reveal to Jesus when Jesus is coming back is because he wants us to live in a way where Jesus could come back anytime. Because you and I, when we know that there's a deadline, we like to push it up to
that deadline. I have a lot of kids that are involved in different activities. And so usually on the weekend when my kids have tournaments, my wife will take one of them, whose tournament it is, away for the weekend, and I'll have the other kids at home. And while she's away, I'll tell you right now, we live like we live in a frat house, all right? The dishes just stack up in the sink. Trash is everywhere. Stuff is everywhere. Things are everywhere. I'm stepping
over things. I'm stepping over people. I'm like, oh, how did you get there, right? Like, that's where we live. But when I know she's coming home at seven o 'clock on a Sunday night, guess what I'm doing at six o 'clock on a Sunday night? I'm cleaning, man. That place is spotless. Because the second she walks in, she looks around and she's like, oh, this is amazing. And I'm like, I know. It's how it's been the whole time. You know what I'm saying? But we like to push it
to the last second. When you have a deadline, you push it there. And Jesus is going, I'm not telling you when I'm coming back because I want you to live like it could be any time. And he says, let me say it this way. And he engages, he starts engaging them in this parable. He starts telling this story, Matthew 25 verse one. At that time, the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out
to meet the bridegroom. Okay, now this parable is one that a lot of us go, okay, this is too scary to touch. I don't understand it. And the word virgin throws us off because we're like, what does this even mean? I know there's another religion that talks about 72 virgins. What does this mean? And we get scared and we don't know what to do with it. But when you understand the context of us, it makes a lot of sense. It's actually a very simple parable to understand.
When we're referring to virgins here, what he's referring to is young women that were of marriage age, but were not married yet. And every young woman who was of marriage age, but not married yet was a virgin. Because if they were not, they were kicked out by their family. They were kicked out by their community. They were ostracized completely. So everyone was there. So what this actually is saying is just saying, bridesmaids, these bridesmaids that were there to help the
bride on her wedding day. That's who he's referring to. That's who the virgins are. And the reason that that's so important is because their custom, what they did is that the groom would be at his house and he would leave his house to go and get the bride and the bridesmaids would meet him there. And then he would take the bride back to his house. But the thing is, is they didn't
know when the groom was going to come. because what he was doing at his house is he was in discussion with the family over the price to marry the girl, the dowry, what it would be. And so the longer the discussion took, the more value she had. So they wanted it to take long. They didn't want it to be a quick agreement that they reached and she wouldn't have a lot of value. And so they didn't know when he was going to come back.
And so after he would have these discussions, then he would go back and he would go to her house and the bridesmaids would meet him and go, let me go get the bride. And then they would get the bride and have a parade on the way back to his house, a procession on the way back to his house where the wedding would be. And so Jesus is telling this to a context of people that understand this. They know what it's like
for the marriage customs of their day. And as he says this, he then tells them this in verse two, five of them, five of the bridesmaids were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps, but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars
along with their lamps. See, everyone in the procession was expected to carry their own torch because if they didn't, they were assumed to be party crashers because weddings of those days were not just two hours, not just three hour ordeal. They were like full on day long event, couple days long. Right, you remember Jesus at the wedding in Cana? They drank all the wine. They ran out of it. They partied so hard that the wine was gone. And then Jesus said, hold
on, let me make you more wine. Keep partying. There's a lot of food. There's a lot of drink. There's a lot of stuff going on. And it's a couple of days. So when you saw a procession of people holding these torches going across town, if you were smart, you'd go, hey, I'm going to hop in on this procession because I know what's at the end of it. Food and drink and party. And it's going to be awesome. And so there are party crashers.
I remember when I was in high school, late high school and early college, I used to do this very strategic thing. I would go down to downtown San Diego as soon as the Padres game was starting, and I would go to dinner. And as soon as I was done with dinner, I'd go over to the front of the stadium. It was probably about the third or fourth inning, and people would start leaving. Like, I don't know why they're leaving in the third and fourth inning. Maybe it's because it's
the Padres. I'm not sure. But they'd be leaving. And so I would ask them, hey, can I have your ticket stub? All right, this is before digital tickets. And so they would literally give me their ticket stub. And it was awesome because you never knew what you were going to get. You get their ticket stub and you're like, wow, I am very far on the upper deck today, right? Or I'm on the field. This is amazing. But the important thing was to have that ticket stub because it
was what got you in. And it proved that you were supposed to be there. These torches that they carried in this procession, they proved that they were supposed to be there, that they were not just wedding crashers. All right, the foolish bridesmaids The foolish bridesmaids, they miss the part that identifies them as a part of the group. Sometimes we have foolish bridesmaids
in church. We have foolish bridesmaids in church because it's somebody who just hangs out but doesn't actually desire a real relationship with Jesus. And listen, if you're just here to hang out, we're glad you're here. This is a church that I am proud to say that if I was not a pastor of, I would be a participant in. I would attend this church if I wasn't on staff. I love this church. I think it is a great place to hang out and to be a part of. But if you're just here
to hang out, you've missed the point. These bridesmaids, they were foolish because they missed the thing that actually made them a part of the group. It's all about a relationship with Jesus. Jesus says it this way in Matthew seven. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. but only one who does the will of my father who's in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, didn't we do all these things for you? Didn't we prophesy in your name?
Didn't we drive out demons? And in your name, we performed many miracles. Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evil doers. And this is scary. This is scary because sometimes we think that our torch, We think that our ticket stub is all the things that we do for God. But God, I've done this for you. God, I serve in this ministry. But God, I give. But God, I show up. But God, I'm here. And we have all these things that say, God, but
look what I've done for you. But you missed the point that it's not what you do for God. It's a relationship with God. And that's not the torch. All that is is you're just hanging around the party. You don't have a relationship with God. Verse five, he says this, the bridegroom was a long time in coming and they became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight, the cry rang out, here's the bridegroom, come out to meet him. Then all of the bridesmaids woke up and trimmed
their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, give us some of your oil, our lamps are going out. No, they replied, there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourself. Now, some of you are reading this and you're like, okay, they must have missed preschool when sharing is caring, right? Why are they being selfish? Why wouldn't they just give the oil that they have? And you need to understand that these bridesmaids
are not being selfish. What in fact they are doing is they are setting healthy boundaries. Some of you need to set healthy boundaries in your life and that is not selfish. You need to be able to say, this is a boundary that I'm setting. And I love their response because they said, listen, you can't ride my coattails. There's a price that's required. You need to go buy it yourself. There becomes a point in our faith
where we need to own it ourself. I was in middle school when I grew up in church my entire life. I'd been in church every single weekend. And I went to church because that's what my parents did. My faith was completely based off of my parents' choice that they wanted me to believe. And it wasn't until I was in middle school that I realized that it wasn't about my parents' faith. I needed to make the choice myself to follow
Jesus. And I needed to say, I'm choosing to accept what Jesus has done, not because my parents want me to, but because it's what I want to do. And I owned my own faith. You cannot have a faith that is dependent on your spouse. Just because your spouse wants you to be here, that is not your faith. Just because your parents went to church their whole life, and when you come to church, it reminds you of them, that's not what it's about. You need to have a relationship with
Jesus. They're saying, no, no, no, you can't just go ahead and borrow this. You need to go out and you need to pay the price for it. Verse 10, but while they were on their way to buy oil, the groom arrived and the bridesmaids who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet and the door was shut. Later, the others came and they said, Lord, Lord, open the door for us. But he replied, truly, I tell you, I don't know you. How prepared are you? How prepared
are you? Because sometimes we go, okay, I'm prepared because I read a book. I'm prepared because I know some knowledge. I think about this. Remember when you had your first kid and you were prepared because you read what to expect when you're expecting? And you're like, I know, I read the book. I took a parenting class. I'm good. And then you go in and you have this baby and then the nurse is there to help you and tell you like, no, no,
no, this is the way the diaper goes. And like, you put the diaper on and then they do the craziest thing ever. They put the baby in a car seat and they let you take it home with you. And you're like, what am I supposed to do now? Who's here to help me? I don't know what the heck I'm doing. And you can read every book in the world. And at that moment, the panic inside of you is like, I'm not ready. I'm not there. Listen, how prepared are you? Because preparation requires action.
And just knowing something is not good enough. You have to have action. Preparation requires action. How prepared are you? Do you know Jesus? Do you know Jesus? Because Jesus wants to know you and his invitation for you to know him is this. He went to a cross and died for you. His invitation is this, is that God wanted a relationship with you, but because of your sin and because of my sin, we are separated from God. We cannot associate with a perfect and holy God because
of our sin. And because of that gap, it says that God so loved the world that he sent his son. And Jesus came because the penalty for our sin is death. The wages of sin is death. And so Jesus paid the penalty. He paid the wages. He said, I will pay the price that you deserve. And he went to a cross. And Jesus died on a cross for you and for me. And when we put our trust in Jesus, we have a restored relationship with God. That is the gospel. That is the good news.
That is what he's saying. Hey, listen, this is what matters. It's not if you go to church. It's not if you were a good person. It's not if you just gave back. Oh, I've just given back to a lot of people. It's not if you're on a serve team. It's not if you're in a life group. It's not if you just hung around church for 30 years. That's awesome. We're glad you're here. It's not about that. All that is is a torch with no oil. All that is is carrying around a torch that
has absolutely no oil. It doesn't matter at all because hanging around church is not the same as having a relationship with Jesus. But I think a lot of us are content with borrowed oil. All right, we're content with just borrowing oil. These bridesmaids are like, oh, I just wanna borrow oil. Listen, you need to understand that you don't need to borrow oil. There's an abundance in Jesus. There's an abundance in Jesus for you.
And listen, my Catholic friends in here, I love you, you're awesome, but you need to understand that you have access to the same God that I have access to. I always think it's crazy when people are like, hey, will you pray for me? And yes, I'll pray for you. The Bible says we should pray for each other and we will. But you need to understand, I don't have any special access to God because I'm a pastor. You have the exact same access to God through Jesus. The exact same access to
God through Jesus. You do not need to borrow oil because you have the reservoir of where oil comes from. And it's available to you. But sometimes we rely so much on borrowed oil. We like listening to messages and messages are great. We have a good stockpile of messages on our website. You can go back and listen to every single week. They're incredibly helpful for you to build up who you are and to live the life that you were
created for in Jesus. And we have the incredible privilege of having an incredible pastor, lead pastor that is a wonderful teacher like John. We get to sit under his teaching. It's incredible. And some of you are like, speaking of him, when is he coming back? You're like, I want a pastor who wears a sweatshirt. When is he coming back? He'll be back. Don't worry. Don't worry. You'll only have to deal with this for a couple more weeks. All right. I'm saying it's going to get
better. Don't worry. We like those messages and that's great. We like to listen to podcasts. And listen, I'm telling you right now, if the unedited podcast is not in your weekly routine, you need to add it into your weekly routine. because it is designed to help you live the life that you were created for in Jesus. It's amazing. It's something that can help you on your walk and be a part of your week. All right, there's books that are incredible to help you live the
life that you were created for in Jesus. They're all out there and you can find those books. You can read those books. You can consume that content and every single one of those things, even though it's amazing, it is secondhand. It is not from the source. You have access to go to the source. You have access to the word of God. You have access to the living and active word of God himself in your hand. You can read what he said. The sword of the spirit that's sharper than any two
-edged sword that you have access to. You have access to a conversation at any time, any place with the God of the universe, the all -powerful, all -knowing, all -present God of the universe that wants to talk with you through prayer. You have access to the Holy Spirit on the inside. himself to guide you and walk with you and push you through your life. When the difficulties come, you have God inside of you to walk through
all of it. Do not settle for borrowed oil. Some of you are settling for secondhand borrowed oil when God is saying there is more. There's more for you. You can go to the source. You can go to the unending source. Scarcity is not a thing with our God. And here's the thing about these bridesmaids. All 10 of them looked exactly the same on the outside. They were all invited there. They all were there. They all had a lamp. But what was on the inside is what matters. Having
extra oil. You can show up to church and you can be here and on the outside you can look great. You can do the right thing and say the right thing and be in the right place and that's great. But it's what's on the inside that matters. a personal relationship with Jesus. How prepared are you? Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus? How prepared are you? Are you making use of the time that you have? Because how you
live matters. It matters. How you live this life, not just in this building, but outside of these walls, how you live actually matters. It says this in Titus 2, verse 11 through 13, for the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. The grace of God, right? That's what we talked about, a relationship with Jesus
because of his grace. But what does it do? It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self -controlled, upright, godly lives in this present age while we wait. for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. When we wait for the answer to the question the disciples ask, when are you coming back? In the meantime, what does the gospel do? It helps us say no to the worldly passions, to the human impulses and
choose to live in a godly way. And this has to be a daily routine for us. There's a daily routine for me to say no to my human impulses and say yes to God. Every single time a woman walks past me that is not my wife and everything inside of me wants me to look, I have to say no to my human passions and desires in order to say yes
to God. Because what's in me wants to, and it's like, man, I wanna do it, I wanna look, but I have to say no because the gospel is teaching me to say no to my human passions and desires. Every time I'm interacting with some dumb people, listen, there's some dumb people out there. None of you guys, I'm just saying, out there. And my anger's bubbling up. and it wants to take control of me, I gotta say no to my human passions, what I want to do in order to say yes to Jesus.
Every single time that I am on the internet, I have to say no to the things that I want to go to, and I want to look at, and I want to click on, and I want to go to because my human desires and passions are saying no, this is what you wanna look at, this is what you wanna do, and I have to say no because the gospel is teaching me to say no to those things, to say yes to Jesus. Listen, every time that thought in your brain, this is the place where we get messed up the
most, is our thoughts. Every time you want to start thinking something about somebody or about yourself that's not true. We have to stop. We have to go, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying yes to what the world wants, my human passion. I need to take captive my thoughts. All right, some of you guys suffer from stinking thinking. All right, that's your ailment. That's what you got. And it starts in here for us to say, no, no, no. The gospel teaches me to say no, because
how I live matters. How I live matters. And it's hard because that's what's inside of us. It's hard to do that because what's inside of us wants to come out of us. And a lot of us are like, listen, you mess with me too much and my pre -Jesus is gonna come out. You're like, I'm saved, but I'm not soft. And that's what's inside of us. But you need to realize this, check it out. When God freed the Israelites from Egypt and he took the Israelites out of Egypt, out of slavery.
He said, I'm taking you out of Egypt. But then he spent the next 40 years taking Egypt out of the Israelites. He spent the next 40 years going, okay, listen, you are saved. You are no longer a slave, but you keep wanting to go back and live like a slave. Listen to me, church, you no longer need to live like a slave because you've been set free. You've been set free. You have the power of God inside of you. And you don't have to keep going back to living like a slave
when he said, no, no, no, you're free now. Living a way that God has called you to live through the gospel. Do you understand? The power is not on your own. You want to watch someone fail in the way that they live? It's when they think that they have to do it on their own. Because I can't say no to those internet sites that I want to look at. Because I can't say no to the people that I want to blow up on. I can't say no to those things, but it's the power of God
inside of us. That's who does it. Some of us are operating on the wrong power system. You cannot do this on your own church. I cannot plead with you enough for you to understand that you don't have the strength to do this, but it is God through you that has the strength in order for you to say yes to what Jesus wants and say no to what you want. And what that looks like is this. The Bible says they will know you by your love. They're not gonna know you by what
you said. They're not gonna know you by if you came to church. They're not gonna know you by your love. That's what we need to understand. Just like the torch, it proved that they were with them. So does us being prepared in the way that we live, the way that we love. That's preparation for people to know that we are with them. That's who we follow. Listen, I get it. Life isn't always easy. It's hard. And like, okay, I want to live that way, but it's real hard because the circumstances
around me are difficult. All right, my boss just doesn't get it. My boss is hard. They're like, I don't get it. My kids, man, kids have the worst timing in the world. They do. Right? Dad, dad, dad. I'm like, I'm going to kick you across the room right now. I'm not going to kick my kid, OK? But I want to. I'm telling you right now. There's some times. Right? It's hard sometimes because things are hard. Right? Listen, you Prescott drivers, you're testing me. You're testing me.
I'm telling you. Right? But some of you are clapping. You're like, oh, I know. I know. That's awesome. What part of California are you from? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But listen, it's hard out there. And sometimes we blame our circumstances. We blame our circumstances on how why we can't live for Jesus. And I love this because Paul writes this. Paul says this in Ephesians, and I love how he starts this. He says, as a prisoner for the Lord. Hold up. Where is he? He's obviously
in jail. That's worse than your circumstance right now. And what does he say when his circumstance is really bad? As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received, to be completely humble and gentle, to be patient, bearing with one another in love. In love. So how do you do this? What does this look like? First is this, it's living with purpose and integrity. Living with purpose and integrity. You have a purpose. Your purpose
is to share the love of God. Let me ask you this. When you accepted Christ, how come you weren't just taken to heaven right away? This earth is difficult. We have a lot of troubles. So why wouldn't he just take you? There's two things you can do here on earth that you can't do in heaven. One is sin, and two is tell people about Jesus. Which one do you think you're here for? It's not to sin. You have a purpose. Your purpose is to tell people about Jesus, and where you
find yourself is how you live that purpose. At work, that's your opportunity to tell people about Jesus, to share with them the hope that you have. In your neighborhood, there's no accident that you're there. You're there because you can share Jesus with them. That checker you see at the grocery store over and over, that's an opportunity for you to share Jesus with them. What we like to do is we like to compartmentalize our life.
Well, this is me at work. This is how I act at work, and these are the things I say at work, and this is how people perceive me at work, and this is what I do at work. And this is me with my family, and this is how I act with my family, and this is what I say with my family, and this is how people perceive me. And then this is me at church. And at church, this is how I act, and this is what I say, and this is what I do.
And you need to understand that integrity is consistency, because every single one of those people is the same. And when you make each one of those people the same, you understand that you have not only a purpose, But having integrity is living that purpose out wherever you find yourself. Next is this, is responding unexpectedly. What if we just responded unexpectedly? Because
there's an expected response, right? When someone's being dumb, when you started countering those dumb people I talked about, what if you just treated them with kindness? That's not expected. What if when you thought what you wanted to say because some of you have quick wit and you can just fire things with your tongue, you're good at that? What if you controlled your tongue instead
of just firing it? That's unexpected. What if in that moment where, man, every sign is pointing to a blow up on that person, instead you choose patience? And you acted in an unexpected way. What if we responded unexpectedly? Next is this. Living outward, not inward. Living outward, not inward. If you were here a couple weeks ago, Pastor Bob talked about forgiveness. You know what forgiveness is? It's living outward, not inward. Because inward, we want to hold onto
it. I'm going to hold onto this. I'm not going to let it go. Outward is releasing it and saying, hey, I'm going to live for you, not just for me. I'm going to release you. If you were here last week, Pastor Austin talked about, man, we've been blessed so much. There's so much that we've been given with our time. with our talents, with our finances, and living inward is saying, it's all for me, but you need to realize that it was given to you to be given to other people. Living
outward is saying, no, it's for you. It's to give. Don't live inward, live outward. We live in a tough world. If we're gonna stand up here and say that we're a family, that means that families are there for each other. It's not just about you. It's showing up in someone else's life when they need you, when they're in pain, when they're going through something and saying, man, I'm here for you because this is what families do because I'm not choosing to live inwardly.
I'm choosing to live outwardly and think about you instead of thinking about me. But why does this matter? Those are all good things. But why does this matter? It matters because the way that Jesus closes his parables, he says this in verse 13. Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. Listen, church, you do not have time to put it off. We often think we have so much time that it's OK. We'll get that right another time. I'll start loving
people later. I'll have a relationship with God later. You do not know how much time you have. I heard the story of a teacher who, on the first day of school each year, first semester, first day of the semester, she'd put a chair, an empty chair in front of her classroom. The students are like, what's the empty chair for? And she said, this empty chair represents the friends, the people, people that are around you that may not be here. Maybe a loved one, maybe someone
you know. This is going to leave too early and won't be here. It's going to leave this earth. And this is to remind you to say today, what you've been putting off to say tomorrow. This is to remind you to speak with kindness. This is to remind you to forgive. This is to remind you to care. This is to remind you that you don't know how much time you have with the people around
you. And I don't want to get morbid here to like end this message on a downer or anything like that, but here's the truth, is that chair doesn't just represent other people, that chair represents you. Because you don't know how much time you have. That's the point of this parable. See, the groom can come back at any time. And not just referring to a second coming, when Jesus is coming and you need to be ready, but you also don't know when he's going to call you home.
You have no idea when your last breath is gonna be taken on this earth. You don't have time to waste. So let me ask you, are you prepared? Are you ready? Do you know Jesus? Because if you're in here today and you do not know Jesus, you're just hanging out around the party, but you do not actually know Jesus. Don't let today pass. Today is the day of salvation. For those of you in here, say, yes, I put my faith in Jesus. Let me ask you this. Are you making use of the time
that you have? Because we don't know when he's coming, but it's our job to be prepared. Let's pray. God, thank you so much. for what you've given us. Thank you so much for the blessings that you've given us. Thank you so much for the blessing of time. And God, thank you for this story to remind us that we do not have a lot of time. God, I pray for the people in the room right now that need to say yes to you, Jesus.
That need to get to a place in their life where they can own their faith, where they're not living off borrowed oil. But God, they say yes because of what you've done on the cross. I'm willing
to fully trust you. I pray for the people in this room, God, that need to change the way that they live and they need to understand that the gospel is the power of God for salvation, for us to say no to our desires to say yes to you, that we would live in a way where we take advantage of the time that we have because how we live matters. God, I pray that this would not just be another weekend, but it would be a weekend of surrender. We say, God, I'm tired of doing
it on my own. And because I do not have a lot of time, I surrender it to You. I give up. I'm tired of doing it on my own. But God, it is because of You that we are even here. And we praise You. And we pray this in Your Son's name. Amen.