In the middle of Matthew 24 (Jesus sermon on the end-times) we find His clear, unadulterated call to leadership in His church – i.e. the prayer, local, missions & training elements of it. He’s speaking to anyone with a position of leadership & influence over His people. The entire sermon has five parts: 1) The Groans of Creation: Birth Pangs – 24:1-14. 2) The Great tribulation & 2nd Coming 24:15-31. 3) Confidence to know the Hour of His return 24:32-44. 4) How to Respond – 3 Parables: Leadership, Intimacy & Faithfulness 24:45-25:30. 5) Eternal Judgment of the Nations 25:31-46. Smack bang in the middle of this message, is His call to leadership, especially those leading in the pressures He’d just described.
Verse 45-51 of chapter 24 explain His exhortation. If you’re a leader, teacher, preacher, evangelist, prophet, apostle, youth leader, missionary, pastor…etc, anyone with a place of influence & oversight in the body of Christ, then this call is focused to you. The call is clear, the encouragement stunning & the warning sober. May we respond well.
After reviewing the text, there’s 3 key things we need to know & respond to in Jesus heart.
Matthew 24:45 “Who then is the faithful & wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the due time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 47 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ 49and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know 51 and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The Call
In looking at this parable, we need to understand He’s talking to the 12. He’s not speaking to unregenerate people who don’t know Him. He’s speaking to those closest to Him. Those He knows & who know Him. Think James, Peter, John, Matthew, Nathaniel…etc these were the ones receiving this exhortation. Therefore we must take it to heart & not brush over it as if we are exempt & have some more superior place before God than these men; yea these men whose names will be on the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:14). God is no respecter of persons, & so we ALL must respond wholeheartedly & personally to this call regardless of position or idea’s about how well we think we’re doing or how well we think we know the Lord & His heart.
The key factor Jesus calls those in His house to is to is to “give food at the proper time” to the people of God. In verse 45 He’s in essence saying: “who will give my people the necessary & appropriate revelation of God to sustain them in the midst of the things I’ve just described in Matthew 24:1-44?” Who will feed the people of God with clarity concerning the hour they’re in & what they must do to be appropriately equipped to stand in agreement & partnership with Jesus through the blessing & pressure’s of what He’s just described?
What constitutes “food at the right time”? This is both the biblical historic truths of the word of God & yet it’s ALSO the subjective prophetic realities the Lord highlights to His people through the Holy Spirit in context to the season of redemptive history they’re in – i.e. specific biblical realities they need to go after in context to what He’s saying & doing. For example, when His people are suffering in sickness they’re need to know about His sovereignty & His power & desire to heal; When they’re in lack, they lead to know about His abundance & power to provide; When dreams & visions are abounding, they lead to know about the clarity & authority of the scriptures to interpret, define & test prophetic revelation; and when they’re living in a transitional time of history when the nations are beginning to shake, they need to know what God is saying & how His people need to respond. This “food in due season” is both the biblical (constant unchanging written) & prophetic (subjective changing spoken which highlights the scriptural) revelation of God’s heart toward them for the season they’re in.
The Encouragement
The reward He offers is stunning! It’s almost unthinkable. His goodness & generosity to faithful shepherds who feed His people with “the right stuff at the right time” is amazing. To the leader (servant over the house) who does, when He comes, He promises “to set them over ALL his possessions”. This is speaking of the unfathomably glorious reward of ruling & reigning with Christ over the nations in the age to come (1 Cor 3:21-22; Ps 24:1; Rev 2:26-27; 3:21). Jesus gives the prospect of being in charge of everything with Him in the age to come. A position of untold prominence, wealth, dignity & joy among the great of heaven. Jesus used this very promise of eternal reward to motivate His shepherds to faithfulness. Therefore, there’s good incentive to go after His heart & feed the people with food in due season.
The Warning
In the last part of His address to leaders, Jesus changes gears after mentioning the reward and focuses on the consequence for shepherds who leave His people in His house without “food in due season.” In the same way young children would become malnourished, sickly & weak if they didn’t have the right diet of regular & whole meals, so His people would get sick & weary if His servants in charge of his house leave His people without the right revelation of God & the gospel & what He’s doing in the earth & how they must respond to it. This is not a light thing to Him. He labels it as wickedness, being drunk, beating their fellow servants, and causing the people to be underfed.
He show’s how the progression of how a servant in charge of house becomes “wicked”. They begin to mock and say “my master is delayed” (24:48; 2 Peter 3:3-7). The wicked servant, He says, begins to declare “its been 2000 years, he’s not coming any time soon… I’m going to eat & drink & be merry & build according to what I think needs to be our focus.” Yet Jesus makes clear that the one who does this will be unprepared & left taking counsel from “drunkards” (those intoxicated with other things & disconnected from what’s really going on) when what he needs is clarity & understanding more than any other time in history. Thus in doing so, that servant actually leads the people of God with him into the same delusion, unpreparedness & drunkenness.
Here is where Jesus severity comes into play – an attribute of His person which Paul explicitly tells us to consider (Rom 11:22). When He returns the Lord shows that He’ll “cut (that wicked servant) in pieces and put him with the hypocrites.” And “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Once He’s returned, Jesus Himself makes clear that He’ll “cut in pieces” those overseeing His house who themselves remain disconnected from His heart & thus also leave His people unprepared & unready for the hour of His return (Mt 24:48-51). Then, He’ll appoint them a portion in hell with the hypocrite’s where there will be weeping & gnashing of teeth. This is breath taking in it’s sobriety & gives substance to James’ weighty call to those who want to teach God’s word (James 3:1).
Understanding the Severity of Jesus
Yet His heart in this is what we need to understand. His severity in this matter is not about Him being a cruel & twisted judge against unwitting servants. It’s about how much zeal & love He has in His heart for His people to be connected to His heart & what He’s doing in the earth. It’s about His people, His very bride, being taken care of appropriately (Eph 5:27-30; Rev 19:7). Jesus did not die to leave His people straying under “drunk” leadership. He died to have a people with Him where He is (Jn 17:24). This is the zeal & desire He has in His heart against those who lead His beloved into deception & disconnection from Him & what He’s doing. What genuine husband is there on the planet who doesn’t want His wife knowing his heart, what he’s doing & to have her with him where he is? It’s the same with Jesus and His people. He longs for His people to be healthy, vibrant & alive in the revelation of what He’s like & what He’s doing in the earth through having received substance from servants who’d give sustenance “in due season”.
What to do?
In light of the above: the key call in all this, is to get connected to God’s heart, get food in due season, & to feed the household of God humbly & joyfully with “other servants” of the house – those of different ministries & positions. Included in this we contend for the blessing & “prosperity” of the entire region we’re in (Jer 29:7). Jesus is zealous for this, and we must be too.
