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Sermon Details
- Pastor Name: Jonathan Cornell
- Date & Time: September 27, 2015 | 10:00am
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SERMON SERIES:
Painting God: The Parables of Jesus
Welcome, especially to those of you who are visitors this morning. What we have been doing each week this fall is looking together at the stories that Jesus told, because with his words he paints a picture of what God is like. These word pictures are called parables, and each one depicts a vivid image spoken by Jesus. We believe that more than any other person, Jesus was able to give us these images, because he himself was so intimately familiar with the Father. In fact, the Bible says that Jesus was one with the God the Father.
These parables are important for a few reasons: 1. They help reshape our image of who God is; 2. They have the ability to change the way we behave. They can change our thinking and our actions.
Is there anyone in this room right now who is themselves, or know someone who is a procrastinator? If you are a true procrastinator you might be thinking to yourself, “I’ll raise my hand later.”
When I was a freshman at Saint Olaf College all the way back in the 1999, I had, in my first semester, a class in Micro-Economics. It met at 5am. It actually met at 9, but it might as well have been 5. On the first day of class my professor, Rebecca Judge, who was also my advisor, said that there were only three exams in the class and that was it. The rest was reading and lecture notes, which some, including your pastor, took to mean that if I could master the material from the text for each exam, attendance at class was not required. Some took more liberty with this than I did, but the truth is, I skipped quite a bit. Then when it came time for the first exam, I spent a whole 4 hours the night before studying the chapters which it covered. The following day I came to the exam refreshed and well rested, after my robust 4-hour study session (I hope you pick up on my sarcasm), sat down at the table and answered the first question no problem. The problem was, there were five pages after the first, of which I knew none.
Do you know what happened to me on that test? And no, this is not a story of grace. I failed it. I failed it bad. And here’s why I failed it: by the time I was ready to become a serious student, it was too late. When I signed up for the class, what I was saying with my signature was that I was willing to do what a micro-economics student would do along the way. But with my actions, I was saying something entirely different. And when it came time for test day, it was too late. I had put it off too long.
Now the story we’re going to look at today is one that illustrates the fact that people who have decided to follow Jesus also choose to put off real discipleship until another day. And this parable paints a picture of what it is like for those who, with their actions, decide to commit to following Jesus, and those who put it off until later.
Download the entire transcript: Matthew 25 1-13 Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids
