What Would Jesus Do With Your Life?

The parables Jesus tells in Matthew 24-25 all point to the same call: stay prepared, stay engaged, stay ready. We never know when the end will come. Like a soccer match ticking into stoppage time, we don't know when the final whistle will blow. And just as only the referee knows when a match is officially over, only God the Father knows when the end will come.

Jesus himself says as much: "Now concerning that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven nor the Son, except the Father alone" (Matthew 24:36).

That should settle the question for good. Every person who has ever claimed to know when Christ will return has been wrong, and every future claim will be wrong too. We cannot know, so let's stop playing that guessing game.

Instead, let's focus on what we're called to do in the meantime. Just as the wise bridesmaids stored up extra oil, we can prepare now for the day the end arrives, whether through death or Christ's return. "Blessed is that servant whom the master finds doing his job when he comes" (Matthew 24:46).

Jesus tells two more stories after the Parable of the Ten Virgins to spell out what's expected of us. They're worth sitting with, because they double as a mirror. The stakes are high, and the consequences for inaction, or wrong action, are eternal.

The Parable of the Talents

In Matthew 25:14-30, a master leaves on a journey and entrusts his resources to three servants. A "talent" here isn't a skill, it's a unit of money, roughly 20 years' wages per bag. One servant receives five bags, another two bags, and the last gets one, each according to his ability.

The first two servants put the money to work and double it by the time the master returns. The third simply buries his one bag in the ground, the safest option available in the ancient world, and has nothing to show for it when the master comes home.

The master gets his money back either way. But that isn't the point. Everything we have, every blessing, comes from God. If he wants it back, he can take it back. The real question is what we do with what we've been given. The first two servants acted the way their master would have acted. The third was too afraid to.

Back in Genesis 1 and 2, God created humanity to be his image-bearers, to join in his creative work, to rule alongside him. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5 that we are Christ's ambassadors. Our job isn't to fixate on what we do or don't have. Our job is to represent Christ well with what we've been given, exactly what the servants were meant to do while their master was away.

I once heard a preacher pose this thought experiment: if you and Christ switched places for a year, if he lived in your house, worked your job, managed your money, ran your calendar, how different would your life look after twelve months?

That's really just the old "What Would Jesus Do?" question in disguise, and it's the same question the servants had to ask themselves. The first two were praised as good and faithful for acting on their master's behalf. The third was condemned as wicked and lazy for letting fear and doubt keep him from acting at all.

Ask yourself the same thing. If Christ were living your life right now, what would need to change? Because in a very real sense, you already are living it on his behalf. You are his representative, his ambassador, here and now.

The Sheep and the Goats

Jesus doesn't stop there. He follows the Parable of the Talents with the story of the Sheep and the Goats, and this one leaves no room for guessing.

When the end comes, Christ will sit as judge. People of every nation, every ethnicity, every language will be gathered before him and separated the way a shepherd divides sheep from goats. The dividing line comes down to a simple set of questions:

• I was hungry. Did you feed me?

• I was thirsty. Did you give me a drink?

• I was a stranger. Did you welcome me?

• I was naked. Did you clothe me?

• I was sick. Did you care for me?

• I was in prison. Did you visit me?

Whatever we did, or failed to do, for the least among us, we did or failed to do for Christ himself.

There's no claiming ignorance after that. Jesus couldn't be clearer about what we're meant to be doing in the meantime. This is the "oil" we're meant to stock up on. This is what it looks like to act like the master with the master's own resources: feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit the prisoner. When we do this for the least of society, we've done it for Christ. When we turn our backs on people in need, we've turned our backs on him.

Works Don't Save Us, But They Reveal Us

Here's the key distinction, though. None of this earns our way into heaven. These acts of service are the outward evidence of salvation already at work in us, not the price of admission.

Remember the line spoken to the five foolish bridesmaids: "I don't know you." That echoes a warning Jesus gives earlier in Matthew's Gospel:

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?' Then I will announce to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers.'" (Matthew 7:21-23)

Jesus is warning us against a works-based righteousness that mistakes activity for relationship. The Father's will isn't simply that we perform impressive acts in Christ's name. It's that we know him and are known by him, that we belong to his family.

My family recently hired a cleaning service to come by a couple times a month. It's affordable, and it lifts some of the burden off our busy schedule. We're grateful for the work they do. But even though they've been in our house and done real work for us, that doesn't make them part of our family. We wouldn't expect them at a birthday party or a movie night. If they showed up expecting to belong, our honest answer would sound a lot like what Jesus says: we don't really know you.

Are You Ready?

Here's where it all lands. The end will come, either through Christ's return or our own death, and we don't know when. In the meantime, we're meant to be about our Father's business. His will for us is to know Christ and to be known as his children, and to live out that truth as his representatives, doing what the Master would do with the time and resources he's entrusted to us, resources that were always his to begin with. And in serving others, we serve Christ himself.

Are you ready? Let's get to work.