Now you say: well, I don't have much. Well no, no, no, you've got a testimony, you've got giftings in your life, you can flow in prophetic, you have got heaps to build someone up; and so if you think about it, the householder is Jesus Christ, and we're the servants of the household. He's made it very clear what our job is to do. It is to go make disciples. It's to build up people, and it's to increase His household; and then there's about 31 different statements where it says love one another, forgive one another, be kind to one another, be tender hearted to one another, have grace with one another, minister the gift to one another - all the one-another's are giving meat in due season. You can't do it alone. It requires being connected in relationships, so when we have what we call a small group, it's just a group of people gathered together with a particular purpose in mind, and one of that is that they build up one another. Everyone is called to build the church.
The moment in your heart you draw back from that, you miss then what one of the significant things Jesus taught about the end times; so He talked about the wise and the faithful servant, and this is what the servant does: he gives meat in due season. In Romans 12 verses 3 to 8 it says: we, being many, are one body in Christ, members of one another. We belong to one another. You can't get away from it. God puts us in a church together to help one another, strengthen one another. We all need one another. I need others. I've got a group that I connect with, and they help me too. Everyone needs others to help them grow and help them build. In 1 Corinthians 12:18, God has set the members, each one in the body, just as according to His pleasure, and He's given you gifts to build up the church. That's what He said, so you notice there, you know, as we take what God has given us, and intentionally under the leading of the Holy Spirit, work to build, bless, encourage, strengthen, develop, help others - for some it may be just in a practical way, but all of us can do something to encourage another person, and build up another person.
And He said: blessed is that servant who is doing that when the Lord comes - and that's a bit of a trick, because we don't know when He's coming. Because we don't know when He's coming, you've got to have a bit of a think about how you're going to run your life, because most people think: He's not coming soon. Oh, might be 10 years, 20 years, who knows? Five years? But what He's saying is, you'll never know. You'll only know the signs in the world, but you won't know, so the key thing is: what are you doing today?
What you're doing today is actually what you're doing. Should He come right now, would He find you being the wise servant, the faithful servant who is giving meat to His household in due season - in other words, led by the Holy Spirit, and working to invest in the lives of people? Now you notice interestingly the next two - He calls this one the wise and faithful servant; the next parable is about what it means to be wise, and it talks about intimacy with the Lord, and gaining the anointing and sensitivity of the Holy Spirit, but in the third parable He talks about what it is to be faithful, and that's taking what you've got, and using it to advance the kingdom of God in various ways.
So it says: when He comes; now you'll notice here, he's got his assignment. Now the thing is, there's a reward associated with the assignment. When he comes, if he finds him doing that - so here's the thing; whether you're alive or you're dead at the coming of the Lord, everyone gets evaluated. Everyone has an opportunity to receive something. This is the most amazing thing, and the Bible is over and over and over and over again, it keeps restating it, in various pictures, various forms, various ways. It's absolutely wonderful. It's actually a great hope for you, and why, as a believer, you need to stay on fire, and passionate for God for eternity, there's a lot at stake. Now here's the thing: if you don't know what's at stake, it won't mean much to you, and that's the problem is, we don't tend to know what's at stake. So let's have a look. Notice what it says - it gives a clue to it here. It says: he will make him ruler over all his goods.