Life Community Church
Life Community Church
Humility | Dream Big | Week 5
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
A king on his deathbed and bridesmaids waiting in the dark ask the same piercing question: are we truly prepared, or do we only look prepared? We open with Hezekiah’s story in 2 Kings 20—his desperate prayer, God’s mercy, and the gut-check that follows when he shows everything to visiting envoys. Isaiah’s warning lands hard: today’s shortcuts become tomorrow’s losses. That moment exposes a mindset we still battle—peace for me now, no matter the cost later—and calls us to build beyond ourselves.
From there we move to Matthew 25 and the ten virgins, translating ancient wedding customs into everyday discipleship. All ten carried lamps. All expected the groom. Only five packed extra oil. We break down what oil represents—personal faith, spiritual depth, and daily attention—and why you can’t borrow it at midnight. Readiness is not performance or proximity; it’s prepared obedience that endures delay. We explore how humility beats pride, why busyness isn’t the same as spiritual vitality, and how to stock oil through rhythms of prayer, fasting, Scripture, confession, and costly love.
This conversation isn’t about coddling fear; it’s about clear-eyed hope. Delay is not denial. Jesus is preparing a place. The Father will say, It’s time. Until then, we keep watch with full lamps and extra oil, building what our children can stand on and lighting the way so others can see the Bridegroom. Ready to trade appearances for depth and urgency for obedience? Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review to help more people find the message. What one practice will you start this week to keep your lamp burning?
Hello, this is Jamie Bridges, and thank you so much for joining us for this week's podcast. All of our services are inspired and built straight from the Bible. Let's get into this week's message recorded at Life Community Church.
SPEAKER_02:If you've got a Bible, I'm going to be in two places, uh, 2 Kings chapter 20 and Matthew chapter 25. In fact, we'll be in Matthew 25 the next three weekends. And so if you're reading along, you want to be uh uh reading what we're talking about, you take the whole 46 verses in Matthew 25 and uh start talking through that. But 2 Kings chapter 20 is one of my favorite Old Testament passages, and it's talking about a king uh named Hezekiah, and Hezekiah this towards the end of his life. We find out uh earlier that Hezekiah is faithful, uh, he's been a king that's trusted the Lord. The Bible says uh just like David, he tore down the pagan uh gods, he he destroyed those things, the astro poles, all those kind of things. He destroyed them. So we know that he was a trusted king, and this is the end of his life. And it says this about Hezekiah, he became deathly ill. The Bible says that he has a boil, you'll see that later, uh, which meant in Hebrew that that just meant he was inflamed. There's an inflammation, something was going on, and he was at the end of his life, and he was deathly ill. Prophet Isaiah showed up, went to visit him, he gave the king this message. Uh, this is what the Lord says set your affairs in order, for you are going to die. You will not recover from this illness. That's good news, huh? That's that's what you want to hear a friend say. And when Hezekiah heard this, he turned his face to the wall and he prayed to the Lord, Lord, remember, remember, O Lord, how I have been faithful to you and have served you single-mindedly, always doing what pleases you. He broke down, he wept bitterly, but before Isaiah left the middle courtyard, this message came to him, and he says, Go back to Hezekiah, the leader of my people, and tell them this is what the Lord, the God of your ancestor David, says I've heard your prayer, I've seen your tears, I will heal you, and three days from now you're gonna get out of bed, you're gonna go to the temple of the Lord, and I will add 15 years to your life, and I will rescue you and this city from the king of Assyria, I will defend the city for my own honor and for the sake of my servant David. So this is you talk about a lot of emotions, right? Your friend shows up, I believe Isaiah and Hezekiah had an incredible relationship, so much that Isaiah had to go to his friend, and he said, Listen, as a prophet, this is what the Lord is saying. There are contingency prophecies that happen in the Bible, and we see this all throughout scriptures, where the prophets would come and they would say, This is what the Lord is saying in the current condition. If you don't do these things, this is what will happen. Okay, you can see this in Jonah. Jonah, I'm telling you to go to the people of Nineveh. They are crazy because they're crazy, they're gonna die unless they repent. And we see Nineveh, Jonah shows up eventually, right? Through some disobedience, he eventually gets there. Where's my guys at? You eventually got here. Here you are. That's good news. And he prays, and Nineveh repents. What was prophesied about Nineveh did not happen. And it didn't happen because of repentance. Some of you in this room, this is your story. Your family was headed this way, and unless there was repentance, unless something changed. So in this moment, Hezekiah, he's told, You're gonna die, you're not gonna make it out. Current condition is not gonna happen. And in that moment, he didn't sulk, he didn't freak out. The Bible says he wept bitterly. He turned to the Lord like he had done his whole life and said, God, I cannot do this. Please, Lord, hear me. And Isaiah doesn't even leave the house. And he's and he hears God again. Go back to Hezekiah. Tell him I've heard his prayer, I've heard his cry. This is why we pray, this is why we fast. The Bible says in Chronicles, and this besides John 3.16 might be the most famous passage. If my people would what? Humble themselves. Humility, you guys, it unlocks everything that God wants. That's why he says, I give grace to the humble. I oppose the proud. Listen to me. If you want to live by agenda based on pride, it will always be destructive. I don't care if it's making America great. I don't care if it's pride in the month of June. If you wanted to do anything with the word pride in it, and you uh you separate yourself from humility, I'm just telling you, it's always gonna fail. It's not in red and blue, it's not even in red, white, and blue. It's not in that. It's turning to the face of God. That is the only thing. I needed a little more than that. Some of you might need to take your Trump signs down because you worship him more than you do Jesus. And if you're looking for a moral leader, that's not what we're doing. And I'm not saying there's not good things that have happened, I'm not saying that America is, but if my people, and if we don't, bad things are happening. So this is an hour where you can jump behind a keyboard and you can quote scriptures all you flip you want to. But he didn't say if you jump behind a keyboard, he didn't say if you make declarations, he didn't say if you protest, he said if you would pray. Then what? I will hear from heaven. I will forgive their sins and I will heal their land. So here it is. This is the contingency prophecies. If we're gonna head down this path, I'm just telling you, destruction is gonna happen. I'm not being, I'm not trying to prophesy this, but I am telling you, if we want to head down this path, here's the signs of what is to follow, not following Jesus. Okay, it's not good. But if my people, if Nineveh, and in this moment, Hezekiah, and it says, Hezekiah did this. Now then the Bible says this in 2 Kings 20 that the enemy shows up. The enemy shows up, and in this moment where Hezekiah should have said, Hey, don't come here, Hezekiah shows him everything, everything in the kingdom, to the point where Isaiah comes back and says, Tell me why he was here, and he says, Well, he was just checking in on me because I was sick. That is how the enemy works. He seems concerned. He seems concerned with your current state. What's going on? Are you okay? I'm concerned for you. And then we show him everything, and Isaiah gives him this warning. He says, Listen, the Lord, because he's truthful, because he cares, because he's faithful, he's not changing the 15 years that he's added to your life. However, know this. Listen to this message, Isaiah says the time is coming when everything in your palace, all the treasures stored up by your ancestors until now, will be carried off. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. Some of your very own sons will be taken into exile. They will become eunuchs who will serve in the palace of Babylon's king. We heard about eunuchs when Eric Hoffman was here. Some of you are still looking it up, maybe. Some of you are giggling when you know who it is, but it says, some of your very own sons. Right? This is this is the message from Isaiah. Listen to what I'm saying to you. Because you've opened this door, God is still going to extend your life. But there are going to be some things that now, once you're gone, your sons, everything that you've worked for, all the things that you've had, it's going to be taken away. And this is this is what Hezekiah says. The message you have given from the Lord is good. For the king was thinking, at least there will be peace and security during my lifetime. This passage, more than any other passage, besides what I'm about to read to you in Matthew 25, give me more most pause in all of Scripture. And it gives me pause because we carry at times a Hezekiah mindset that says, Well, it's not happening to me. It's not happening to us. That's really sad what's happening in other countries. At least there's peace here. And we've carried this mindset into families. Well, I'm not going to say anything in here because I want there to be peace until there's not. Right? So we carry this Hezekiah mindset, and this mindset is that at least it has nothing to do with me. And I'm telling you what God is asking of us is to not just build something for the now, but to build something that will last beyond us, that goes beyond what we've accumulated, what we've passing on. We we desire as parents, as human beings, that the kids that we have, that they're better than us. We want them to be stronger than us, more spiritually inclined than us. Maybe you've added this one, taller than us. I've added that one. We want this from our kids, right? We want this because this is the clarity of the Bible. I'm not gonna hear my sons are gonna be taken by the enemy into eunuchs and have a mindset that says, Well, at least while I'm alive, my sons are good. We're thinking ahead. It's not just about building a church, impacting a community. This is building for future. This is for the future to come for your kids, your grandkids, your great-grandkids, people you will not even see, and it's not even about a building, it's about an understanding of what it is to follow Jesus. So we get to Matthew 25, and we see that Matthew 25 is part of this end times teaching. He tells three parables back to back with the same message. Be ready because delays are part of the plan. Now, if you're an A personality type, delay is almost like a cuss word for you. You don't have the fruit of the spirit that is patient. Where are my people at? Thank you for your honesty. Some of you are just being slow in your response. Perhaps you're delaying right now. Perhaps you got an elbow in the side. In the first 13 verses, Jesus is addressing the issue of some of the things we don't quite understand when it comes to weddings and Jewish culture. And so to his audience, to men and women who Jesus was talking to, they grasped it. They understood it. No different. If I was to describe a wedding to you, similar in American culture, we would get it. We would understand it on some levels. But what Jesus is doing is he's just nobody was surprised by Jesus' terminology in Matthew 25. He talks about these ten virgins, five wise, five foolish. He talks about the parable of the talents, and he talks about the sheep and the goats. And we'll address these the next three weeks, but let's look at these first 13 verses. At that time, the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil and jars along with their lamps, and the bridegroom was a long time in coming. And they all became drowsy and slept. Or fell asleep, which is noted, right? Nob everybody slept. Sleeping is good. At midnight, the cry rang out, here's the bridegroom, come out to meet him. Then all the virgins woke up, trimmed their lamps. The foolish one 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 of us and you. For both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves. But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived, and the virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. Later the others also came. Lord, Lord, they said, Open the door for us. But he replied, Truly I tell you, I don't know you, therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. Again, in Jewish culture, the groom typically came for the bride at the conclusion of a year-long betrothment. His arrival was often a surprise, usually occurring at night, typically around midnight. Separation period was, again, a year could go up to up to two years. And the groom did not decide the date of his return. His father did. Because during that year he was preparing a place. You hearing this in scripture? He's gone preparing a place for the bride. Okay, that's what he's doing. And it could have taken a year, could have taken two years. Kind of depends on what he was building, right? But at any moment when the father thought he's ready, he looked to his son, the bridegroom, and says, Go get your bride. It's time. Okay, so this is this is culture. This is Jesus' culture. This is what's happening. And the surprise, because the exact day and hour were unknown to the bride, she and her attendants had to stay alert and keep oil lamps ready. His approach was marked by a shout from a member of the bridal party. And typically Jewish culture, the blowing of the shofar, the ram's horn. Okay, so this happened. And Jesus tells again this story about it. It's just again a warning story. The problem again in this parable isn't that everyone fell asleep. The problem is that some people weren't ready when it mattered most. Okay, all ten again expected the groom to show up. All ten had lamps. All ten waited, but only five were ready for the delay. Why this matters? This parable is about the kingdom of heaven, not outsiders versus insiders, but prepared versus unprepared. Okay? These are people who knew the groom was coming, wanted to be part of the celebration, and looked ready on the outside. This is my biggest concern for us in 2026 as the church that we do such a good job of faking it that we look ready. This is the danger of where we're headed because we don't know, especially, no offense, anybody a little older than me whether that was real or fake. Thank you, AI. Right? I love kind of the game of like seeing who posted and shared something as it was real, only to figure out it was fake. Like this is the danger of what he's saying to the church. Again, if you've said yes to following Jesus, this warning is coming to us as the church that we better be ready. It also addresses those who know about something but weren't there. They show up and said, Hey, we want to come in too. And he says, Oh, the doors are already shut. Okay? Again, this is the warning. We'll get into this. This is the questions. Again, following Jesus isn't passive optimism, it's prepared obedience. We don't just believe God can do more. We live like He will. We don't just believe it. We're gonna live like He will do these things, right? So we don't just fast to fast because social media or food or fruit or sweets or any of that is bad. We fast because we're saying we believe that God cannot just do it. We're gonna live like it. We're gonna live like He can do it. And this is what happens. Dream Big Faith expects God to move, but prepares for the weight. We're preparing for the wait. We're being faithful where we are, because delay doesn't mean denial, or waiting doesn't mean God forgot the foolish versions planned for arrival, but not for delay. What do we do in the waiting? God can do it now, but I'm gonna be faithful if he doesn't. And I will say this, and this might discourage you. Rarely have I seen God be on my time. Now my wife will tell you that no one's on my time. She'll tell you, even after the weekend we just had, like, do we have to be 30 minutes early for everything? To which I would say yes. Because I'm calm. There's peace. I've expected foolishness of people. I've expected that I'm not going to be able to park in that full lot, even though I can clearly see spots. But I'm expecting that foolish tentant to not let me in. Not that that happened on Friday or not, but that is what I'm preparing for. I'm preparing for the delay. I like to be early. I don't know who to blame in this. My parents are in the room. Maybe start there. I'm just kidding, mom. Dad. Where are you at? Oh, oh, oh, you're hiding. Dad, sit up. Put your back. I just kidding. He can't hear me. Anyway. Oh, you heard that? Oh my bad. Have I always been this way, mom? Name the one time I was late in my life. I wasn't late to my wedding. She was. But thanks for bringing that up. I thought you always said I was late when I came, right? I was due in May. I came in June. Okay, anyway. Dream Big Faith is personal. It's personal. You cannot borrow someone else's oil. This is what it's saying in verse 8. Give us some of your oil. Our lamps are going out. Oil represents personal faith, spiritual depth, ongoing relationship with God. You can't live off of your parents' faith, your kids' faith, your spouse's faith, your church's faith. You cannot live off someone else's past experiences. You can't borrow it in that moment. You can't improvise later. Preparation had to be done before midnight. I'll say this you can admire someone else's flame, but you can't live off their oil. You can admire their flame. We see this. We see this a lot because lamps represented readiness, oil represented preparation, and the flame was the revealer. You only have a flame if you have a lamp and if you have oil. There's no flame if you don't have that. I tell athletes all the time, this is the day we officially start. That day is the revealer of how you've prepared for this day. If you've not practiced, if you've not ran, if you've not conditioned, and you show up this day, we're gonna reveal that you were not ready. Matthew 25 is I have my lamp and I have oil in it. I'm good to go. The problem was that in order to have enough oil, you had to put it in something else. I couldn't just take the torch. This is not a candle moment, you guys. This is not Christmas Eve. Look, look at my little lamp here. It's not something decorative in your house. These were not, these were lamps that Jesus is talking about. There were oil-soaked cloth torches, wooden sticks wrapped in rags dipped in oil. They burned bright, but only for about 15 minutes. So if you didn't bring extra oil, you didn't forget a detail, you forgot the whole plan. And to the people that were listening that day, this made zero sense because they understood if I'm showing up and I'm being the bridesmaid, I'm being the bride, I'm showing up, I understand what I'm doing, I understand my role. My role is to announce the groom. So when my light is shining, it's not shining on me, it's shining. So that people can see the groom. I'm simply shining it right now, showing everyone what is to come. But when he shows up, it needed to be revealed. Light reveals am I ready? Am I prepared? And it also reveals whether I'm not. So in this moment, the foolish ones, what Jesus calls them, I'm not calling people foolish, Jesus is. Remember that in your email? This was an accident. This was neglect. Because lamps were also a public signal signal. This was a sign. This was owned. This was not inherited. This was public. Oil was carried. Again, it's separate. It's announcing. He's here. The celebration has begun. When it didn't, it meant everything stopped. Celebration stopped. Procession stopped. The moment lost its honor. This is what if you were going to a Jewish wedding and they didn't have enough oil, everything stopped because it got dark. Everything. It was done. It ruined the moment. Someone wasn't ready for this. And I'm sure everybody in this room, I can tell you ten of them right now, have wedding experiences that are unique maybe to you, maybe to your family. Something unique happens. This would be a showstopper right here. I showed up. The bridesmaids were not ready. They were not ready. And because they weren't ready, nothing happened. Again, carrying a lamp means you were part of the wedding party. Your only invited participants carried lamps. This means they weren't outsiders, they weren't random guests, they were trusted with responsibility. The parable is not again about bad people versus good people, it's about prepared people versus unprepared people. Lamps required ongoing attention. This is why I have a problem where we put our spiritual life into moments. It was ongoing. Your wick needed trimmed. Oil needed to be added. This is I'm not giving my relationship to Jesus a moment. I'm giving my relationship to Jesus as a daily activity of something that's ongoing. Just like I don't just give my wife June 21st, 1997. And we didn't stop there. It's ongoing. It's a continued relationship. We don't categorize Jesus this way. This is what he's saying. It requires ongoing attention. Faith in the kingdom is not a one-time spark, it's ongoing attentiveness. You don't maintain a flame by remembering a moment, you maintain it by daily care. Like that's what it is. And again, when we don't take care of those things, they tend to be missed. The opportunities become missed. The lamp revealed what was happening also on the inside. Oil was carried again separately on purpose. You don't accidentally follow Jesus. You follow Jesus on purpose. You don't accidentally fast, you guys. You didn't accidentally show up to pray. You didn't accidentally come to church today. It is all done intentionally and on purpose. So when Jesus tells the story, everyone knew exactly what he was saying. If you show up with a lamp and no oil, you didn't misunderstand. You underestimated. You underestimated. And again, we can't underestimate the cost, the delay, the preparation. We cannot underestimate that. This is the sobering part. Verse 10. The bridegroom arrived and the door was shut. The opportunity was lost. Forever. This is why this is not a coddle moment. This is a warning moment. There's a well-known pastor in our circles in Pittsburgh. Pastor Jackie has been close to him for years, an incredible support to the native reservations. Usually on the back end of what we would do on the reservation, they've done on the front end. And they did so much. And Pastor Jeff Leaks preached his service last night and then had a massive heart attack. And in a moment. In a moment. So you and I, we understand this. We understand that when Jesus is talking, he's not trying to just coddle us into our feelings. He's given us a warning that we do not know. We don't know when what we are doing in this moment until he arrives, matters. What we're spending our time, where we're spending our money, what we're doing with the things of life, all of those things matter. This is another reminder that we do not know. This is what we would call a graced-filled time. We're living in grace. There's no guarantees. This is why it's sobering. This is why we have to understand that. Because Dream Big Faith refuses to confuse familiarity with readiness. Listen, you busy, you being busy does not mean you're spiritual. They had zero problems sleeping. Resting may look a little different than you, to you. It says in verse 11, later the others also came. Lord, Lord, they said, Open the doors for us. He says, I don't know you. They knew about, they expected access, but relationship, not proximity, was the issue. Relationship was the issue. Listen, saying things like I've been around church a long time, or I support the mission and the vision of the church is not enough. It's just not. I'll give you a pen and say, Well done, life group leader, if that's what you need, but that's not what it's about. It's about am I walking with Jesus every single day? Am I spiritually alert? Am I being obedient? This is about Jesus' return as much as it is God moments and the way God moves. It requires extra oil, it requires deeper faith. It requires a greater obedience than you've given to God even to this moment. It's going to take something more. Because where we're living requires more. And this mindset that says, these aren't the good old days. No, they're not. They're different days. And how you adjust or where you live is either a Hezekiah mindset or it's the warning that Jesus is talking about. But if you choose the Hezekiah mindset, you will coast off into the end. But I promise you, there will be no one at the end that you took with you. That is the goal, you guys. Not that the world sees us, but that the world sees Jesus. And what he's warning right now is that are we lighting a flame? And he gets to this in Matthew 25. He hits it hard. He hits it really hard. Why? Because we need shaken, awakened, alerted of what is happening. The conversations should not be how are you doing. The conversations are how are you and Jesus? Like, where are you distracted right now? Where are you growing in your walk? Like we should not be tiptoeing around, like, well, I don't want to offend them. Throw that out the window. There's no that there's no this is not part of culture. There's no law, where there's no hiding. There's no more hiding. Like they've shown the cards have been shown. The enemy's not like sneaking around. He's a lion now. He's a lion seeking whom he may devour, and he doesn't care if you've seen him behind the woods, if you've seen him in the bushes. He's out roaring, roaring for you to see. And he's saying to the church, what are you gonna do about it? Here I am, roaring, devouring. And if we take the approach of, well, at least I'm retired now. I don't have to worry about my old boss. You've missed the whole dang point. You've missed it. You've made it about retirement and money and coasting, and Jesus has always made it about souls. He's always made it about the person next to you, the person that you can like that's what it's about. This is why it's a warning. This is why he's saying, like, stop coddling people and understand the urgency of the hour. Recognize it, is all he's saying. Like, if you're watching the news and you're like, well, the world's not that bad, you are blind. Blind, misguided, or stupid? I'm gonna let you decide. I'm gonna let you pick. I didn't call you stupid, but I could have. Do we have oil for the delay? That's the biggest question. How do I get oil? Huh. So glad you asked. What are you doing with Jesus today? Is it growing? Is it thriving? Are you walking with him? Are you distracted? You've put so much stock in this? You've neglected this? Man, these are the questions we have to be asking. And guys, listen. Stop feeling the pressure. Like it's all on us. Like it's like like we're the ones that changed people. That's not our role. You know what Jesus said? Love your enemies. That's fun. Then he says, love your enemies when they win. It appears in culture like the enemy is winning.
SPEAKER_01:Read the end. He doesn't. He doesn't.
SPEAKER_02:Jesus said, take heart, you guys. You're not the healer. Take heart. You're not the savior. Take heart. You're not the fixer of all the problems. He's the healer. He's the savior. He's already paid the bill. You just gotta walk in it. Eat. Prepare. Be ready. Don't get distracted. Say hard things. Bring people back to where it's supposed to be. Like this is our role. And how we love people. I mean, me and Justin were talking in between service. How do you how do you love someone?