“Therefore, stay awake. For you do not know when the master of the house will come. In the evening or at midnight, or when the rooster crows or in the morning, lest he comes suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you, I say to all, stay awake.”
– Mark 13:35–37
Oh. Would you just let those last two words of Mark 13:35–37 soak in to your heart and mind, right now, all day long, I stay awake. Stay awake. What does that mean? Jesus is talking here in Mark chapter 13 about when He will return, when He will, in the words of verse 27, send out the angels, gather His elect from the four winds from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. He’s talking about when the Son of man will come in clouds with great power and glory. The whole picture is, and Jesus makes this clear, not just in this passage, we see it all over His word, Jesus is coming back.
Are you ready for Christ to return? We ask for grace to stay awake, living with hopeful anticipation for the day when Jesus returns for His church.
Jesus has died on a cross, risen from the dead, ascended to the right hand of the father and He is coming back. And He could come back at any moment. Now, you might say, “Well, they said this 2000 years ago, He hasn’t come back yet. How do we know?” Well, all that means is we’re 2000 years closer to Him coming back. And the truth of what Jesus taught here is the same today. No one knows when, so be ready. Stay awake. He said, you don’t know if the master of the house comes in the evening, at midnight, when the rooster crows, in the morning, and you don’t want Him to come and find you asleep. In other words, find you not ready for His return. I just want to ask you the question wherever you are right now, are you ready to meet Jesus?
Mark 13:35–37 Prays That God Helps Us Live Today
What if He were to come back five minutes from now? Are you ready? Are you ready? Is your heart ready? Is your mind ready? Are you doing in your life what you want to be found doing when he returns? Are you spending your life for what matters in eternity? No, God, we pray that you would help us to stay awake. God, that you would help us to be ready, to live with hopeful anticipation of your coming, with confident anticipation of your coming. Jesus, we know you are coming back. We confess right now, you are coming back, and we want you to come back, and we pray in revelation 22 kind of way. Come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Bring an end to sin and suffering and death and injustice and all of its ways around the world. Come and rule and reign, assert your final justice.
All of our all things, bring a new heaven and a new earth where there will be no more sorrow and no more pain. God, we pray for this. Bring it about. And we pray that you’d help us to stay awake or to help us to live today, like every moment of this day. Like you could return at any moment of this day. Transform our thoughts, our desires, our words, our actions.
Help us to be bold and urgent and sharing the gospel with people around us, that we might be doing what you’ve called us to do when you return and that they might be ready, that they might know you, that they might receive your grace and your love and your mercy in the gospel before it’s too late. God we pray this for people right around us. Help us to be faithful, to share the gospel with them.
Mark 13:35–37 Prays For the Rajput Chauhan In India
And then God, we pray for the Rajput Chauhan in India, three million of them. Hardly any Rajput Chauhan followers of Jesus. God changed that. We pray. Send your church to the Rajput Chauhan that they might be ready, that they might be awake, that they might know your love and your mercy. They might anticipate your coming and experience your all ultimate salvation.
God, we pray. Help us to stay awake. May it not be said of us, any one of us, I pray this my own life, I pray this over every single person who’s listening right now, we pray that should you return today or tomorrow or next week or next month or next year or 10 years from now, or whenever, as long as we’re still here, may it be said of us that we were awake. May it not be said of us, that we were asleep on that day. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
