Watch out...

Recovering a lost art & discipline

“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:13).

Watchfulness is seldom talked about in our day. What is meant by watching or watchfulness as a disciple of Jesus?

Watchfulness: Careful oversight of our souls through guarding against spiritual danger and keeping our hearts oriented toward our Savior by the power of the Spirit.

Watchfulness pushes back against cruise control Christianity. It appears that there are only two directions you can take as a Christian. Forward or backwards. Like standing on a treadmill, there’s no such thing as stagnant or standing still, for when you’re standing still, you’re moving backwards. Watchfulness is one of the means God uses to keep the soul in forward motion.

Thomas Boston put it this way,

“Watching is a military term. By watching, the army is secured from a surprise by the enemy… It is commonly used in Scripture for the watching of the soul. There are two things in it, 1) The Soul’s keeping spiritually awake, 2) Observation—our mind must be intent upon our business, that we may catch all advantages against, and ward off hazard from the enemy.”

Our Savior prioritizes this in certain moments: “Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.” And the apostle Paul, “continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful…” Or how about Peter? “Prepare your minds for action and be sober.”

The Object of Our Watching

What do we watch over?

We watch over our souls. Yes, we watch over the spiritual health of others—that’s your commitment to the body of Christ. But primarily, you must watch over yourself rather than try to manage everyone else’s spirituality. You make a bad holy spirit. Plus, if you’re not keeping watch on your souls, you will be in no place to help others.

Before moving forward, there are two extremes we need to avoid.

Sometimes we watch over our souls so much that we become bent inward on ourselves and simply allow our thoughts to run wild, assessing our own performance. The other extreme is to neglect caring for our souls altogether. This negligence is avoided when we know what to watch against and what to watch for.

Things to Watch Against

The heart is not a “set it and forget it” faculty of our soul. Like a garden, it takes constant tending lest we allow various weeds to spring up.

Therefore, we must watch against what we prize the most, what we love most, potentially above God. As Proverbs 4:23 says, “Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it springs the issues of life.” If we neglect the place of the heart, things that bend our loves away from God and toward other things will unexpectedly spring up. Another Puritan author, John Flavel, once compared the heart to a stringed instrument. It must be tuned and retuned so that it may play the music of a life devoted to God’s glory.

We must watch against mere religiosity. We can show up for church like the foolish bridesmaids in Jesus’ parable showed up for the ceremony (Matt. 25:1-13), but we can be completely disengaged. It’s not about showing up and the place of your feet. It’s about the place of your heart.

We must watch against the distractions of good things like your work, projects, and family. We can enjoy these things and thank God for them, but they are terrible gods. And if some opportunity is pulling you away from the gathering of the body of Christ, it’s not from God.

Lastly, we watch against the various lusts and corruptions that we are prone to. If you know that something has been a temptation in the past, and you have gone back to it consistently, I ask, what are you doing to watch and guard against it? If the answer is “nothing,” and you keep running back to the same pleasure, the Bible has a name for this: foolishness. “Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly” (Proverbs 26:11).

Things to Watch For

Guarding your heart not only has a defensive posture, but an offensive one.

Watch for the opportunities to cultivate your heart—the preaching of the word, attending the Lord’s Supper, prayer with believers, and meditation on the Word throughout each day. This ensures following Christ is not just about what you’re not doing, i.e., sin, but rather Who you’re pursuing. We flee youthful lusts, says Paul, but we don’t just flee; we pursue righteousness (2 Tim. 2:22).

Watch for the Spirit’s influence on your conscience. If you’re prompted to share the gospel with someone, or the Spirit is directing someone in your path to serve, lean into the opportunity.

But most importantly, watch for the Savior. Jesus ends the parable of the ten bridesmaids with “Watch, for you don’t know the day nor hour.” This, of course, is the day and hour of His return. This is what Jesus has been expounding throughout the Olivet Discourse. We must trust His word when He said He’ll return. If not, we won’t be in a place of being prepared to enter His good, eternal Kingdom. The future Kingdom will be characterized by holiness and peace. Why would we not guard our souls to walk in peace and holiness in the present?

Being ready and watchful for Christ’s return is like me being on vacation with my family, and before I leave briefly leave the room I tell everyone, “Wait here, guys, I’m going to run to the car to get some things. But get ready, we’re going to the pool when I get back!" My expectation is they will be actively waiting for me to get back by getting on their bathing suits, going potty, getting their floaties, etc. But imagine I get back, and none of that is done. There was no preparedness or regard for my word when I said I was coming back to the room.

Seasons When Watchfulness is Especially Needed

John Flavel unfolds a list of seasons where watchfulness is especially needed. If we’re going to recover this lost art, it’s important to watch for these seasons that arise almost unexpectedly:

Times of Prosperity—When God’s providence smiles on you so that you fall into financial or material success. Spiritual cruise control can be a default. You can forget the God who gave it all to you in the first place.

Times of sorrow—When providence frowns on you. Life has knocked the wind out of you, and you’re on the floor trying to catch your breath. The temptation here is to despondency. In other words, you can be tempted to wallow in hopelessness and forget the sovereign hand of God. Yes, it’s okay to be sorrowful, but like Paul said, we are sorrowful and simultaneously, always rejoicing (2 Cor. 6:10).

Times of public distraction or world events—When a big crisis hits in the middle east, or a crisis hits America, or a natural disaster comes, we can neglect watching our own souls because we’re stuck turning our attention solely to the TV, getting discipled by CNN or Fox News that we don’t end up looking at what’s going on through a biblical lens.

Times of prolonged relational conflicts—In conflicts, whether family or otherwise, we can be tempted to give up watching our souls because we’re so focused on how we’ve been wronged that we forget to look to Jesus and His truth to see what He’s trying to teach us about our own flaws.

Times of increased temptation—When sin has lain dormant for a while, I can tell you from experience that a season of temptation may just be around the corner. Don’t get hit by the fray train. Watch out for times of increased temptation where there’s that one sin like a monkey on your back that you can’t seem to shake off.

There’s also a temptation to give up the fight altogether. You think, “I’ll never be free from this.” Or “I’ll never stop struggling.” That second one is true in one sense; we’ll all struggle till the day we die, but we sometimes forget the victory won by Christ and the new identity we’ve been given. We don’t take the time to use our newfound identity in Christ to kill our besetting sin.

Times of doubt—There may be a season when you’re doubting God’s goodness, doubting His truth, doubting the goodness of the church. Beware in those seasons. It’s okay to take your doubts and run to Jesus with them—we all struggle with doubt. But there’s a fine line between doubt and the evil heart of unbelief, which will cause some to fall away from the living God. If you don’t take a season of doubt to the Lord Jesus and under the care of your elders and leaders, you will invariably define truth on your own terms.

Times of sickness—In times of sickness, we can neglect being watchful. We can allow our minds to fossilize and resort to doom-scrolling social media rather than staying prayerful and receiving care from friends and other believers. These times especially, we need each other. Watchfulness is a community project.

Conclusion

Awake Christians are watchful Christians. The return of Christ causes us to pay attention to our lives and to His coming Kingdom.

When we look at the return of Jesus, we see the call; we must be awake and watchful, but we also see comfort, which was and is the foundation for the calling we all have to stay awake.

It’s important that we savor Jesus’ Words and keep before our eyes our chief motivation: the goodness and hope of the gospel. Christ Himself and the hope we have in His coming are the foundation for being alert, sober, and watchful.

So, in all your watching, look to Him.