Cumberland Presbyterian Ponderings: Parable of the Talents--Yes, Again!

Read Matthew 25:14-30

I have preached this parable at least twice a year to this body, and most of those twice-a-year occasions included two different messages at our services. Some years, I worked it in more.

I have preached this in other locations. It is a Go-to Parable. It is jam-packed. It is good for preaching, good for Bible study, and best when put into practice.

So, where do I go this time? I will follow my Sermon for Dummies guidelines that I keep posted by my computer.

· Include the good news in the message.

· Connect the good news to our current situation.

· Repeat critical items.

I am going to focus on the third guideline: Repeat critical items. So here we go again with my acronym: TURN

T is for trusted. All of the servants were trusted with money in accordance with their ability. They had a preexisting relationship with their master before this parable began. They were trusted servants. Even the third servant was trusted with a substantial investment in his ability. We are trusted servants.

U stands for urgency. The first two servants put their talents to work at once. They were ready to be trusted more, and because of that, they could put their master’s money to work immediately. We are to act with urgency.

R is for Return on Investment (ROI). The master expected a return on the trust he placed in his servants. He didn’t have to say this. These servants knew this because of the existing relationship. We are to produce a return for our Master.

N is for No Fear. Every servant had to contend with fear, but only the third one was debilitated by fear. We all deal with fear, but we should not be afraid. Our desire to produce a return for our master should be enough to overcome whatever fear is taunting us. If you must be afraid, be afraid of not pleasing your master, but fear does not govern the trusted servants' thinking or actions. We are to live without fear interfering with our decisions.

This acronym brings us to the question of what we did with what our Master (the Lord) gave us. We must realize that we are his trusted servants, are to act with urgency, are to produce a return on our Master’s trust, and that fear does not govern our lives.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge… The key word there is beginning.

Perfect love casts out fear.

But the question remains. What did we do with what God gave us?

I have posed this as a challenge in various areas of our discipleship. Among the gifts or trusts given to us were time, talents, and treasure, the standard three.

Also, in this context of what did we do with what God gave us, we explored our salvation, wisdom, children, leadership, spiritual gifts, Sabbath rest, and even God’s generosity.

We have looked at fear and why the third servant was called wicked in addition to being easily labeled as lazy.

And we have looked at this parable in the context of fear.

So what is left?

How about victory? What did we do with the victory that God gave—I say it again, gave—us. In our belief and profession of Jesus as Lord, we receive the victory that Jesus won on the cross. We pass from death to life.

Our sin is set aside. Death has no more sting for us. Yes, we hurt when we lose a loved one. Even Jesus wept over Lazarus, knowing full well that he would see his friend momentarily. He would need a shower and some new clothes but death would not claim him for now.

Only a few, ok that few could be a few billion people, but in comparison to all who have lived since God created humans, it’s not that many, will meet Jesus the old fashioned way, through death. Most won’ get to meet him in the clouds without experiencing death.

Most of us will get to heaven the old-fashioned way. We will die in these bodies, but the death of this body is not the end for the believer.

We get that, and we discussed this when we discussed the parable and salvation, but this time, let’s look deeper into that salvation.

Let’s consider this salvation, which we know through our faith and God’s grace, in the context of victory.

Sin does not enslave us and death cannot hold us. That’s victory. No, that’s the ultimate victory.

Remember God’s answer to Paul’s prayers to remove the thorn in his side: My grace is sufficient for you.

So, what’s different from just asking what we did with our salvation?

With the words "Your grace is enough for me," we affirm that we have already won the ultimate victory. Nothing in this world can take that away from me or you.

So, should we not be the boldest people on the planet? We have already won even if we mess up everything from now until our hearts stop. We have already won.

There should be nothing that holds us back from putting our Master’s words into practice. We should be bold, we can’t lose.

Back in the mid 1990s, I went to a Chester L. Karrass negotiating seminar. It was good training, so much so that I hired the guy to train 20 of my people, who quite frankly were terrible negotiators. It was money well spent, but I’m not talking about negotiation.

The instructor began the class by asking who would bet $100 on the flip of a coin. Nobody responded.

Then he said, "What if I gave you 10 to 1 odds, and we would do this 10 times?"

I stood up right then, started pulling my wallet out of my back pocket, and said, “I’ll take that action!”

If you have a 50-50 chance of winning each time and if only won once, you would break even. Any coin flip that came up in your favor after that was gravy.

The offer was only for instructional purposes and I became good friends with the instructor, wrote a few things for him, and still consider the training he provided some of the best I have received in my life.

OBTW—for the couple of dozen negotiating strategies and tactics discuss, the instructor noted that the Karass organization only endorsed one—the Win-Win.

We have the ultimate win-win in our salvation that came by God’s mercy and grace.

We have better than 10-1 odds. We’ve already won.

That should give us peace. We should be assured of our right standing with God. We should be fully convinced in our own minds—doubt gets the boot—that we will enjoy the company of our God and Savior for eternity.

That should make us bold as disciples of Christ Jesus, bold in our witness, and send us into the world without fear of anything the world can do to us.

Yes, we will have trouble, pain, sorrow, hurt, and a bunch of stuff that if we wrote the script for our own day, would not be included. But all of that stuff is nothing compared to what is in store for us.

So we should be bold as we serve the Lord and bring glory to his name. Do not be timid. Do not hold back. We don’t do fear.

You are on a mission from God and regardless of how many times you are wounded while you go into the world with good news, you will be with God and be in right standing with him for eternity.

You win!

Now, stop holding back.

What did we do with the mercy and grace that God gave us?

I hope that we all hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” one day. And maybe our Master might add, “You were fearless as you brought glory to my name.”

Bruh, you were fearless!

That’s what we long to hear. We are told that if we deny Jesus before men, he will deny us before his Father. That’s “Depart from me I never knew you,” sort of stuff.

But it doesn’t apply to you. You will not deny Jesus. You know the truth. You will remain faithful to the end, but will you be bold?

Bold is not boisterous, bravado, or something in which you need a Type-A/High Dominance personality profile. There is no preferred Myers-Briggs Type Indicator required.

It’s going where God sends you and not worrying about the consequences.

You want to do your best, but you are not afraid to trip and fall and get back up as you learn new things and ways to practice your discipleship.

We are bold!

We have no excuse to be timid. To be timid is to bury our talents in the ground.

We will not accept burying our talents in the ground. That’s not us. Being bold might take—will take—practice.

And once again, I come to the sage of modern-day wisdom, Yogi Berra, for further guidance.

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Take what God has given you and do something with it. Just do it. Make your best decision, don’t look back, and do what you know to do to bring glory to God’s name.

When you come to a fork in the road, take it. Which way? The way that God is leading you, and do it with urgency. There is no get around to it in the discipleship business.

There are some things that we do as organizations and in those cases groups of people make decisions or you need a supervisor’s approval to act.

That’s not the case with what God has given you by grace. You are free to act without worry about losing your right standing with God as you do your best to bring glory to his name.

Should you abide by the laws and regulations in place? Of course. Understand what the law prohibits, but don’t back off beyond that. The Pharisees did that by adding to the law.

You are not supposed to work on the Sabbath, so we should prohibit even picking up a shovel in case someone forgets it is the Sabbath and starts digging a ditch.

Should we not be concerned with our personal safety? In the big picture, your destination is assured even if you die in your endeavor, but don’t do stupid stuff to hasten the process.

Should I get up in people’s faces and thump them with my Bible? If that’s your approach, make sure you take a big, heavy Bible and not some little gospel the Gideons put out. And make sure your mouthwash is Listerine strength.

Seriously, we are not making people come and be disciples; we make disciples when they respond to the good news.

We deliver the good news. The receiver decides if he or she believes. We disciple those who believe and pray for those who don’t, at least haven’t yet. That’s our hope, that they will respond to the grace offered while they can.

We will be so bold to give those who refused another round at some point. As long as it is called today, we continue to share this gospel of truth.

We try to get along with everyone as much as possible, but we will not hold back on sharing what we are commissioned to share. We don’t go into the world to offend people, but if the truth offends them, they need to hear the truth and we must be bold and share it.

So, in this ongoing saga of sermons of the Parable of the Talents, what will we do with the words from God, “My grace is enough for you?”

Among all of our other responses that bring glory to God’s name, let’s add boldness to that list.

Let’s be bold in bringing glory to God by taking his love and good news to the world!

Amen.

For more on this jam-packed parable, follow the links…

The Parable of the Talents

Parable of the Talents – Part I

Parable of the Talents – Part II

Parable of the Talents – Part III

Parable of the Talents: You wicked, lazy servant

The Parable of the Talents: God’s Generosity

The Parable of the Talents: Leadership Lessons