We Don't Do Fear!

 Read Matthew 25:14-30

Let’s talk about fear.

Proverbs 1:7

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,

    but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Isaiah 41:10 - Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

2 Timothy 1:7 - For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

1 John 4:18 - There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

Psalm 34:4 - I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.

Joshua 1:9 - Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

Proverbs 29:25 - The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.

Here is a familiar verse from a very familiar Psalm. It’s verse 4 of Psalm 23.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

So, what’s the message? Fear God. That’s a good start to knowing him more.

Don’t fear God’s punishment. It’s not for you. Disciple, yes, but punishment, no.

Don’t fear evil. God is with you.

Don’t fear others or the situations of the world. God is with us.

If fear has to be a part of your life, then fear God more than whatever else you might be afraid of. If fear must control part of your life, then make sure it is the fear of the Lord and it motivates you to please him.

You will still have trouble in the world. You will still be tested by the trials this world throws at us, some of which are substantial. The world might even persecute you for following Jesus, but you don’t need to be afraid.

Now to the third servant in the parable. Fear debilitated him. He was not functional. He acted with cowardice and void of wisdom.

Well, the master shouldn’t have been so hard on him. Fear was just in his nature.

He couldn’t help it. It was his nature to be afraid.

What if being an alcoholic was in your nature? Would a continued state of drunkenness be acceptable?

What if stealing was in your nature? Would we appoint such a person as our treasurer?

What if you had murder in your heart? How high would we let the body count go before we did something?

It doesn’t matter if fear is part of your nature. We are called to take on a new nature. We are a new creation and the fear of anyone other than the Lord is repulsive to God and those who seek and follow him.

If fear seems too hard to overcome, ask yourself this question as if it was from the Lord. Let’s put it in the first person from the Lord.

Did I go to the cross so you could live in fear?

You are saved by grace through faith. That’s a done deal, but you will stand before God and give an account, and the words I was afraid don’t earn you any points.

Fear is never rooted in trusting God. It always falls within the realm of our own understanding.

The grace of God is unbelievable. It goes beyond our worst sin, but know with certainty that fear of anyone or anything other than God does not please and, I would venture to say, angers the Lord. And if anyone is slow to anger, it is the Lord.  

But there is no doubt that he is not happy with this third servant, who was governed by fear. Do not expect to please God if we live in fear, are controlled by fear, or make fear-based decisions. Consider these final words in this parable.

“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

“‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.  And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

I want to be in the well-done, good, and faithful servant line. We don’t fear. We have faith and trust and know with a blessed assurance that we belong to God, and he will be with us wherever we go.

We don’t do fear.

Amen.

Is my desire to please God greater than my fear?

 Read Matthew 25:14-30

It was February or March 1980. I was in a CH-46 helicopter hovering at 120 feet. We were rappelling, that is, jumping out of an aircraft and getting to the ground using a rope and a small device called a carabiner.

I had rappelled before but this was my first time from a helo. The guy in front of me was a big kid. By kid, I mean another butter bar in his early 20s. This guy was huge. He was at least 6’4” with wide shoulders and all the muscle you would expect from a warrior.

He was also afraid.

Just to say something in his defense, jumping out of an aircraft that isn’t on fire or about to crash anyway isn’t a natural act. At 120 feet, it might even seem more natural to stay aboard and put out a fire than to jump.

Some of you have jumped out of aircraft at a much higher altitude, for which a parachute was highly recommended. Some jump out of aircraft at altitudes where you need not only a parachute but oxygen as well.

But, there we were at 120 feet, and Second Lieutenant Connolly was frozen at the back of the helo and did not want to move. Major Bo Dishman was our leader and had undoubtedly seen this before.

He talked Connolly into relaxing his grip on the rope and told him that he would count to three and then he would jump. Connolly agreed.

One. Two—and Major Dishman pushed Connolly out the back. He grabbed the rope half a second later but was already 40 feet closer to the ground. The rest was a piece of cake.

Jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft doesn’t make sense. Your whole being says, don’t do that! This sort of fear is natural and healthy.

I was at a seminar once on the 40^th floor of a building. During a break, some of us found a balcony. I’m sure someone needed a place to smoke.

In any case, I looked over the balcony and down at the street below. My very being said, that’s far enough!

Sometimes, fear keeps us alive. Sometimes, fear keeps us from living.

The third servant in this parable was afraid. Why? We don’t read that his master had beaten him, so there should have been no physical fear.

We don’t see that his master had threatened him. He had not been on probation. There was nothing in the makeup of the relationship between master and servant that should have prompted fear in the servant.

So why was he afraid?

The master was a hard man. He received a return even when the servant didn’t think he deserved it.

The master had great expectations for his servants. He did not give them more than they could handle; he gave to them according to their ability.

Each servant should have produced a return of some sort, even if it was just a little interest from the bank. But the third servant was afraid.

Afraid of what?

Of things that existed only in his mind. He was ruled by negative fantasies or living out the worst-case scenarios in his mind.

Fear is natural if you are about to jump out of an aircraft. Training can help, but fear is natural.

If someone is shooting at you, your instincts—probably fear based—will tell you that lead and flesh don’t mix well and you should get behind something like a rock or a steel wall. If you watch too many movies, you need to know that cardboard boxes don’t work.

This sort of fear helps keep you among the living.

If your mind is making you afraid, you are dealing with things that may or may not happen, and as it turns out, most of the time, don’t.

Fear can motivate and help you achieve your goals. I am not going through that again!

Fear can initiate. I had better figure this out. It’s time to get it in gear.

Fear can debilitate. I’m not even going to try. I know I will fail.

We have all sorts of irrational fears.  Such as the fear of:

·       Failure. That’s a no-brainer.

·       Success. Yes, sometimes people are afraid they will succeed.  What comes next if I do well at this?

·       Learning something new. You might be surprised how many people this impacts. Such fear seems to increase with age.

·       People expecting more of you. If I do a good job, people will expect more from me next time. This one ties in with the fear of success.

·       Getting too involved. There’s only so much of me to go around. Sometimes, this is a legitimate concern. Sometimes it is an irrational fear. Wait! That one sounds rational to me. For the average person, it might be a legitimate concern. For the Christian, if God has called you to it, he will give you the resources you need so you are not spread too thinly.

Fear is sometimes related to knowledge and our level of risk acceptance.

What does that mean?  There are three main areas of information or knowledge that we deal with in every situation. In just about every decision we make—including and especially those involving an element of fear—these three areas come into play.

There are the Known Knowns. These are things that we know, and we know that we know them. Well, duh!

There are the known unknowns. These are things that we don’t know, but we know that we don’t know this information. For some, this creates an implied task of finding out. We know what to look for—we just need to find the answer.

And then we come to the granddaddy of them all, the Unknown Unknowns, or the UnkUnks, as it is affectionately referred to by those who frequently assess risk.  This is information that we don’t know and we don’t even know—at least yet—that we don’t know it.

You might think that this would be the most debilitating of the three, but typically, only those with a higher risk tolerance than most reach this point.

Most people give in to fear with the known knows or the known unknowns. Few are pioneers who learn as they go, adapt, improvise, and overcome. They navigate the unknown.

These people know that information arrives over time. If you have all of the information, the time for decision-making has come and gone. What you are dealing with has been overcome by events.

That means that people who venture into the unknown unknowns are either crazy or they trust God. Without all of the information at our disposal at one time, we must either act blindly or trust in God.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Try it this way: If we had all of the information at our disposal, it would be impossible to please God. Our decisions and choices might be easier, but they would be void of trusting God.

People not debilitated by fear know that we will have to work with imperfect knowledge as long as we walk the earth in these bodies.  They accept that reality and navigate their way forward.

The third servant never got past the known knowns. He knew his master was a hard man with high expectations, so he didn’t even try. He didn’t even assess his own skills. What could he do with this bag of money?

He didn’t even give it a shot. He buried his money in the ground.

He buried it in the ground!

For the student of efficacy, the lifelong learner desiring growth, and the Christian maturing some each day, this statement should be absolutely repulsive.

He buried it in the ground!

To take what God has entrusted to us—money, time, talents, salvation and grace, our children, the gospel, our minds and bodies, position, status, or the things the world calls KSAs (knowledge, skills, and abilities) and bury them in the ground should leave a very bad taste in our mouths.

I can’t think of anyone who has ever tried to label me a financial expert or banking whiz, but I know this: Money buried in the ground does not increase. It accrues no interest. It is invested in nothing, and there will be no return on investment.

The best that you can hope for is that it’s still there when you dig it up.

A one-hour trip to the bank to put the money in a CD would have saved this third servant a lot of worry.

He wouldn’t have to worry about someone finding the buried money.

He wouldn’t have to worry about investing it and managing it. Apparently he didn’t have those skills.

He would know exactly where it was.

Putting this money in the bank should have been a no-brainer. It required little effort and would produce a modest return, but the servant was afraid.

Spencer Johnson and Ken Blanchard wrote a book titled Who Moved My Cheese? It’s about dealing with change. The setting is mice in a maze with cheese, and as you might have guessed, things change.

Change is defined as moving the cheese.  It is a simple but not simplistic approach to dealing with change and used by many in the corporate world, but the heart of the message is very simple. How to deal with change is very, very straightforward.  Here it is.

What would I do if I were not afraid?

The answer to this question is often our best course of action. Let’s stand in the place of the third servant.  Maybe, he doesn’t have any real investing skills. But he can open a bank account. He could do that. It was within his ability.

If he weren’t afraid, the third servant would have at least opened a bank account.

I’m going out on a limb here and put a provocation before you. You haven’t lived until you have recognized, dealt with, and overcome fear. Addressing our fears is a part of our abundant life.

The following quote is from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. It is from Caesar to his wife, who is concerned that her husband is about to be killed. She had a dream or a vision that he would be killed.

A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.

If you read Julius Caesar at some point in your life, you might recall that Caesar did get killed. Yes, sometimes, the bad stuff happens.

Sometimes, the worst-case scenario becomes the current situation. Sometimes.

But would fear have prevented his death? I guess he could have never gone out in public again.

If fear governs, don’t expect to ever achieve any great thing. Do not expect a well done good and faithful servant. Expect to live a mediocre life.  Go with the flow. Chill. Don’t stick your neck out.

We have been saved by grace through fear, right?

Your salvation is secure in the grace you received by faith. Fear and faith don’t mix.  

If you live by fear, how will you answer the question I always associate with this parable?

What did you do with what God gave you?

Understand that the answer, I was afraid does not help the situation. Our fear does not exempt us from answering this question.

What did you do with what God gave you?

I am sure that the first two servants dealt with fear as well, but their desire to please their master was so much greater than their fear.

Their desire to please their master was greater than their fear.

So today, I close with this thought. Is my desire to please my Master greater than the fears—rational or irrational—with which I am contending?

Is my desire to please God greater than my fear?

I pray that our desires to please God overwhelm our fears and that we all yield a good return for our Master.

Amen.

 

Take the Talent Away from Him...

 Read Matthew 25:14-30

 

You wicked, lazy servant!

 

I do not want to be at the end of a sentence that begins with “Woe unto” and I do not want to be the addressee of the statement, “You wicked, lazy servant!”

 

For the most part, I focus on what we are to do as trusted servants when examining this parable.  We know that we are saved from sin and death.  We know that the blood of Jesus has rescued us from condemnation.

 

There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.  Those are some powerful words. 

Those are incredibly powerful words, but we still need to consider the negative examples when they come our way in our Bible study.  The third servant gives us those negative examples.

 

He was governed by fear.  We have discussed fear many times and know that God wants us to be courageous and not afraid.  But for this brief examination, I want to look at the master’s disposition in dealing with the third servant.

 

His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So, you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned, I would have received it back with interest.

 

“‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags.  For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.  And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

 

The third servant knew right away that when the master began labeling him wicked and lazy, things were not going to work out as he thought.  The master doesn’t just reprimand the servant, he examines his thinking.

 

Some people love me because I tend to examine the thinking.  Just as many people hate me for the same reason.  Back to the parable…

 

You knew that I gleaned a return even where I had not invested.  You knew that about me but you chose a course of action that produced no return.

 

You knew what I expected and you did the opposite.  How could this turn out for the good?  Really?  Did you see any good outcome in your choice?

 

So, you were afraid.  Is that it?  Have I ever valued fear in our relationship?  Have I taught you fear?  If you had fear of me, don’t you think that would have motivated you to please me—to produce some return for me?

 

You get better results with courage but if you were afraid of me then you should have considered that I would not accept anything short of some return on investment. 

 

You should have used your fear of me as motivation to please me and not something to debilitate you.

How could you accomplish this with so little courage?  You could have marched yourself right down the bank and put my money in a Certificate of Deposit.  At least I could have received some interest. That’s a no-brainer.

 

How hard would that be?  You didn’t have the backbone to invest like the other two servants, but you had everything that you needed to go to the bank and deposit my money in an interest-bearing account with no risk.

 

C’mon snowflake, even you could have done that!

 

We are usually in tune with what’s happening up to this point, but now the master says, “Take the money away from this servant and give it to the one who has the ten talents.”

 

Ouch!  Isn’t that being a little harsh?

 

Let’s remember that the money was a trust.  It really never belonged to the servants.  Remember the joy of the first two servants.  ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’

 

See what I gained for you.  Here is what I did for you!  My joy is in pleasing you!

The third servant knew that the money belonged to his master, but he never moved beyond fear to realize that he was also a trusted servant.

 

One talent equaled the daily wage for a worker for 20 years.  That’s big-time money even when you are only trusted with one talent.  Today, what does the typical worker make?  If it’s on the low end, maybe $30,000 per year.  On the high end, perhaps $50,000 per year.  I’m not talking about supervisors and executives, but workers. 

 

So, one talent in today’s equivalent is between half a million and a million dollars.  That’s no chump change. 

 

There are other estimates but they also fall under the no chump change umbrella.

 

OK, so we get this is a big trust even for the third servant, but why take what little he has?

 

Think to Proverbs 13:22. 

 

A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children,

    but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.

 

You may have heard the second part of that as the wealth of the wicked is laid up for the just or the righteous. 

 

What else could the master do if he subscribed to biblical wisdom?  The wicked and lazy don’t get to keep what they have if they have anything at all.

 

Remember, the three parables in this chapter are told in response to the disciple asking about the end of the age.

 

Throughout the Psalms, the psalmists cry out on behalf of the people, “How long are you going to let people get away with defying you and living it up, Lord?”

 

The answer is that in the end, they do not get away with it.  Wealth won’t get you anything on the day of wrath, but righteousness is what saves you.

 

Part of the problem is that we have our own connotations of wicked.  Hollywood paints villains as ugly, menacing, and heartless doers of evil.  But we should look at wickedness as everything that is not good—everything that is not done or given or lived in God’s way.

 

There is no sitting on the fence in this dichotomy.  It’s God’s way and everything else.  If you are on the wrong side of the fence, you have earned the titles wicked or lazy or slothful.  Don’t get caught up in the Hollywood picture of a villain and think that’s what wickedness looks like.

 

The wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous, so the decision to take the talent from the third servant was not nearly as harsh as that servant's decision to defy his master.

 

Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents.  That was the message at First Light. God wants to give the faithful even more.

 

For now, there is God’s way and there is everything else.  Those living in the everything else, don’t get to enjoy their Master’s happiness.

 

Even what they have will be taken.

 

We are God’s way people.  We enjoy his happiness.

 

 

Amen.

Peace and Fear: Empathizing with the Servants in the Parable of the Talents

 Read Matthew 25:14-30

In August and September each year, I do my annual sermon planning.  I search the scriptures, listen for God’s leading, and draft a plan for what I will preach for the next year.  It is, of course, subject to change. 

For the past 12 years, I have preached the Parable of the Talents at least once each year.  Usually, I work it in more than once.  When I set forth my plan for this year, I did not include the Parable of the Talents, but thought, it will come up somewhere.

It did.  As I looked at where we had been with love and love and action, and where we were with peace, I thought, “How on God’s green earth did I leave the Parable of the Talents out of this discourse on peace?”  I have mentioned peace in passing but never focused on it with regard to this parable.  We will fix that today.

The parable mentions many things put does not address peace directly, so we will have to empathize with the 3 servants.  The first two took their master’s money and put it to work at once.  They were prepared to be trusted with more.

They put their master’s money to work with urgency.  Was there risk?  If they wanted to make more money, there was some risk.  In fact, there was risk in doing nothing.

Did they have to deal with fear?  Everyone must deal with fear.  They just did not let fear debilitate them.  They might have even had the savvy to turn it to their own motivational advantage.  In any case, fear did not govern them.

They acted with urgency and therefore I contend that they had purpose.  Urgency comes with purpose, otherwise it’s just busyness.

In their urgency, I proffer that they had peace.  When you know your purpose and know what you are to do, and you are doing it, peace happens!

I might get me some shirts made with a smiley face and the words PEACE HAPPENS.

If you know what to do and do what you know to do, peace happens.  It’s hard to explain but you get in a zone, in a rhythm, in sync with everything good. 

If you are just busy but not purposeful, peace doesn’t visit too often.  Inactivity is not peace.

We know what happened in this parable.  The master returned.  The first two servants were excited about the return on investment they had to show their master.

The master responded with words anyone would want to hear: 

Well done! 

Good and Faithful Servant

You did great with what I gave you.  Now, I am putting you in charge of more.

Come and share your master’s happiness.

Who would not have joy at getting all these accolades, a promotion, and treated as family by your boss?  But I don’t think that either of these first two servants was surprised. 

Remember, each was given money in accordance with his ability.  The master knew what each could handle.  They had surely been in charge of smaller trusts before and did very well.  They knew if they did what they knew to do and did it to the best of their ability, they would produce a good return.

I doubt that these two had doubts about what to do.

I believe that they had peace while they put their talents to work.  They had joy upon their master’s return, but I put before you that they had peace while he was away.

The third servant was a different story.  He buried the talent trusted to him in the ground.  He dug a hole and buried it. 

Many speculate that it might have been in the floor of his own house.  Some houses had dirt floors. 

It could have been out in a nearby field, surely in a place that was not cultivated.  Either way, you must have some system of checking on it.

If it’s out in a field, you must find a way to nonchalantly stroll by and glance at the ground to make sure that it has not been disturbed.  Of course, if it has been disturbed, it’s probably game over.

If you go by too frequently, people wonder why is this guy hanging out there so much?  If you don’t, you wonder if your money is still where you put it.

If you buried it in the floor of your house, you likely felt like you were on house arrest.  Every time you left your house, your mind was on someone breaking in and finding your cache.

How much peace can you have when you are worried about what has been entrusted to you?

The first two servants were glad to see their master return.  They wanted him to see what they had done with the money entrusted to them.  The third servant was glad to see his master return.  He could finally get rid of this burden given to him.

The third servant was afraid.  If he invested the money, he might fail.  If he invested the money, he might succeed, and then more might be expected of him.

If he had put the money in the bank, it would have been safer than anything else he came up with, and it would have earned a little interest.  It would have been better than burying it in the ground.  It would have taken less effort than burying it in the ground.  He would have had some peace.

But fear ruled in this servant.  Fear ruled, and I suggest to you that this man had no peace.

Fear and peace don’t play well together.  In fact, fear is something of a bully.  Now, they won’t let you teach this in school these days, but the best way to deal with a bully is to punch him in the nose.  I don’t know how that works with cyberbullying, but here is how it works with fear.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.  Here’s the thing.  You must choose whom you will fear.  You can’t be afraid of everything.  If you fear the world and its ways, you don’t fear God.  That makes you what the Bible calls a fool.  You have chosen to deny the truth.

If you fear God, you will not fear anything else.  God grants you wisdom and provides instruction and disciplines you when you get off course.  Remember that God disciplines—this is not punishment—those he loves.

How do we deal with fear and function fully in this life?  We choose to fear only the Lord.  But there is more.

We are told that God did not give us a spirit of fear.  So, when fear comes upon us, we recognize that this is not a good gift.  All good gifts are from above.

Fear has to do with punishment and we are not people subject to wrath.  We live in the Lord’s favor.  God grants us power, love, and a sound mind. 

When we act out of fear we feel powerless, unloved, and feeble minded.  This verse from Paul’s second letter to Timothy proffers a dichotomy.  It’s either fear or power, love, and a sound mind. 

Think of the Lord’s words to Joshua.

Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.

These words were important enough that Joshua heard them again two verses later.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Here is another dichotomy.  Be strong and courageous or be afraid and discouraged.  This dichotomy comes with the promise that God is with us. 

So here is our choice as we deal with the fear bully.  Trust God or give in to fear. 

Trust God and know peace or fear the things of this world have no peace. 

We will have trouble in this world.  There is risk.  Fear is a real thing.  We will have storms, but will we have peace in those storms?

Two servants in this parable took what their master had given them and put it to work at once.  They were ready to be trusted more by their master.  They anticipated greater trust.  They wanted to please their master so much, they could not delay in putting his money to work.

I think that they worked as hard as they had in their entire lives, but I also believe they lived in the perfect peace of the Lord.  How could they not?  They were doing exactly what they knew to do.  The words, Well done good and faithful servant, were of greater value than any of the money they would produce as a return on their investment. 

Their daily return on investment was peace in knowing what they were doing would please their master.

And one servant—one who gets the label wicked and lazy—was governed by fear not by the desire to please his master.  Fear ruled in his life.  Fear is real but must not be given command.  It must not be in charge.

Our return on investment when our mind is governed by fear is that we will have no peace.  I will add that is a good thing.  Remember my recent message on Disturbing the Peace?

If we who know God and say we are following Jesus do not have peace in the decisions that we are making and the life that we are living, we need to inventory the things that govern our lives.  If we find fear among them, kick fear to the curb.

The only fear that belongs in our lives is the fear of the Lord, and remember, that is the starting point.  Our destination is perfect love which casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment.  We will not know God’s wrath.  We live in his favor.

We discard fear and receive power, love, and a sound mind.  Within those three we know peace.

We know peace.  We often look at the Parable of the Talents as a what happens at the end sort of lesson.  It is, but I challenge us to consider that during the long time when the master was away, two of these servants enjoyed peace because they poured themselves into doing exactly what they knew would please their master.

Are we ready to do what pleases our Master and enjoy his peace while we do it?

Are we ready to kick the fear of the world to the curb?

Are we ready to be faithful in the things appointed to us now?

Are we ready to live bringing glory to God and enjoying his peace?

I say that we are!  Let’s bring glory to God and enjoy his peace!

Amen.

Parable of the Talents - Part II

Read Matthew 25:14-30

Read in other translations…

‘Tis Christmas come early, for me any way.  This is the second of three homilies on the Parable of the Talents.  Last time we focused on the first two servants and used the acronym TURN, standing for:

Trusted—each of the three servants was trusted by his master.  They were entrusted with money in accordance with their ability.

Urgency—the first two servants acted at once and put their master’s money to work.  We noted that they were the master in their relationship with this money.  They put it to work and it did not get a day off.

Return on Investment (ROI)—the first two knew that their master was demanding and expected a return.  They were wise and demanding with their investments and produced a fantastic return for him.

No Fear—while fear is real and risk is real, the servants were not immobilized by fear.  Wisdom, not fear governed what they did with their master’s money.

Now we come to the third servant.  We need to realize that this servant was also trusted by his master.  This was not a set up.  He was not doomed to fail from the start.  His master trusted him with a whole bag of gold.  You don’t do that with someone that you don’t trust.

He was trusted.  Perhaps his abilities were not the same as the others, but he was a trusted servant and entrusted with his master’s money in accordance with his abilities.

And, it appears that he too acted with urgency—at least there is nothing that would indicate any delay.  How can I say this?  The text does not say that this servant weighed his choices and then decided to go bury his talent in the ground.  The text simply says that he went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master’s money.

He didn’t stop off for investment advice.  He didn’t consult with the other two servants.  He did not swing by the bank and put the money on deposit and later change his mind.  He went off and dug a hole in the ground.  It didn’t even say that he swung by the house to pick up a shovel.

It is at this point that we see fear creeping into this servant’s decision model.  It would seem that the third servant already knew that if his master gave him anything at all, he would go bury it in the ground. 

Here is a really crazy part.  He expends more effort to hide this money that it would take to deposit it in the bank.  How much effort is it to take the money to the bank, say here’s my money, where is my receipt?

Here’s the thing when you hide the money in the ground—somebody else could find it.  Do you remember the parable of the hidden treasure?  Hiding money in the ground was something that people did in that day.  It may not have been wise but it was not unusual.

I remember watching investment commercials several years ago.  One of them showed a couple stressing a little bit over their investments because the market was just downright ugly.  One of them remarked, “What are we going to do?  Put it under our mattress?”

While I don’t have a lot of money to invest, I was putting some in a Roth IRA a few years ago and when I would look at my statements I sometimes wondered if I wouldn’t have been better off putting my money under my mattress.

So we should not look at this third servant as doing something unusual.  In certain circumstances, having some money or gold or silver in a safe place makes sense.  In the context of this parable, we are not told that the country is in financial turmoil or that the banks might close or that there is any extraordinary risk at play.

Fear is what drives this servant to hide his money in the ground.  Think about this.  Does his hiding his money in the ground reduce his fear?

On the contrary, now he must worry that someone will find his hiding spot.  He will have to come up with some way of checking on his buried money without giving away where it is buried.  He will spend more time or worry now than if he just put the money in the bank and worried that all the banks collapsed. 

Some suggest that because many had dirt floors in those days that this servant buried the money within the confines of his own house.  That’s a possibility, but think about the worry factor he would have had every time he left the house. He would suddenly be a prisoner in his own household.  There’s a cruel form of house arrest.

But why was he afraid?

He was afraid of his master because he saw his master as a hard man.  This man harvested where he had not even planted.  He reaped dividends where he had not even invested.

Understand that the other two servants knew the same facts about their master; yet they pursued vastly different courses of action.  So was the fear truly derived from the qualities of the master?

How do two servants see this same master and go and do great things and this one servant becomes immobilized by fear?  It’s not that the third servant didn’t do anything at all, he just did not do anything productive.

We get most of our answer from the master’s description of this third servant.  You wicked, lazy servant—those are the words:  wicked and lazy.  Some translations use slothful for lazy.  What a label to have put upon you!

Is the master being overly harsh?  He did get his money back.  It’s not like the servant went out and squandered it like the prodigal son.  It’s like a bottle deposit.  It’s a zero-sum gain.  This guy is surely not going to business school, but is he really wicked?

Consider the proverbs.  I will give you the Tom’s tweet version.  There is God’s way and there is everything else.

I’ll go a little beyond the tweet.  There is God’s way.  We might call it the right way.  We might call it righteousness.  We might call it holy—set apart, completely different from the ways of the world.  It’s God’s way.

And then there is everything else, which we might call:

·     Foolishness—the Proverbs are rich in poverty of the fool.

·     Laziness—consider the sluggard described in the proverbs who is too lazy to bring his hand from the bowl to his mouth.

·     Wickedness—being totally opposed to everything that God has made holy.

·     Rebelliousness—a first cousin of wickedness for sure.

·     Contentiousness—often manifesting itself as a firebrand of discontent

Sometimes we think that to be wicked, someone has to look the part.  Sometimes we think that to be lazy, a person must do nothing at all.

But anything opposed to God and God’s ways is wicked.  Those who expend energy on making excuses instead of producing something of value are lazy. 

Let’s take the second part of a proverb that you know very well:  Fools despise wisdom and instruction or discipline.  Why?

Their starting point and their life direction is skewed.  Unlike the wise who come out of the starting blocks with a wholesome fear of the Lord, the foolish despise such discipline.  The heart of a fool says that there is no God.

Fools defy obedience.  They defy discipline and surely will never know the fruit of self-discipline.  Fools live in fear of the world, and that leads to terrible decision making.

Fear cannot produce a good return on investment.  The fear of what mom or dad might do to a child sometimes will keep them out of trouble, but it won’t get them to a college degree or make them a good leader or help them produce a good return.

Consider the football team that has led the whole game.  They have a two-touchdown lead with two minutes left in the game and they start playing not to make a mistake—not to lose.

Consider their opponents who have been struggling the entire game.  They have been afraid to throw the long ball or run the reverse because they were sure it wouldn’t work. 

Now with only two minutes left, they think to themselves that what they thought would work isn’t working, so why not try something else.  They throw the deep strike and connect.  They make a stop, get the ball back, run the reverse and move quickly to another score.

Now the game is tied with one time playing totally fearless football and the other team playing not to lose.

About 20 years ago, football coaches at all levels became aware of this dynamic and started coaching with a model that said, what would we do if fear were not a factor.  Sometimes you must lose a game that you led for most of the way to remember this.

Fear does not produce good returns.

There is risk in life and fear is still alive and well in the world, but for those who choose wisdom, fear is not welcome in our decision—making cycle.  We look at possible consequences and sequels to our decisions, but we do not decide out of fear.  We are people who are aware of what is going on in our life and in the world, but fear does not govern us.

The master of these three servants was a demanding man.  Two of the servants recognized this and did their best to meet or exceed his expectations.  One buried the very thing that he was trusted with in the ground because he was afraid.

This third servant tried to transfer the blame for his ineptness to the master—I knew you were a hard man; but by his own admission he was afraid.  The fact that his master was a hard man was not the problem.  Consider the coaches that you have known in your life or that you know of.  Think about these two:  Vince Lombardi and John Wooden.  They were demanding.  They set the bar very high and expected you to reach or exceed the goals set for you.

Really, who would want to play for a coach that showed up for practice, looked at how you were at the beginning of the season and just said, “whatever.”  The fact that his master was a hard man was not the problem.

 The problem was that the third servant was afraid.  Fear was the governing force in his life.

Let’s finish the parable.  Not only was the master displeased, but he gave instructions to take the one talent or one bag of gold from this worthless servant and give it to the one who now had ten talents. 

He said not only have you disappointed me, but you are no longer worthy of my trust.  Let’s go back to the beginning.  The third servant received one bag of gold because the master knew that he could manage one bag of gold.  Had he only put it in the bank, he would have at least had something to show for this trust.

But he had nothing to show for his master’s investment.  For those listening to this parable as Jesus told it, they could relate to taking the one talent from the wicked and lazy servant and giving it to the servant who now had ten talents. 

Why?

The wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous.

Many of your translations say the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous or for the godly.  I would suspect that those listening to this parable probably cheered at this point.  They knew the proverb and wanted to hear a story where the world of the wicked ended upside down and the righteous were standing tall at the end of the day.

Today, some would say, “Oh how mean to take away from those who have so little.”  Here is the thing, the third servant didn’t have as much as the other two, but he still was trusted with a bag of gold.

I want us to ponder this point.  When our Master trusts us with a little, it’s still a lot.  It is something with which we can produce a return.  We can produce a return.  It’s not like he says here’s five bucks now make me rich.  God gives us enough to produce a return.

Unless we are governed by fear.  So many times we read God telling his people, “Do not be afraid.”  “Fear not” are words that are not only for shepherds watching their flocks at night.

God commanded Joshua not to be afraid and not to be discouraged.

Fear is real.  Danger is real.  Risk is real.  Life has risk and sometimes danger but fear must not govern how we navigate this life.

Fear robs us of producing returns for our Master and for the Body of Christ.  Fear robs us of joy and peace.  Fear has to do with punishment and we do not fear the punishment of our Master.

Here’s the thing with the third servant fearing his master.  People do not give bags of gold to people that they have just punished.  The third servant may have received instruction and discipline in the past, but he had not been punished.

If you receive instruction and discipline then you are still in the good graces of your master.  He knows that instruction and discipline are his investments in you.  If you have received punishment in the past, he is not going to trust you with a bag of gold.

The third servant was not being set up to fail.  He should have realized that his master trusted him.  He was a trusted servant.

The master trusted all three of these servants and gave them what they could handle within their abilities.  Somewhere along the way fear entered the equation for the third servant.

Let’s go back to Tom’s tweet.  We will use the corporate version.

What did we do with what God gave us?

Now let’s ask a follow up question.

Is fear decreasing my return on God’s investment?

We don’t do fear.  We don’t deny that fear exists, but we do not give it safe harbor in our lives.  It is not welcomed into our decision making.  Wisdom not fear governs.

Our Master trusts us.  We take what he says at face value and just do it.  We produce a good return when we are obedient to him, and fear is not a part of who we are.

We don’t have to have specific instructions; in fact, it is more likely that we will be given a trust—some sort of talent or gift or opportunity—and our call is to be obedient to God by putting that trust to work.

I close this part of the parable with God’s instruction to Joshua.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

The third servant would have been wise to memorize this verse.  We are wise because we have memorized it.  We are blessed when we live by these words.

We don’t do fear!

That’s a great place to end for now, except that I have gone through this entire message and not mentioned love once.  I talked about wisdom and fear, urgency and laziness, being demanding, wickedness, but not a single mention of love.

Let me take one moment to clarify that we are trusted servants because God already loves us.  The servants received rewards or lack of them because of what they did with what their master gave them, but in our relationship with our Master, we know that love precedes everything. 

We are not trusted servants to earn love.  We are trusted because we are loved.  We are trusted to work out our salvation as the most important thing that we can do, but love has preceded this relationship.  Salvation is already assured. 

Our Master has claimed us for all eternity and we do not fear his punishment.  To understand this parable completely and apply it to our lives as disciples, we—as I think the first two servants realized—know that our Master will never stop loving us.

We are more than servants to be used for our Master’s purpose.  We are more than someone to be used.  We do our Master’s will and put our talents to use and are obedient to our Master, but realize that we are more than someone to be used.  Our Master has also called us friend.

We are free to live without fear.  We are free to produce fantastic returns on God’s investment in us.  We are free of fear being a governing factor in our lives.

Amen.