Read
Matthew
25
Read
Matthew
25:14-30
God numbers every
hair on your
head. Some of us are making his job
easy. Some try to camouflage those hairs
with dye and highlights, but he knows every detail about you.
Some of you might put your hair in a
man-bun. That might not be my
preference, but God can still count what’s on your head.
It’s not about your hair. It’s about the fact that God knows you. He
knew you before you were born, and as we contemplate this parable,
consider, he knows your abilities. He
knows what you can do.
Between a parable that tells us to
be ready and one that reminds us to be
known by our love, we find the Parable
of the Talents.
In this parable that we should
calibrate our minds to think of the end of the age, one servant gets 5 talents
of money. Another gets 2 talents and yet
another gets 1 talent. The master in the
parable gave each servant—trusted each servant—in accordance with his
abilities.
The servant given 1 talent was not
overwhelmed by what to do with 5 talents.
His master knew if this servant put his abilities to work then he could
put the money trusted to him to work as well.
Perhaps the 1 talent servant’s
abilities would peak a putting the money into a 1-year CD. He wouldn’t want to tie up his master’s money
for too long. The Master was
shrewd. When he came back, he would
probably want to take his money and his interest and invest it in something
with higher risk and higher reward, so the 7-year CD would be out.
But a 1-year CD would give his master
some return on his investment. If the
master was not back after a year, this servant could put the money into another
1-year CD or into a money market account.
There would be no risk and the return would be low, but it would be
something.
This servant had the ability to do
this. It took more time and effort to
bury the talent in the ground than it would to put it in the bank. If he buried it in the ground, he had to
check it frequently to see that it was secure.
He would be anxious about having to protect his master’s money.
This servant took a risk, but the risk
offered no reward. The best he could
hope to accomplish was not to lose the money.
His master knew he could do better, even if it was just a little
interest.
The master also knew that the servants
to whom he gave 5 and 2 talents would not be challenged to use their abilities
with only 1 talent. The master knew what
they could do, which surely involved investments with greater risk and the
potential for greater reward.
A century ago, author John Shedd
penned these words.
A ship in harbor
is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
It has been reworded a few times and
used by the likes of Albert Einstein and Admiral Grace Hopper and surely
others, but it speaks to us living out the fulness of our abilities. There is risk in life, but some see the risk
as part of the challenge and others fear it.
Our Master knows what we can do. He provisions us in accordance with our
abilities. When we shy away from using
our abilities for his purposes, we should experience dissonance. There should be internal conflict. Our hearts and minds should wrestle with our
choices.
Over time, we can become numb to not
using our God-given abilities. We
convince ourselves that it’s not for the best.
We talk ourselves out of producing fruit for our Master and for the body
of Christ. We bury our talents in the
ground and frustrate ourselves in the process, but we can grow comfortable with
not using our talents.
When we trust
in the Lord with all of our heart and our Master trusts us with something,
we take that something—whatever it is—and put it to work at once.
There is no hesitation. There is no
delay. There is no
doubt. We do not act in haste. We act out of preparation. We are ready for our Master to trust us with
what is next.
In so doing, we come to know abundant
life.
Consider the readiness of the first
two servants to make their reports when the master returned. Look.
See what I have done with what you gave me.
These first two servants looked
forward to their master’s return. They wanted him to see how well they had done
not only with their master’s money but with his trust.
They faced risk but they produced
reward. They might have considered
burying the talents in the ground, but they had abilities that they knew would
produce more. Fear did not govern their
choices. The love of their master compelled
them to do the best they could with what he had given them.
Their reward was that they would get
promoted. They would be given greater
charge and responsibility. Surely there
is some status with that, but these things were secondary to the real reward.
Come and share your master’s happiness.
The master who they so longed to
please wanted to them to know the joy that he knew. For all of the things that the third servant
saw in the master that led him to act in fear, the thing that he missed was
that the master loved his servants.
He wanted the best for them. He wanted them to realize their
potential. He wanted them to know the
happiness that he knew.
You can’t get there just waiting for
the master to return. You have to use
what he gave you. Put it to work right now.
We must use what our Master gave
us. We must put it to work at once. We are called to produce a return on
investment. Elsewhere we might call this
fruit. We are to produce good fruit for
our Master.
In the previous chapter and the first
parable of this chapter we find counsel about being ready for the return of the
Lord. How are we to be ready?
Producing good
fruit for the body of Christ and bringing glory to God in what we do gives
us a good start.
I can’t get through a message on this
parable without asking the question that is never stated but ever so obvious. I will put it in our context.
What did you do with what God gave you?
What did we do with what God gave us?
Some do not want to ask and surely do
not want to answer this question. We
know that we all have some talents that we buried in the ground.
Some are afraid of burnout. If I keep using the gifts that God gave me,
someday I will burn out. It will be too
much.
You will not burnout putting the
gifts of God to work to produce
a return for him unless you start comparing
your return to that of others.
Thinking that you are producing more
than others, produces conceit
and self-righteousness
in us.
Thinking that you are not
producing enough, brings shame
and guilt
and they were never invited into our lives by our Master.
Remember that each servant was given a
different amount of money—trusted with a different amount—based on his
ability. The master in the parable didn’t
say to the second servant, “Good job, but you are nowhere near the performer of
the first servant.”
The servants were not in competition
with each other. If there was a
competitive factor it was within themselves.
They wanted to be better than they were before they were trusted with so
much by their master.
The master knew their abilities. I think he knew what they could do because
they were trusted servants. They had
been trusted before and produced a good return.
There is an acronym that I came up
with almost 15 years ago. It is TURN. Each letter represents a nugget from this
parable.
T is for trusted. These were trusted servants. The master knew what they could
accomplish. Even the third servant was
trusted. A single talent might have been
worth a hundred thousand dollars, probably more in today’s currency. He was trusted in accordance with his
ability.
U is for urgent or urgency. The first two servants put their master’s
money to work at once. They did not act
in haste. They were prepared to be
trusted with more.
Do you ever wonder how major military
operations take place in a very short time?
The logistics to bring forces to bear on the other side of the world
takes planning. Plans are revised on the
move and on the ground, but planning and preparation are ongoing.
Most of these plans will never be
executed, but when you have to be somewhere in overwhelming force and be there
now, you don’t huddle up and say, “What should we do?”
You are ready to act confidently with
urgency.
R is for Return on Investment (ROI). The servants knew the master expected a
return. The first two turned this
expectation into a mission statement.
The third started preparing his excuses.
N is for No Fear. All of the servants experienced fear, but the
first two would not give it purchase in their minds, their decisions, or their
lives. Purpose nullified fear. They made their decisions without giving fear
time or space in their thinking.
The third servant let his fear govern
him. His battle was lost before it
began.
Fear is resident in our human
nature. Fear is the leveraging factor of
the world. Fear can be debilitating if
you give it a say in what you do.
Fear must not be a part of our new
nature—our Christ nature. We make
our decisions based upon our trust in him, even when we don’t understand where
he is leading us.
If you noticed the title, it
reads: Parable of the Talents—2021. I will add a couple things that might have
been controversial in 2020. Perhaps they
still are.
The first is white
privilege. Is it real or perceived
or manufactured? That’s not where I am
going. If you think you have it, do not
do what the world says and divest yourself of it. Put it to work for the Lord immediately.
If we have been given something that
gives us privilege or advantage or status in this world, put it to work for
our Master and do it right away. If the color of your skin gives you
advantage—white, black, brown—then put that trust to work for your Master right
now.
Here is one that I came up with—American
Privilege. I believe that it does
exist. You may or may not agree, but I
am convinced that it does. Being an
American gives me status that so many in the world don’t have.
While serving with the United Nations
in Iraq and Kuwait, I used to take runs through the DMZ. I had no radio and no uniform markers on my
running gear. My tee-shirt likely said
Marines on it somewhere, if I was wearing a shirt. It was usually 100 degrees
or more so the shirt often became optional.
One day, I was a few miles from my
headquarters running on one of the roads that usually didn’t have any mines on
it and I saw a Hummer with a .50 caliber machine gun approaching in the
distance from the Kuwaiti side of the DMZ.
The vehicle drove right up on me with
the .50 caliber pointing at me. I said
the only Arabic words that made any sense to the locals on either side.
Ana Ameriki. I am
an American. The Kuwaiti soldiers
executed the military maneuver they knew best and retreated.
If I was in uniform, I had the United
Nations patch on my right shoulder and the United States flag on my left. It is common in that part of the world for
people to get up in your face when they want to make a point.
Most Americans don’t care for this but
I knew that throat punching some local trying to get in my face wouldn’t go
over so well. The way you get someone
out of your face is to turn somewhat sideways and let them talk over your
shoulder.
If I wanted to put an end to the
conversation, they got the left Shoulder and the American flag.
Flying back from Africa the last time,
we scheduled a couple days in Rome. If I
was going to fly halfway around the world and preach for two weeks, I was
going to see something on the way back.
There had been a fire in the airport
the night before and everything was in disarray. The customs and immigration line went on
forever and we were at the back. Out of
nowhere, an immigration officer came and started calling for those with American
passports. They gathered us up and
walked us through immigration.
We only had to show the outside of our
passports. In 5 minutes, we were through
the checkpoint.
I have many more examples of American
Privilege. I will not divest myself of it but will use it to produce fruit for
the Lord.
If you have something extra that was
given to you by nature of your skin color or geography or anything else,
consider it a gift from your Master and put it to work.
Consider the Apostle Paul. He
was everything Hebrew that he could be.
Circumcised on the eighth day.
From the tribe of Benjamin. A
Pharisee. He had not only checked all
the blocks but excelled in them and he said he counted all of that for loss.
It was only faith in Christ Jesus that
matter in his relationship with God.
In Paul’s enumeration of everything
that he now counted as worthless—the King James Version would say dung—what was
not there?
Paul did not divest himself of his Roman
Citizenship. It had nothing to do
with his relationship with God but everything to do with taking the gospel to a
godless world. Paul
was born a Roman citizen.
His citizenship got him out of
beatings and out of prison. In a single
sentence—I
appeal to Caesar—Paul’s fourth missionary journey was funded by the Roman
Republic. Now, it was typical government
travel with a shipwreck
and a snakebite, but Paul leveraged his Roman citizenship to do the Lord’s
work.
Paul divested himself of the baggage
that got in the way of his relationship with God and he leveraged the
advantages of his birth to produce good fruit for God.
Whatever you have been given that
gives you privilege, status, or other advantage in this world, use it to
produce good fruit for the body of Christ and your Master.
You have been trusted with what you
are given. Image the first servant
telling his master, “No thanks to the 5 talents.”
Act with urgency. Do not hesitate. Do not delay.
Produce a real return on your Master’s
investment.
Kick fear to the curb. Do not let it debilitate you as you live out
your God-given purpose.
Let us not throw a pity party because
we don’t think we have been given much and let us not divest ourselves of what
we have been given because the Father
of Lies is trying to seduce us to do so.
This message will conclude as many
before it. I love the Parable of the
Talents. It is so rich. So here is the question never asked but
answered by all three servants.
What did you do with what I gave you?
Here it is for us.
What did you do with what God gave you?
And here it is in the first
person—something to chew on this week.
What did I do with what God gave me?
Amen.
