The Baseball Glove and Salvation - One more time...

  

 

 

Read Matthew 25:14-30

 

It’s October.  That means it is time for the World Series.  That means that I can use my baseball glove analogy and it will still be in season.

 

Do you know what the toughest thing for me was when I went to Africa to teach pastors and church leaders?  People didn’t know baseball.  There was maybe some interest in basketball, but soccer was the sport and I didn’t know diddly about soccer.

 

Half of my analogies come from the Marine Corps and the other half from football and baseball. What do you do when people can’t relate to any of those.

 

I know that I promised you some analogies from my stroke and my car accidents, but they are not forthcoming.

 

Hey, I slept through my stroke. That’s not going to add much to the message.

 

Until a few years ago, I never had a real car accident.  Then they came in threes.  On the last one, I ran into a building.  Can you believe it—they said that the building had the right of way.

 

Did the building not know to watch out for the other guy.  That’s what they taught in Drivers Ed back in the day.

 

Why am I telling you this?  For however much time I have left here, you are probably stuck with Marine Corps and sports analogies as I try to explain the word of God with things that we might already know.

 

As this is October in America, I will use my baseball analogies.

 

Imagine that you buy your son or daughter a brand-new baseball glove.  It was just the one that he wanted or she wanted.  He oiled it just right, wrapped around an old baseball to where its curves and flexibility were perfect.  Then he put it on the shelf.

 

There that glove sits on the shelf.  Oh, it has a prominent spot, but still, it sits unused.  Over the course of time, the son might take it down once or twice a year and put it on, perhaps even pop it with a baseball or his fist, but sure to return it to its place.

 

Dad’s heart breaks.  He longed to see it used and even worn out from playing catch, digging ground balls out of the dirt, or diving for fly balls nearly out of reach, often leaving grass stains on it.  Dad would even have a little joy if the glove was only used to slap the dugout bench or bang on the chain link fence to start a late-inning rally.

 

Dad might even be happy if it came down off of the shelf, not even to go to a game, but to just have a catch in the backyard.

 

But the glove sits on the shelf unused.  It was the perfect gift.  Dad knew it when he gave it to his son.  The child was excited when he received it, but save the occasional ceremonial wearing, it remains unused.  It sits on the shelf.

 

Not too many days ago, sanctuaries were filled with people singing, “He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!”  Many of those people won’t be seen in a church building for another year.  Some will drop in for Mother’s Day and a handful might come for an hour at Christmas. Some won’t even think about their salvation and how they should respond to it.

 

Some come every Sunday truly seeking the Lord.  Some come every Sunday logging in their pew time.  And then there are those who come every Sunday and can hardly wait for service to begin. 

 

There are those few who wake up celebrating every day as the day the Lord has made, rejoicing and living it to the full.

 

Those few know what it is to live life to the full.  Their baseball gloves are worn and scratched and the laces have been replaced more than once.  They know the life smells of horsehide, a freshly watered infield, and can smell a new-mown field from a mile away.

 

For some people, this is struggling through tough times but keeping faith in God.  For some, it is helping a stranger.  For others, it is giving beyond the tithe and knowing the joy of sacrifice.  For many, it is battling pain while keeping joy in their hearts.

 

For many, their baseball gloves are spiritual gifts and God-given talents.  These individual blessings long to be put to use to produce good fruit.  They cannot sit dormant and produce fruit.  They cannot sit on the shelf.  They beg to be put to use.

 

Some have truly put their gift of salvation on the shelf, breaking it out only once or twice a year.  They grace God with their presence at a service once a year and wonder why he is not more thankful.  Some have taken their gift of salvation and tossed it in with the other clutter of their lives.  They have forgotten that it is even there, save perhaps when they gasp at how quickly their own children are growing and they ask what it is to be saved and live for God.

 

And some have drifted into the apathy and ambivalence of the world forgetting the most wonderful gift the world has ever known.  Christ died to take away your sins.  When you professed your faith in him, your slate was wiped clean.  It is a done deal.  It is finished!

 

You are forgiven!  By his gift alone, you have been made right with God!

 

The question that we are called to answer each and every day of our lives is, “How will I respond to this incredible gift?”

 

Will we put it on the shelf, throw it in with the rest of the clutter, or just forget about it altogether?

 

Or…

 

Will we put it to use by taking this gift of life and gift of salvation and live to the fullest extent possible, seeking to bring glory to God every step of the way?

 

I still have feelings that I can’t explain at the smell of horsehide and freshly watered infields.  I am too old to dig balls out of the dirt or dive for them in the outfield.  Those days are gone, but I have found other ways—many other ways—to live this life and live out my salvation for God.

 

I can no more put that gift on the shelf than I could a new ball glove.  I have to put it to use.

 

Having considered the gift of salvation that we received by grace, I must ask again, what are we doing with it.

 

Having considered the parable of the talents, now consider the question never asked but answered by all three servants, what did you do with what I gave you?

 

Now let’s put it into terms that we have talked about so much lately—our salvation which is 100% the gift of God.

 

What are you doing with your salvation?

 

Are you diving for line drives and scooping hard-hit ground balls out of the dirt or does your glove sit on the shelf?

 

Is your salvation sitting on the shelf?

 

There’s your food for thought and action this week.

 

Amen

The Parable of the Talents and Sabbath Rest

 Read Matthew 25:14-30

And so, the tradition continues.  It might not mean much to you, but it is important to me that I preach the Parable of the Talents at least twice each year.  This is the second Sunday for 2022. There is always a discipleship challenge included in the parable.

We have talked a lot about salvation being 100% the gift of God.  Jesus paid it all.  All to him I owe.

There is nothing that we did or could do to earn our right standing with God.  Only God could make us right with him. Only God could create in us a clean heart.  God and God alone bring us to salvation.  I have mentioned that two or three hundred times over the past few months.

But we should understand that salvation is not the end of the story.  Salvation is not the finish line but the starting blocks.  What proceeds out of our salvation is our discipleship.

We are saved by grace but our response to grace is our discipleship and the most important thing we will do for the rest of our lives.  We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

This parable is about our response to God’s grace.  What did we do with what God gave us?  He gave us life, life abundant, and life eternal.  How did we respond? How will we respond?

We have examined this parable in terms of time, talent, and treasure.  Those are the traditional divisions of stewardship.

I have asked you how we responded to God’s grace.  That’s big picture stuff. Paul answered this in big picture terms.

Live a life worthy of the calling that you have received and work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

I asked you how you responded to being entrusted with the gospel.  What did you do with the commission that God gave you?

I asked you how you responded to the leadership and the servantship with which you are entrusted.

I asked you what did you do with the wisdom that God gave you.  We had studied the Proverbs for about three-fours of a year and I followed it with this parable.  What did we do with the wisdom that God gave us?

What did you do with the Spiritual Gifts that God gave you?

I asked you to consider what did we do with God’s generosity bestowed upon us and how God likes to bless those who take what they were given and bless others and bring glory to God.

I even asked, what did you do with the gift of children that God gave us. What did we do with the trust given us to bring up our children in the way they should go?

I will add one more category for consideration this morning, but not before I make my traditional trip through the parable with the same acronym that I came up with about 15 years ago.  I like this acronym so you are getting it again.  It’s TURN.

T is for trusted.  The master trusted these servants.  They were entrusted with large sums of money.  That trust was based upon their ability.  There was no equal distribution.  They were trusted with what their abilities could handle.

Even the third servant who only buried his talent in the ground was trusted with one talent—perhaps $100,000 or perhaps more.

Each servant was entrusted with money in accordance with his ability.

The U is for urgent or urgency.  The first two servants put their master’s money to work at once.  They acted immediately.

Notice that we are told these two servants put their master’s money to work.  It doesn’t say they went out and got an extra job at McDonald's.  They put money to work.  They were the master in their relationship with money and made the money work for them, and they did it without hesitation.

That does not mean they did it without deliberation.  I suspect that these first two servants had been contemplating what they would do if they were entrusted with more than they had been so far.  The deliberation had been done in advance so they could act upon receipt of the trust.

We are not told that the third servant acted immediately, but I suspect that he did.  The last thing that he wanted was to put his master’s money to work.  I think he buried his single talent soon after receiving it. To his fear-based thinking, trust was a burden. Just out of sight out of mind, but I don’t think that mindset gave him any peace.

R is for Return on Investment.  Each of the first two servants produced a huge return on investment.  Their master expected a return.

They had to be skilled in their investments. They had to be focused on telling their money what to do.  This was their work—to produce a return on what their master gave them.

The third servant produced no return.  He could have put his master’s money in a money market account and at least made a little interest, but he did not, which brings us to the final letter in the acronym.

N is for No Fear.  The third servant was governed by fear.  Money became the master in this relationship because of fear. The first two surely had to deal with fear but fear did not debilitate them.  Fear may have been a factor but the first two servants behaved as if they had no fear.

A couple decades ago, Spencer Johnson wrote a book called Who Moved My Cheese?  It is essentially a book on dealing with change, but in the course of the story, the decision-makers were asked a question.  What would I do if I was not afraid?

Most often, the answer to this question was the best course of action.  How many times does God’s word remind us not to be afraid?

Over the years, I have asked you to look at what fear does.  The example of a football team that has led the entire game but plays the last two minutes not to lose instead of sticking to what has been working often finds themselves upside-down on the scoreboard at the end.

The team that was behind the whole game throws fear out the window.  What difference does it make?  We’re losing anyway.  Suddenly, things start going in their favor.  They are fearless and seemingly unstoppable.

We don’t see this as much as we used to because coaches got wise to the dynamics of fear and stopped playing not to lose and continued with what got them the lead in the first place.

There you have the acronym TURN—Trusted, Urgent, Return on Investment, and No Fear.  We could leave the parable there, but there is a powerful question that was never asked by the master, but each servant answered this question in turn.

For those of you who have heard me preach this parable 30, 40, or 50 times, you know the question.  I phrase it as if the master is asking it.

What did you do with what I gave you? That’s the question answered in the parable.  I changed it a little so we could apply it to ourselves.

What did I do with what God gave me?

So, let’s move on to today’s specific question. What did I do with the Sabbath that God gave me? Understand from the beginning that the Sabbath was made for man and not the other way around. God gave us the Sabbath. It is a gift.

What did we do with it?

I am not here to discuss if it is Saturday or Sunday or any other day.  The model is work six and rest one. The prescription is to make it a day set aside for the Lord and for rest. We renew our strength, honor God, and draw nearer to him.

It is a day—a whole day—set aside for just you and God.  It is to be a restful day. It is to be a day not of strict adherence to rules but to let love rule our hearts.

It is not a day to be on the lookout for potential violations of Sabbath rules, but a day to rest and do good and know God even better than the day before.

The Sabbath is a special day and it is given to us by the Lord.  What will we do with it?

It’s an odd question to ask in the age of endless entertainment but no time for rest.

It’s a controversial question to ask in an age where recreation consumes both body and spirit and leaves us void of rest.

It is a question that defies modern thinking for we must always be engaged and engaging the world.  Who has time for rest?

It is a question that runs counter to how so many of us live—connected to the world and disconnected from God.

When we try to find a time for God, we have conceded the battle.  We should seek God and his kingdom and his righteousness first and then work in everything else, including work, school, sports, clubs, posting, binge-watching, and disagreeing with every little thing that somebody we don’t even know posted to an audience that has nothing better to do than respond.

What did we do with the Sabbath that God gave us?

Many don’t know the answer to that question but they do know that tired and worn out are daily descriptions of their lives.  We should live to the full but not be exhausted by our lives.

Hard work and being tired are part of life, but so too is rest.  When we leave the rest out of the equation, we will burn out, become exhausted, and fail to function properly. 

Work and rest in proper proportion are essential for quality of life.  Rest is not wasteful.  Rest is purposeful.

For six days—for 85% of our week—we are to work.  The rest of our week is purposed to rest. 

Yes, we sleep some for those six days, but we are often focused on what will happen when we awaken.  We have purposeful things to do.

I have noted before there is no Sabbath to take in a live lived without purpose. The Sabbath renews those who live in God’s purpose.  It is a gift we must receive to know the fulness of life.

But for that Sabbath Day, we are not thinking about tomorrow or the demands of the job or the car payment.  We are connecting with—communing with—God himself.

There may be some sleep involved.  There will surely be family activities.  There may be corporate worship or worship in the family setting, but this is a day for you and God and for your rest.

The Sabbath was given to us for our own good. What have we done with it?

For so many, the Sabbath has been squeezed into a couple hours of time in a church building and a video or two about God. 

Where is the rest? Where is the renewal?  Where is the rejuvenation? In a world that looks like an absolute mess, how do we feel reconciled and redeemed without this pause from the demands of our busy worlds?

In early times, the days were regimented.  Work six days then rest one.  That seventh day was prescribed as the Sabbath, but the Sabbath is not about a day or date on the calendar. In fact, know that the seventh day observed now likely has little fidelity to the one observed prior to the Babylonian Captivity.

The people could figure out the seasons, even the months, but not so much a specific day, but it was important to return to a Sabbath and holy days. The Sabbath is made for us.

Today the modern world has set what we consider the seventh day, but it’s not about buying into a specific day.  It’s about giving that day to the Lord and to your rest.

It is about rest and growing closer to God.  It is about worship.  It is about being set apart from the godless world.  It is a time to realize how special you are—fearfully and wonderfully made—and how special you are to God.

One of the tools used in examining what we did with what God gave us with regard to our treasure—our money—is called checkbook theology.  Look at your checkbook or online statement and see where your money goes.  How much goes to God?

Let’s apply that to our rest.  Get a calendar and see how much of your week was given to rest. We have asked before, what did we do with the time that God gave us?  Now let’s narrow that focus.

What did I do with the rest that God gave us?

Few can find it in a single day.  Few can find a day’s worth of rest in an entire week.  Sleep and rest are not always the same thing.  Sometimes they are.

This is your challenge.  Do you have a Sabbath rest?  Are you paying attention to the owner’s manual—work six and rest one?

In this church age, your Sabbath and mine may not look the same.  Even before Christ came in the flesh, the priests worked on the Sabbath and were not condemned for it.

In the age where Melchizedek is the model for the Christ-following shepherd, the calendar is different.  Jesus said I am always at work as my Father is always at work, but Jesus knew to retreat away from the crowds for rest and intimate time with his Father.

Jesus said that he worked all the time because his Father in heaven was working all the time, but Jesus withdrew from the crowds and sometimes from his disciples for his own sort of Sabbath rest.  He needed time away from his daily demands and time with only his Father.

The Sabbath is not a one size fits all, but all need a Sabbath. All need a recurring Sabbath rest.

In this modern world that demands all of your time and attention, we must disconnect from the world on a recurring basis, rest, and connect with God in a very special and intimate way.

Here is my general assessment of what Christians have done with the Sabbath that God gave us.

We discounted it!

Some discarded it altogether!

Some will try to squeeze in a sampling of Sabbath rest.

Some will say that it’s out of their control.

But, but, but… This is the big one.  I don’t have to observe the Sabbath to be saved.

Think back to where we began.  We are not talking about salvation anymore. We are talking about working out our salvation.  We are talking about living a life worthy of the calling that we have received. We are talking about responding to the gift of grace.

We are talking about our response to salvation, specifically with regard to this parable, what did we do with what God gave us.

Are we content for that response to be an exhausted response, a worn-out response, a burned-out response?

Our response to God’s grace often means helping others.  Sometimes it means self-care and self-maintenance. Sometimes it’s coming to Jesus so he can give your rest and taking his yoke so you can know how to rest.

We are talking discipleship and the fullness of life.  You could say the fullness of our salvation.  We are talking about living this life as fully as we can and never being exhausted.

Tired—yes.  Exhausted—no.  We can be renewed again and again.

Would you run your car and never change the oil?  We know to fill the gas tank.  These days filling your tank can be what psychologists call a significant emotional event.

But do we ever check the air filter or belts or battery? Most of us do or we have them checked when we change the oil.  We know that a machine requires maintenance.

Do our very beings not also require some servicing and maintaining?

We live with purpose.  We work.  We rest. God renews us and we are ready to run this race yet again. That’s the model.

But who among you is tired and worn out?

Who is feeling worn out, even closing in on burnout?

Who is struggling wondering is the daily grind all worth it?

Listen to the words of Jesus that we find earlier in Matthew’s gospel.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Jesus offers us rest in this modern age but we are to learn from him and he reminds us that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

We better learn how to rest God’s way.  We better trust the design manual.  We had better trust the Designer.

We are made to rest and grow nearer to God.  God gave us the Sabbath to do that. Embrace Sabbath rest.  Don’t check a box on a calendar, know what Sabbath rest is and enjoy it as you grow nearer to God.

What did you do with the Sabbath that God gave us? Do you know his rest.?

Amen.

The Parable of the Talents & Wisdom

 Read Matthew 25:14-30

We have completed a journey of about 8 months through the Proverbs.  During that time, I have also acquired some wisdom from my life experience.  Here are two things that I have learned.

I don’t remember the first one, but the second one is that I should write things down.

We are about to begin a course through four of Paul’s letters:  Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. I am bookending these epistles with the Parable of the Talents.  Long ago, I told you that this parable had so much packed into it, that I needed to preach it at least twice a year.  I expect to continue that trend until you run me off.

Over the years, I have given you the same acronym that I came up with about 14 years ago.  I like this acronym so you are getting it again.  It’s TURN.

T is for trusted.  The master trusted these servants.  They were entrusted with large sums of money.  That trust was based upon their ability.  There was not equal distribution.  They were trusted with what their abilities could handle.

Even the third servant who only buried his talent in the ground was trusted with one talent—perhaps $100,000 or perhaps more.

Each servant was entrusted with money in accordance with his ability.

The U is for urgent or urgency.  The first two servants put their master’s money to work at once.  They acted immediately.

Notice that we are told these two servants put their master’s money to work.  It doesn’t say they went out and got an extra job at McDonald's.  They put money to work.  They were the master in their relationship with money and made the money work for them, and they did it without hesitation.

That does not mean they did it without deliberation.  I suspect that these first two servants had been contemplating what they would do if they were entrusted with more than they had been so far.  The deliberation had been done in advance so they could act upon receipt of the trust.

We are not told that the third servant acted immediately, but I suspect that he did.  The last thing that he wanted was to put his master’s money to work.  I think he buried his single talent soon after receiving it.

R is for Return on Investment.  Each of the first two servants produced a huge return on investment.  Their master expected a return.

They had to be skilled in their investments. They had to be focused on telling their money what to do.  This was their work—to produce a return on what their master gave them.

The third servant produced no return.  He could have put his master’s money in a money market account and at least made a little interest, but he did not, which brings us to the final letter in the acronym.

N is for No Fear.  The third servant was governed by fear.  Money became the master in this relationship because of fear. The first two surely had to deal with fear but fear did not debilitate them.  Fear may have been a factor but the first two servants behaved as if they had no fear.

A couple decades ago, Spencer Johnson wrote a book called Who Moved My Cheese?  It is essentially a book on dealing with change, but in the course of the story, the decision-makers were asked a question.  What would I do if I was not afraid?

Most often, the answer to this question was the best course of action.  How many times does God’s word remind us not to be afraid?

Over the years, I have asked you to look at what fear does.  The example of a football team that has led the entire game but plays the last two minutes not to lose instead of sticking to what has been working often finds themselves upside-down on the scoreboard at the end.

The team that was behind the whole game throws fear out the window.  What difference does it make?  We’re losing anyway.  Suddenly, things start going in their favor.  They are fearless and seemingly unstoppable.

We don’t see this as much as we used to because coaches got wise to the dynamics of fear and stopped playing not to lose and continued with what got them the lead in the first place.

There you have the acronym TURN—Trusted, Urgent, Return on Investment, and No Fear.  We could leave the parable there, but there is a powerful question that was never asked by the master, but each servant answered this question in turn.

For those of you who have heard me preach this parable 30, 40, or 50 times, you know the question.  I phrase it as if the master is asking it.

What did you do with what I gave you?

That’s the question answered in the parable.  I changed it a little so we could apply it to ourselves.

What did I do with what God gave me?

Over the years we have examined the answer to this question in terms of time, talents, and treasure.  These are the customary categories for stewardship.  A few years ago, I added another category for our consideration—the gospel.

What did we do with what God gave us?  What did we do with our commission?  What did we do with the gospel?

Did we put it to work at once and produce a return for our Master?  Did we bury it in the ground?

Did we take the good news to our next-door neighbor or the people down the block or someone on the other side of the world or were we afraid and we kept the gospel to ourselves?

Did fear interfere with our delivery of the good news?

Today, I add another category for consideration as we continue to answer this question.

What did I do with what God gave me?

That category is wisdom.  What did I do with the wisdom that God gave me? What did we do with the wisdom God gave us?

James wrote that God gives wisdom generously to those who ask and do not doubt.  God does not disqualify our request because we have done poorly in the past.  He gives wisdom to us and he gives it generously.

But what will we do with his wisdom?

But, I’m not going to college or graduate school or designing space stations or nuclear power plants.  Do I really need wisdom?

If you have ever wrestled with a decision, you need wisdom. The proverb that we all know tells us to trust in the Lord even when our own understanding tells us to do something else.

God has already figured out the consequences and sequels of every choice and has set the best choice before us.  Wisdom says trust God over our own understanding.

The parable teaches us to put God’s wisdom to work and to produce a return for our Master.  We trust him and do not doubt.  We follow his wisdom even when it seems crazy—crazy like building an ark when it has never rained in the history of the planet.

Putting God’s wisdom to work requires urgency.  God’s wisdom is our first choice, not the last resort.  We do things God’s way and we do it without second-guessing him.  We trust and do not doubt.

James reminds us that if we doubt, we are like a wave tossed about the sea.  We have no direction, no course to stay.  We are adrift.

When we trust God and put the wisdom that he gave us to work right away, that’s our first step towards overcoming doubt.

We don’t ask God for wisdom, then analyze his direction for soundness when we receive it.  We don’t do a cost-benefit analysis or an estimate of supportability on what God has told us is the best choice. That doesn’t mean that we don’t seek to understand God’s ways.  It means we don’t reduce his direction to being just one of many options.

We put his wisdom to work at once. When we analyze God’s infallible directions to us, we give doubt and fear a foothold.

We are blessed that we have God’s wisdom available to us all of the time.  Most of you have at least one Bible.  Many of you have quite a collection of God’s words written on your hearts.

We must put God’s words to work now, without delay.  We must help each other live as wise people.  We sharpen each other.

By trusting God and putting his words into practice, we produce a return for our Master.  That return is most often manifested in love for each other and for those whom we barely know.

And when fear tries to bring doubt into the equation, we take every fearful thought captive and make them obedient to Christ Jesus.  We live as if fear was not a factor.

Fear is always a factor, but we give it no weight in our decisions. Fear does not have veto power over our sound minds.  The only fear that comes into play is the fear of the Lord for it is the beginning of our godly journey towards perfect love.

There are countless applications of God’s wisdom in our everyday decisions.  I’m not going to attempt to make a never-ending list as a reference.  We know so much of what God desires.

Honesty

Integrity

Industry

Generosity

Harmony

Peace

We saw those in the Proverbs time and again.  We are to be known by our love.  We are to share God’s love and his invitation to live in good relationship with him forever.

We are to put his words into practice and the parable reminds us to do it right away, without delay.

We are to produce a return for the Kingdom of God and the Body of Christ.

We are to trust in the Lord and kick fear to the curb.

I leave you with the same question as you have heard for years.

What did I go with what God gave me?

Now ask yourself the same question in the context of wisdom.

What did I do with the wisdom God gave me?

Did I put it to work right away or did I let fear and doubt persuade me to bury God’s wisdom in the ground?

What did I go with what God gave me?

Amen