The Parable of the Talents

 The Parable of the Talents - Audio

In this message we look at a story of Jesus that is sadly often misused. As Jesus instructs His followers in how they should live as people awaiting His return, we learn that we live as servants not out of fear of punishment or even hope of reward... both of these motivations are actually selfish! Rather we serve Jesus because we love Him. Because we love Him we are becoming like Him. If ever there was a true servant, it is Jesus Himself. Serving faithfully is an essential evidence of becoming like Christ.

The Kingdom Assignment of Kingsley Church of Christ

Matthew 25:14-29

28/08/2011

1)     Introduction – Fear of Judgement

Renovators – lady in tears because she’d been eliminated.

Reality TV – heaps of different flavours – dancing, singing, talent shows, find a husband, find a wife, fix up a house, cook up a storm… all end in judgement!

If people are worried about how they’re judged as a renovator, singer or cook – if they are desperate to receive the rewards on offer in those shows – then how much more does that apply to the judgement in this story.

Are you concerned about how you will be judged by Christ when you stand before Him?  Would you like to receive wonderful reward from His hand?  If so, today’s text tells us some things you really need to know.

2)     Getting to know the characters… which one are you?

Matthew 25:14

¹⁴ “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them.^[1]

The man going on a journey: Jesus

Later called “the Master”.  Jesus in this whole section is talking about the fact that He will be going away, but will return in power to judge the Earth, receive His inheritance and claim His bride.

In verse 31 as Jesus moves on to a different picture of what this will be like, He even refers to Himself more directly by saying “When the Son of Man comes in all His glory, with the holy angels with Him…”

The Servants – that’s where we come in!!!

Jesus is teaching people how to live in the period between when He ascends to Heaven and when He returns to Earth.  Whether we go to be with Him or whether we He returns to be with us, these are essential truths to help us to be ready to meet Him.

2 Corinthians 5:10

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

So how are we to live?  We’re to live as servants expecting their master’s return.  This is a key understanding of the Christian life, but it’s one that many people struggle to really understand.  This passage is going to help us with that.  It might actually surprise you a little bit!

But for now, realise that in this story you are one of the servants – but which one are you? 

3)     What the Servants Did

Matthew 25:15-18

¹⁵ To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. ¹⁶ The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. ¹⁷ So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. ¹⁸ But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

The first two servants straightaway get to work and double their money.  We have no idea how long it took them, but that verse 19 tells us “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them”.  In fact in the other parables Jesus tells in this section He’s been hinting that He will be away for long enough for people to grow careless and to doubt that He will ever come back. 

How much money did they have?

Well, a talent by the most common measurement of that time was equal to 6,000 average day’s wages.

I looked up the average wages for W.A. last year and worked out that it equates to roughly $1.2 million.

That’s a fair bit of dough, right!

But neither the time frame nor the amount of money really matter in this story.  What matters is the attitude of the servants and the behaviours those attitudes produced.

Matthew 25:20-23

²⁰ The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’

²¹ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

²² “The man with the two talents also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.’

²³ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

Here’s something I find interesting.  The servants reported on what they had achieved – what their efforts had produced for their Master.  The Master comments not on their achievements but on their character.  He calls them good and faithful servants, and he invites them to share his happiness.

He says that they have been faithful with a few things – I don’t know about you, but 6 million or 2.4 million dollars isn’t just a little bit to me, it’s a lot!  But it causes us to realise that the Master didn’t depend on his servants to produce wealth for him.  His delight in them was not because they made him rich, he was delighted in the manner of their service – their diligence and hard work for him.  What prompted that faithfulness I wonder?

Perhaps the best way to find out is to look at what happened with the third servant.

Matthew 25:24-25

²⁴ “Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. ²⁵ So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

²⁶ “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? ²⁷ 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.

²⁸ “‘Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. ²⁹ For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. ³⁰ And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”.

What was the problem here?  Was it a lack of ability?  That didn’t seem to be a problem with the first two – they had different abilities and different levels of responsibility, but each proved himself to be good and faithful. 

Let’s look at his excuse – the master is a tyrant, so he was afraid in case he lost the money and hid it in the ground.  Unlike the first two servants who were busy earning a return on their money, the third servant was free to live for himself for a long time.  He probably looked like the smart guy while the first two were suckers.  He got to work for himself, for his own profit and comfort while the other two were working for their long-absent Master who was probably never coming back.  All three had the title “servant”, but in reality one guy was not a servant at all – at least not a servant of the rightful Master.

Then the Master came back!

Was the master in the story really a tyrant?  Was the third servant paralysed by fear of the master and doubt over his own abilities?

Were the first two servants motivated by fear to work hard in order to escape punishment?

That’s where I want to leave the parable and step out into our world for a moment.

4)     Why do we do what we do?

In those reality TV shows I mentioned earlier, people are motivated by the reward of winning/profit/affirmation and the fear of losing/rejection/humiliation.

It’s classic “carrot and stick” motivation.

It’s not what motivates true servants of God.

We don’t serve God because we are afraid of punishment.

We don’t serve God because we want to somehow profit from our service.

In the parables that Jesus tells in this section, people like that eventually run out of motivation because it seems to them like He’s never coming back.  So our fears of judgement seem less urgent – “I’ve got plenty of time to get things right with God” we think to ourselves.

Our desire for reward shifts on to more immediate gratifications, not some far-off heavenly reward that we don’t really know that much about.  We want something tangible.

Carrot-and-stick motivation just doesn’t work when it comes to serving God.

It didn’t do it for the third servant.  From how he described the Master, you think he would have worked his butt off trying to keep the master happy and earn some reward from him.  But no, he proved himself to be a wicked, lazy, worthless servant.

The third servant’s biggest problem was that he didn’t love his master.  Because he didn’t love his master he had no desire to serve his master.

1 John 4:16b-18
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. ^17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. ^18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15
^14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ^15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

5)     Saved by Grace but Living under Law?

I believe that it’s very easy for churches to produce wicked, lazy, worthless servants in two key ways:

a)     By focussing on us in terms of what we are supposed to be doing for God.  Christianity becomes a religion of legalism where you either feel guilty or self-righteous depending on how good you think you are.

b)     By focussing on us in terms of what God does for us.  Christianity becomes a religion of cheap grace and self-centredness.  God’s main job is to make you feel safe, happy and good about yourself.

True Christianity presents the biblical truth of the breath-taking wonder of who God is and what He has done, is doing and will do for us.  This limitless grace of God is also powerful in that when we receive it we are inevitably changed by it to become like Jesus.

We are servants because He is a servant.  We love because He loves.  We purify ourselves because He is pure…

If we are not becoming like Jesus it does not mean we should work harder at it.  It means that we need to receive more grace.  We need to get to know Him more.

We’ve been focussing this month on our calling to join Jesus in His mission to save the lost.  To bring the grace of God in all it’s forms to those who desperately need to receive it.

Here’s a great saying that I heard several years ago:

“A missionary is not someone who crosses the seas.
A missionary is someone who sees the cross.”

Being a missionary is not about how you serve or where you serve, it’s about who you serve.

Will you be like the third servant who didn’t really know the master, and live just to serve yourself?

Or will you be like the first two servants, who each in their own way were faithful until their master’s return?

Will the love of Christ compel you?

Will you live no longer for yourself but for the One who died for you, was raised again and will one day return?

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^[1]All Scriptures from The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

God's Grace & Global Poverty

God's Grace and Global Poverty - Audio

Guest Speaker Lester Sutton from Compassion Australia shares with us about the ministry of Compassion around the world as an agency of God's life-changing grace at work through the local church. Through the biblical story of Ruth and the background of God's laws given to the Israelites we see the principle God established of both provision and empowerment for the poor and marginalised of society. The challenge for us is to ask how we are allowing these principles and the underlying heart of compassion to be a core part of who we are and what we do

God's Global Mission

God's Global Mission - Audio

Bevan Griggs from Global Mission Partners shares with us a challenge from God's Word for us to be God's partners in His mission to the world.

Discovering Jesus Pt 46 - John 21 - Renewing the Call

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Discovering Jesus in the Gospel of John pt 46 - Renewing the Call (Audio)

In our final message in our series Discovering Jesus in the Gospel of John, we look at the way Jesus renews the call for His disciples to become fishers of men. We challenge ourselves to be renewed in our awareness of and obedience to the calling that God has given each one of us to be devoted to the good work that He has prepared in advance for us to do.

Discovering Jesus pt 45 - John 20:19-31 - The Commission of the Church as Ambassadors of the Risen Lord

Ambassadors of the Risen Lord - Audio   

Discovering Jesus in the Gospel of John pt 45

The Commission of the Church as Ambassadors of the Risen Lord

John 20:19-31

31/07/2011

1)     Introduction – What difference does faith in a risen Lord make to your life?

a)     Not just as an idea or a strongly held conviction.  What difference does it make to what you do or don’t do?

b)     The story of Mary, Peter and John – each journey of coming to faith in the risen Lord looked different!

c)      Let’s be encouraged not to give in when people don’t seem to respond in faith when we share the good news, but let’s keep praying and keep proclaiming!  That brings us to the point in the story where Jesus begins to spell out the implications of His resurrection for those who believe in Him.

d)     I’m excited by the sovereign grace of God that we are up to this part of the gospel as we launch into Missions Month.  Our first official Mission Month event is the dinner this Friday, but I want you to recognise how strongly the gospel of John has been speaking about the nature of our mission and the priority of our mission of sharing the good news about Jesus.  It will become very obvious today.

e)     Continuing the story, Mary went back and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that He was in the process now of leaving this world in order to return to the Father.  This did not mean that Jesus was going to Heaven and then would come back and see them, rather He is telling them that His time on Earth is short and that He wants to them to be prepared for His departure.  He doesn’t remain with them because He doesn’t want them to cling to Him any more than He wanted Mary to do so.

f)        As we read of how Jesus now shows Himself to the disciples I want to you to recognise that there is a very strong theme being expressed in what Jesus does and in how John describes it as the Holy Spirit prompts him to write.

2)     Those who come to faith in Jesus are commissioned to share their faith in Jesus.

a)     ¹⁹ On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews,

Just a couple of details I want to emphasise…

-          it’s Sunday evening

-          they’ve heard Mary’s report but have apparently not believed it (see other gospels)

-          they are afraid that what happened to Jesus could happen to them

-          the week-long Passover festival is continuing, so despite their fears for their safety they stay in Jerusalem.  However as much as possible they stay out of sight.

b)     Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”

1)     Peace be with you

-          standard cultural greeting – Shalom Alekem (it even features in a Wiggles song!)

-          It’s significant that John mentions it here, not bothering to record the countless other times it would have been spoken.

-          The reason is because Jesus is not just saying these words but fulfilling them. 

(i)     He has achieved for them peace with God and peace with one another through His death on the cross for their sin.

(ii)   He has brought this peace to them by His physical presence as proof of His resurrection.  Sin and death have not won, Jesus is alive!

(iii) But that’s just the beginning of the fulfilment – we’ll find out in a few minutes what the rest of the story is.

c)      ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
²¹ Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” ²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Wow – there’s some tricky stuff here that needs some explanation!  As we take a look at each of them we’ll discover that rather than being confusing they actually teach us some things that are pretty exciting.

1)     What’s the deal with resurrected bodies?

We know that Jesus is the “first of many”, in the sense that all those who die in Christ will receive a resurrection body when He ushers in His Kingdom.  So what will it be like?

Jesus was able to appear wherever He chose, yet He was not a disembodied ghost – His body could be touched and He could eat physical food.

After He appeared in the room, Jesus showed His hands and side – bearing the marks of His crucifixion.  There’s a mystery here about the nature of His resurrection body.  It was transformed so that it is no longer physical in the same sense that our bodies are, yet it bears markers of the mistreatment it suffered before it was changed.  Does that mean we will all keep our scars when we receive our resurrected bodies?

What about people whose physical bodies have been dismembered or destroyed – what will their eternal bodies be like?

What about our ages?  Some pass from this life very young, others very old – is that how they will appear for all eternity?  Some artistic impressions of heaven seem to suggest so.

1 Corinthians 15 gives some great teaching on the subject.  Paul uses the example of what happens when a grain of wheat or something else is sown into the ground.  What comes up is something new, yet it bears evidence of the old.  God created the old by His sovereign choice, yet it was created to be something greater.  Something different yet the same.  The differences that Paul lists are that our bodies now are perishable, our resurrection body will be imperishable.  Our current body is dishonoured (corrupted by sin), our new body will be glorious.  Our current bodies enter the grave in weakness, our new body will be raised in power.  Our current body is natural, our resurrection body is spiritual.

What does this mean for us?  While we expect to be recognisable, we do not expect to bear any evidence of the frailty of our previous body.  We would imagine that Christ alone bears the scars of His treatment in the physical body, because they are marks that God preserved as proof of His identity and as an eternal reminder of the incredible grace expressed in the death of Jesus for us.

So reading of Jesus’ resurrection body fills us with an enthusiastic longing for our own spiritual bodies which are glorious, eternal and incorruptible.  It reminds us of His grace to us in that we will also be able to see for ourselves the unique marks of Christ that made our eternal life possible.

When Jesus showed the disciples His hands and feet they were overjoyed.  They knew for sure that it was Him, and the saw the evidence of His completed work of atonement for our sin.

2)     Was the Holy Spirit given a week on the day of Christ’s resurrection or 49 days later at Pentecost?

We’re going to answer this one at the same time as we answer the next question you may have about this text:

3)     What’s the deal with humans being given the authority to forgive or not forgive other people’s sins?

We teach that it is God alone who forgives sins.  That’s one of the things that got Jesus into trouble – when He said “You’re sins are forgiven” (eg Matt 9:2, Luke 7:48) people realised straight away that He was claiming to be more than just human.

Is He now giving that divine authority to His disciples?  Is it given to only some of the disciples or all of them?

To answer these questions, we need to understand what Jesus is doing here and John is emphasising in the way that He recalls the story – Jesus is commissioning His disciples to do the work of the Kingdom.  He’s telling them what to do and how they are going to do it.

In verse 21 He says “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

He has come back to them, bringing them peace by His physical presence, but now He’s sending them on a mission of reconciling the world to God, just as Jesus had been sent on that mission by the Father.  He’s told them already that He’s in the process of returning to the Father, so why does He say “Peace be with you” again here?  He’s their peace, He’s leaving and He’s sending them out into a hostile world!

-          He is about to leave this peace with them – exactly as promised – by giving them the gift of the Holy Spirit as His permanent presence with them.  He had explained all this to them on the night before His crucifixion.  We read about it in chapters 14 to 16.

-          Paul explains this to the Christians in Ephesus in Ephesians 2, noting how Jesus’ death destroyed hostility between God and humanity and also between people. He was particularly focussing on the hostility between Jews and Gentiles.  He says of Jesus in verses 17&18 that “He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.  For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.”

-          That’s exactly what Jesus is doing here – He’s preaching (proclaiming) peace to His disciples, which they will experience through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  When we are all living by the Spirit we will be at peace with God and with each other.  Peace will truly be “with us”!  That’s something I hope you all experience.

4)     So in effect in verse 21 He promises peace through the Holy Spirit and sends them on their mission to announce Salvation by faith in Christ to the whole world.

Seeing these things in verse 21 explains very nicely for us what we see in verses 22 and 23.  He’s illustrating and reinforcing what He just said.  He doesn’t want them to miss the point.

In verse 22 we read: “And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Is John trying to say that Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into the disciples here?  No!  By the time John wrote this gospel the story of the day of Pentecost was well known throughout the Church both from word of mouth and also written accounts.  John is not suggesting a different version of events.  He assumes his readers already know the story of how the Holy Spirit was given to the first disciples.

John had also recorded the words of Jesus in chapter 16:7: “But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

Well Jesus hasn’t yet gone away, so how could He send the Counsellor to them.  He clearly says that the Counsellor (the Holy Spirit) will NOT come unless Jesus goes).

By breathing out upon the gathered group, Jesus is giving a picture of the Spirit as the person of God who proceeds from both the Father and the Son and is their presence within God’s children.  Just as God breathed life into Adam with physical breath, Jesus symbolically breathes spiritual life into the disciples as a sign of what will happen when the Spirit arrives at Pentecost.

God lives in you through His Spirit.  He puts His life within you.  He puts His peace within you, along with all His other attributes like love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.  You don’t have to manufacture these yourself – they are in you through His Spirit.  Receive Him! 

That means not just receiving Him at salvation, but receive Him every day by keeping in step with Him, allowing Him to fix your eyes on Jesus and produce in you the character of Jesus.  You are not alone.  You are not limited to your own ability or your prior history.  He has given us His Spirit.

What was the other thing Jesus spoke about in verse 21?  Our mission!  Here it is again in verse 23…

“If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

This isn’t a new idea being expressed, it’s just a restatement of what Jesus has already said.

In chapter 3 Jesus explained to Nicodemus that forgiveness would be granted to everyone who believes in Jesus. There’s no mention there of needing to be forgiven by any kind of priest or other representative of the Church.

But how do people come to the point of believing in Jesus – the real Jesus and not some fairytale version?

John 15:26-27
“When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. ²⁷ And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

So the truth about Jesus which people need in order to be forgiven was entrusted to those who were with Him from the beginning – the Apostles.  In chapter 14 Jesus told them that the Holy Spirit would remind them of everything He had said.  Not only that, but Jesus went on to say in…

John 16:8-11
When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹ in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; ¹⁰ in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; ¹¹ and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

So the Holy Spirit worked within the Apostles to testify to the truth, and He works within people who hear it so that they are able to believe in Jesus as Saviour and Lord.

That’s what Jesus is talking about when He gives the first disciples the power to forgive or not to forgive.  What He’s saying is that they have the power to bring forgiveness to people or not according to their willingness to share the truth about Jesus.  They also have the power to declare someone as being forgiven or not based on that person’s belief in Jesus.

That power was given not just to the Apostles, but to all the disciples gathered together on what became known as the “Lord’s day”.

That power has been extended to you and I today also.  By sharing the good news about Jesus we bring people an opportunity to be forgiven and enjoy eternal life.  By withholding the good news we deny people that opportunity.

Similarly we have the authority to say to someone with absolute assurance that believing in Jesus as their Saviour and Lord is sufficient for their salvation – they are forgiven.  We also have the authority to say to someone who refuses to believe in Jesus that they have not been forgiven by God and stand in danger of His judgement.  That’s something we need to be prepared to say, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes us and how offensive it sounds to others.

We have no authority to say – like some popular leaders of massive churches today – that “it’ll be OK.  If you want to be in you’re in”.  Nope, because that doesn’t fit with what the Apostles were told and what they recorded and what the Holy Spirit’s job is.

On the contrary, we’re to preach forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ the risen Lord.  Just like Peter did in the first evangelistic sermon of the Church:

Acts 2:36-37
³⁶ “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” ³⁷ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” ^[1]

Peter preached the message through the power of the Spirit, and that same Spirit worked in the hearts of the hearers to bring conviction – they were cut to the heart.

May God grant us the faithfulness to continue to do what He’s told us to do, by His power at work in us for the salvation of the world.

Conclusion – What difference does it make?

What difference will it make to you this week that you serve a Risen Lord who has shown you the reality that there is an eternal body waiting for you – a body free from all the marks of sin and death?  What difference does it make that for all eternity you will be able to witness on His body the marks of our salvation?

What difference will it make to you this week that you serve a Risen Lord who has sent His Spirit as the personal presence of God within you?  All of God’s attributes reside in you through His Spirit – what difference can and must that make to you this week?

What difference will it make to you this week that you serve a Risen Lord who has commissioned you to bear His message of forgiveness to the world?  The gift of the Spirit is not to keep you comfortable, but to be your empowering and sustaining presence as you serve Christ in a world that hates Him.

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^[1]All Scriptures from The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Ac 2:36). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.