Be Trustworthy

We are going to spend this week and next looking at the last two parables that Jesus gave in the Gospel of Matthew. This will lead us up to Advent and our journey towards the birth of our Lord and Savior. This week our focus will be on “Being Trustworthy.” Our scripture is from Matthew 25:14-30. The words will be on the screen.

14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Please pray with me…

We have a God of expectations. A God that has given us gifts, talents, to be able to serve him. He desires for us to use our gifts he has given us by serving those around us.

We view God as being the master in today’s scripture. We are the servants who God has given “talents.” Three servants are given different amounts of money. Large sums of money, given to his servants as he was about to leave town for an unspecified length of time.

The scripture does not have their master offering them any expectations on what they are to do with these funds that they have been given. We only know that it was given to each according to their ability.

God trusts us to do what we can with the gifts that he has given to us. We have a God that desires for us to serve him to the best of our abilities. We are able to do this when we are willing to trust God.

In order to trust God, we first have to trust that he believes in us. We have to have the faith to believe that when God directs us to serve him that he has given us the talents to be able to succeed. The parable clearly makes the point that each person was given what they were given based off the trust that the master had in each individual.

Our God knows what we can do. After all, he is the one who created us. He is the one who has given us the talents for us to use. He trusts that we will use these talents given to us by him to serve him. We need to be trustworthy in the eyes of God.

We have to believe that he will not lead us astray. We call God the “good shepherd.” A good shepherd takes care of his sheep and leads them in the direction that will benefit each of them individually and also as a group. We need to believe that God is leading us based off of our abilities.

We have to believe that God has gone before us. He has prepared the way for us to be able to accomplish what he has in store for us. We have to trust that God has already prepared a path for us to follow.

In our parable,the master returns and considers what the servants have done with the talents that he had given them. It is believed that the return of the man is a representation of the return of Jesus.

This would mean that this time that we are in right now is the in-between time. The time from when Jesus left until his eventual return. The time from when the master left his servants with the talents but before his eventual return.

The question that this parable should lead us to ask is what am I doing with the talents that God has given to me? Am I using these gifts given to me by God in a way that when I meet God, he will say to me “well done good and faithful servant”?

We should live our lives showing that we should be trusted with what God has given to us. If we view Jesus as our Lord, it means that what we are given should be used to benefit him. We should be trustworthy and using our gifts to serve the kingdom of God.

God does not want us to sit idly by allowing time to pass and not using the talents that we have been given. We are able to receive this from the reaction that the master has to the last servant. There is an expectation or at the very least a hope that we will be willing to use the talents given to us by God.

The servantis asked “why he didn’t do more with what was given to him? His answeris that he was afraid of the master. This makes sense to the audience that Jesus is speaking too. There was a literal fear by many of God and what he would do to them if they didn’t do what he asked.

The master believes that this makes no sense. He points out to the servant, if I am someone for you to fear, you should be trying to use the talent to create more instead of choosing to bury it. We have a God of expectations.

Some would argue that many of the people who acknowledge that Jesus is their Lord and Savior are like the last servant. They have decided to do nothing with the talents that God has given them. They have made the choice to accept the grace given to them by God of forgiveness of sin and eternal life.

They are accepting these gifts given to them by their God, but they are not showing a willingness to serve the God who has done so much for them. The God that created them. The God that saved them.

I hope that the reason we choose to not use our talents for God’s benefit is not due to a literal fear but is due to a lack of trust. The relationship between God and the person is not strong enough for them to believe that they can do what God wants them to do.

This is possible because another gift God gave to us when he created us. The ability to have free will. Our God did not want to make us serve him and follow him. He wanted to give us a choice and some have chosen to be saved by his grace but to not serve him.

We have a God of love. He loves us as we are but at the same time, he loves us so much that he is attempting to lead us towards becoming better than we are right now. God wants us to reach the potential that he believes that we have.

This is why he gives each of us gifts based off of our ability. We can view this as a physical ability, but I believe it is speaking of God giving us gifts based off of our spiritual ability. Our willingness to trust him. Our willingness to grow and connect with him.

Quick aside,what I want to make sure that is understood is that our works do not show our faith. Meaning our service to God should not be us trying to prove to God that we deserve to be a part of his family.

Our works,our willingness to use the talents given to us by God, should be a result of our faith. God desires for us to serve him and we should choose to serve him because of what he has done for us.

We discover from our text that when we trust God and fulfill the calling that he has given to us that our reward is for us to be given more than we had been given. This should point out two things to us. The first is that it is through completing the task given to us by God that we become trustworthy and we receive the ability by trusting God more to be able to do more.

The second point is that serving God is ongoing. We are called to serve God from the moment we believe until the day we die. We always have the next thing. We don’t get to rest when we are serving God.

That is why being a follower of God through Jesus is a journey. It is a trek that never ends. It also is a journey that leads to us being blessed. God blesses us when we are blessing those that are around us.

How are we showing God that we can be trusted to do what he asks for us to do? Our first reading answers that question. We show God we can be trusted when we are good stewards of what God has given to us.

The word steward is recognized as a word that is used to refer to someone who is managing or taking care of something. Those that are believers in Jesus are stewards of Christianity. We are to live as Jesus lived and show those around us the love of Jesus.

This is why we have a mission statement that speaks of us forming believers, developing followers, and releasing disciples. The journey is never done there is always a next step that we need to take in order to grow in our relationship with God.

There is always someone else that God is calling for us to serve or to let them know about the one who saved us. We can take the time to tell them our Jesus Story, about what Jesus did for us in our life.

The ending of this text may seem a bit harsh to us. It speaks of what happens to the one who made the choice to bury the talent instead of attempting to gain something from it. It speaks of what he had being taken away.

The story ends with the spiritual message of the person being cast into utter darkness and to the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ We have to remember who Jesus is speaking too. His audience is from the before times, Jesus has not yet died.

We now can be saved. If we are saved, we are promised eternal life with God. We can choose to serve God or decide that we will not. What would be interesting to consider is if a person who doesn’t use their gifts gets asked why by God does God in some way reprimand them for their unwillingness to be his hands and feet here on earth. Will they be in Heaven but hear of God’s displeasure.

We have a choice. We have a God that has an expectation that we will be willing to get to know him better and serve him during our time on earth. This is why we have a path to follow at Kirkersville United Methodist.

We believe that we are being formed and developed for us to be released to serve those around us and tell them about Jesus.

We are completing at the end of December a three-year vision for the church and have developed a new vision that will cover the church through 2026. This vision might lead us to have to step out of our comfort zone and trust God to be there for us.

We will be challenged to strive to become a better follower of God through Jesus each and every day. More information will come in January but let us choose to start today to live our lives in a way that will lead God to believe in us, to trust us, through us showing the trust that we have in him.

Please pray with me…