Matthew 30

Going Forward

Last week we discussed the end times and Christs second coming. That is a rather interesting topic and one that is fund to discuss, but what do we do in the mean time? That is what chapter 25 lets us know. Jesus is trying to give us our marching orders moving forward and now coming into our summer months where we will not be meeting I would like to give you those marching orders and encourage you to follow them diligently to serve Christ even when we are not having 180. Jump with me now down to verse 14.

Matthew 25:14–15 ““For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.”

Like with every parable we have seen through the book of Matthew the first thing we need to do is translate the sign to the thing that is signified here. To begin we have the man who is going to travel to a far country. This man also can be assumed to be wealthy as he has servants to see to his estate while he is gone. This man is representative of Christ and the estate that the man owns is representative of this world. Christ came down to earth in the incarnation, when He was born of a virgin, and now He is telling them that He will be leaving the estate, that He is leaving the Earth soon, and He will be coming back. He isn’t selling the estate or giving it away, He is just saying that He is leaving for a time and He will return in time just as we said last week.

Now the servants in this parable to me are a little more difficult to say exactly who they represent. The first instinct is to say that the servants represent the elect, or the believers in Christ. This seems to be a good explanation but due to the term servants and their direct dealing with Christ, but I would say that the later sentencing that we will get to weeds this possibility out. Instead I would argue that the servants here represent what we often call the visible church. This encompasses all who claim to follow Christ. Not all who claim to follow him truly do though all of the church here from the word of God and are in close contact with Christ through participation in the church.

Lastly, what about the talents that are given? First, a talent in this time refers to an amount of silver. So, what is being given in the parable is an amount of money. I have always found it very useful for our purposes though that when translated to english it is called a talent because in our modern english a talent is something that we are good at. In this parable the talent of silver represents everything that God has given us. Yes our finances are part of that all of our money has been given to us as a loan from God none of it is truly ours, but not just our money, it is our whole lives that have been given to us. Our time, our effort, our health, our skills, and our abilities have all been given to us by God. Notice also that to each servant a different amount of talents is given. One has five one has two and another has one. Looking from the outside we may think that this is unfair for the distribution to be dispraportionate. We live in a world so focused on equality that we see inequality everywhere that we look when we do not even understand the situation. The master of this estate would know his servants and would give them the amount of money he believed they were capable of handling in his absence. God knows the hearts of man, nothing is secret to Him. He knows what we are capable of handling in our life and He provides for us the resources and abilities that we need to handle the task at hand. He gives us exactly what we need and what we can handle nothing more and nothing less. It is not for us to scream inequality whenever we see a person who God has blessed with more resources or more talents or abilities than ourselves. What God has given to others is none of our concern. We ought to be solely concerned with the gifts that God has given to us and eternally grateful for what he has decided to give to us. We have been given exactly what we need to serve Him in our context and that is more than we truly deserve anyway. Notice also that the master does not do anything to honor one servant over another he just gives them their talents and moves along. There is nothing better about the servant with five talents than the servant with one. They are all considered to have equal value. We can’t base our value on what we have been given we should just be grateful that it has been given to us.

Now, what are our options to do once we assess what gifts God has given us?

Matthew 25:16–18 “Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents. And likewise he who had received two gained two more also. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money.”

So, two of the servants take a risk here. They take the money their master had given them and used it to earn more money. They are risking losing their money here if they made bad investments or were robbed or who knows what could happen, but in the end it worked out for them and they made money out of the situation. One servant chose to instead dig a hole and bury it. This way no risk was taken and he knew he would have exactly what he was given to return to the master when he returns. So, what are we doing with what our Master gave us? Christ has given us many gifts as we have just discussed but what are we doing with them? We have two options here, option one is to take our gifts from God and use them for his service. By doing this we often take a risk of getting hurt either emotionally or even physically in some cases. When we step out in our friend groups or at school and serve Christ we run the risk of loosing friends and being ostrisized. We run the risk of not being able to use our gifts anymore to serve Him, but we also have the opportunity to glorify Him more and gain immense joy from being able to use their gifts. Our other option is to sit on our gifts. Never really utilizing them to do much of anything. From this we feel much safer and feel like we are avoiding the pain of taking a risk but we also miss out on any possible rewards that may come with using our gifts. So, what should we choose? Which option is the best?

Matthew 25:20–21 ““So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’”

This is the response that the first servant recieves and if you want to look down you will see that the second servant recieves the exact same praise from Christ. This is what all of us as believers dream of hearing from Christ whenever we see Him, well done My good and faithful servant. By stepping out of the safe zone and taking a risk they were able to earn more talents. When they were faithful with what they had been given then they were rewarded with more and more and given great joy for their faithfulness. These servants understood that the master gave them these talents so that they could fulfill a purpose and that purpose in this sense was to earn more wealth for the master. They had faith that the deals they made would work out for the good of the master and also had faith that if they did not work out and they lost the money then the master would not punish them. Now let’s look at the response to the other servant.

Matthew 25:24–25 ““Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’”

Matthew 25:26–27 ““But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest.”

Matthew 25:28–30 “So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

This servant is said be wicked and lazy. He comes to the master filled with excuses as to why he hasn’t done anything with the talents that he has been given. Notice that he is blaming the master for his own shortcomings saying that the master was a hard man. We have nothing in this parable to suggest that the master truly is a hard man in fact it seems that instead the master has been nothing but gracious and kind in this parable. He uses the masters authority and power to say that the master must be hard and take advantage of people. So the master says if this is what you knew to be true then why did you not work extra hard. He uses his own excuses to show him that by his own account his logic is flawed and he then casts the servant out into the outer darkness.

Seeing these two options then it is clear that the choice we ought to make is to step out and take risks with the gifts that God has given us rather than keep them to ourselves. We hope that we can use these gifts that have been handed to us in order to glorify God and hear that good and faithful servant when we see our master. Many people instead use God as an excuse to be lazy themselves. They say that God is powerful, He has authority, He has total control so why should I have to do anything? What does God need me for if He is so powerful? The thing is that He doesn’t need us, rather He allows us to have the privelage of serving Him so that we can experience the joy of being a good and faithful servant.

So, we have spent all of this time talking about the gifts that God has blessed us with, but what is the task that He has given them to us for?

Matthew 28:18–20 “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.”

Here we have the closing statements of Christ after His resurection and just before His ascension back into heaven. In this final statement He gives us what is known as the great commission. This is our mission statement as Christians. It is our marching orders from the time of the ascension to the time of His second coming. We are charged with the duty of making and training new disciples for Christ, this in not just a charge for me as a minister or for missionaries abroad, but for all of us as believers. So, with this task in mind how can we put them together? How can we put our abilities and gifts from God to use for the great commission? Well I can think of one example of a time I was able to use what God gifted me with to serve His purpose. My first year going to Mission Arlington as a student there was a basketball court there in the apartment complex that we were serving in. Each day that we were there I met several guys around my age who lived there at the court and played basketball with them because that is what I had done since I was in the 1st grade. I played ball with those guys for three days and finally on the fourth day I worked up the courage to share Christ with them. I read scripture to them and tried to explain it and extended a call to repentance to them and the Spirit moved in two of their hearts and God used me to bring two of His people into His kingdom. This is what we are charged to do. We ought to use our gifts in some way to help bring His sheep into the fold. For us to be used by God as a tool to bring about faith and repentance within people and then using us and our gifts to disciple them and help teach them to follow the commands of Christ. All of us have different things that God have given to us that we can utilize in sharing the Gospel and discipling each other. We just have to be willing to step out and take risks with what we have in order to glorify God.