Don’t Bury Your Blessing

Introduction

Whenever you are given something - a blessing, a gift, a talent, what do you do? What is your first instinct? To bury it, keep it safe? Do whatever you can to protect it? Is the safety of your resources more important to you than using your resources?

Let’s read from Matthew 25:

Matthew 25:14–30 CSB

“For it is just like a man about to go on a journey. He called his own servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents, to another two talents, and to another one talent, depending on each one’s ability. Then he went on a journey. Immediately the man who had received five talents went, put them to work, and earned five more. In the same way the man with two earned two more. But the man who had received one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master’s money. “After a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five talents approached, presented five more talents, and said, ‘Master, you gave me five talents. See, I’ve earned five more talents.’ “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You were faithful over a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Share your master’s joy.’ “The man with two talents also approached. He said, ‘Master, you gave me two talents. See, I’ve earned two more talents.’ “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You were faithful over a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Share your master’s joy.’ “The man who had received one talent also approached and said, ‘Master, I know you. You’re a harsh man, reaping where you haven’t sown and gathering where you haven’t scattered seed. So I was afraid and went off and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’ “His master replied to him, ‘You evil, lazy servant! If you knew that I reap where I haven’t sown and gather where I haven’t scattered, then you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and I would have received my money back with interest when I returned. “ ‘So take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have more than enough. But from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. And throw this good-for-nothing servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Do not bury your blessing.

This story is one of Jesus’ parables - a simple story Jesus used to illustrate a deeper point, and the framing of this parable is eschatological - that’s a new word for some of you - which means it’s related to the end times, the second return of Jesus. Jesus has just told a parable about the ten virgins in verses 1 - 13, emphasizing the importance of being ready for Jesus to return, and now he tells this parable of the talents to illustrate what being ready looks like in practice.

The central idea in this block of teaching from Jesus is asking the question - “are you going to be ready?” when Jesus returns? With that as the background, Jesus tells this story.

At that time, Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven will be like…

I. Blessing (14-15)

The master entrusts his servants with HIS possessions.

“Talent”

A measurement of weight, not a specific amount of money.

Varies, but around 75 - 100 lbs

It is a coincidence that this unit of measurement corresponds to our English word “talent” meaning a skill or ability, but it is not the same thing.

Could be a variety of monetary value based on what it was a talent of - gold or silver probably

Regardless it is a LOT - a single talent back then would make someone extravagantly wealthy

We can derive a couple of things from this - the Master was rich, and even the servant who was only given one talent was given a substantial amount of money to take care of.

I think it is intentional that this unit of measurement is generic - not specific.

Jesus doesn’t want us to get caught up on what the possessions are, talking about dollars and cents, he is trying to communicate a principle - it is important of being a good steward of what God has given you - whether it is time, talent, or treasure.

But here is an important detail: it is GOD’s stuff. Verse 14 - the Master entrusted HIS possessions to his servants.

This is an objective reality that you need to understand and believe. I don’t care if it’s your money, your house, your car, your talents, your gifts, anything - you need to hear this:

You are a steward, not an owner.

A steward is a manager of someone else’s property - they do not own the property themselves.

A king/ruler/master might appoint someone as a steward in order to represent them and their interests, and may even give them property/possessions to manage - but only to manage. The steward themselves does own the possessions.

So in a very real way, you don’t own anything.

I know this kind of an offensive thing to say, particularly in our country and context, but if you are a follower of Jesus and you do not allow this truth to settle into your heart you will not be able to be an effective servant of the Most High God because you won’t be able to see yourself correctly - as a steward of God’s possessions.

You might say - “of course I own things, I’ve worked hard for what I have!” and I’m sure you have. But a Christian does not have the luxury of keeping a hiding away some or all of their possession from God - God owns them and is ultimately the one responsible for every blessing in your life.

“I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, nobody helped me, I’m a self-made man (or woman)!” Okay, so who put your bones together? Who knitted them together with ligaments and fastened muscle onto them with tendons? Who wrapped you in skin, gave you a beating heart and breathed life into your lungs? Who wired your brain to work the way it does?

More - who caused you to be born where you were? Was that you? Did you decided the time, day, and place of your birth? Regardless if you were born in a very hard situation or a good one, there are factors outside of your control that contributed and still contribute to where you are today.

Romans 11:36 “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.”

You are a steward - not an owner. Everything that you are and everything that you have is a blessing from God. And God does not want you to bury your blessing.

God decides what you steward.

“each one’s ability”

God knows you - he knows your “ability”

The Master did not give the same things to every servant

And God does not give the same blessings to each one of you

Of course, we don’t know our own abilities - we might all think we are “able” to do just about anything

We waste a lot of time complaining about what we don’t have and using that as an excuse to bury our blessings.

Your life is not something from which you can stand aside and consider what it would have been like had you had a different one. There is no “you” apart from your actual life. You are not separate from your life, and in that life you must find the goodness of God. Otherwise, you will not believe that he has done well by you, and you will not truly be at peace with him. (pp. 340-341)

Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

This means that God has uniquely gifted you at this time and place with the time, talent and treasure to be able to invest in the kingdom of God

Some of you have been given money to steward, some of you have unique talents and abilities, and some of you have a lot of time, and most of you have a combination of time talent AND treasure to steward

What God has given you is not monolithic - it changes over time.

But the important principle here is that wherever you are currently, whatever God has blessed you with currently, he has done on purpose with the express intention that you would use what he has given you for his glory.

There is no “waiting” until you get to a more lucrative phase of life - God is calling you to be obedient now, with what he has given you now.

And wherever you find yourself in the future, you will still be called to the practice of investing in the kingdom.

Returning to the parable, when the Master leaves on his journey, Jesus then describes what each of the servants do with the talents that have been entrusted to them…

II. Investment (16-18)

It is interesting that Jesus makes it clear that immediately the first two servants set to work.

They didn’t go and ask each other “how many did he give you?”

The one who got two talents didn’t run to the one who got five talents and say “why’d you get more than me!” and the one who got five talents didn’t lord it over the other servants.

The first two servants, without hesitation, comparison, or even clear direction, immediately go and invest what they had been given - and double it.

The third servant also immediately sets to work - but he goes and buries what the Master had entrusted to him.

Presumably, he would have seen what the other servants were doing but he made the conscious choice to go and hide his master’s money in the ground

In doing this, he kind of proves that his master was right to only give him one talent - he was barely able to handle that!

The actions of the three servants display assumptions that each of them made.

They were not given clear direction, just told to take care of the money.

With that as direction, the third servant would be justified in following the “letter of the law” and keeping his master’s money safe (more on that in a minute).

But the first two servants understood their master and their assignment well enough to know that being entrusted with something by their master meant they needed to “put it to work.”

They wanted their master to come back and see that not only had they kept his money safe, but they had worked hard to invest what he had entrusted to them and take ownership in a way that would show their dedication.

The third servant also reveals his assumption - he assumes that he needs to go and bury what he’s been given. Maybe it’s because he only has one talent - he doesn’t think he can afford to go invest it or take any risks with it. Hide it. Keep it safe.

We see two distinctly different mindsets that inform the servant’s response to the master’s assignment. The third servant who buries his talent in the ground clearly has what is called a scarcity mindset.

A scarcity mindset believes that all of your resources are lacking - you never have enough - and obviously leads to negative thinking, poor decisions, and can even cause your brain to rewire itself around the belief that you don’t have what you need to survive. There is a focus on limitations, whether they are real or perceived, and that causes negative emotions like pessimism, hoarding, fear, anxiety, doubt, resentment, and much more to dominate your mind. Obviously, someone with a scarcity mindset will be incredibly risk-averse. Why would you take any risks when you don’t have enough?

In contrast, the first two servants have an abundance mindset. This kind of mindset says “there’s more where that came from!” and clearly sees opportunities and potential for growth. They are optimistic, confident, trusting, and are creatively innovative with what they have. They are also open to taking risks - thinking big about what could be and willing to put themselves and their resources out there even if the outcome isn’t 100% guaranteed. And they are generous - there is plenty to go around so why would they hoard everything for themselves?

Here’s the point:

A Christian cannot have a scarcity mindset.

The three servants in this parable had two distinct mindsets between them.

The first two “put their talents to work,” or some translations say they “did business.”

Now I’m not a businessman, investor, anything like that, but there is some level of risk inherent to any sort of investing, business venture, etc. You can’t know for sure how it is going to turn out.

If you have a scarcity mindset, of course you would sit on whatever resources you have, hoarding them all to yourself, never taking any risks.

We’ve established that every resource we have is ultimately a gift from God, so the question for you is: when you think of all that God has given you, whether it is your time, talent, or treasure, do you have a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset?

Is your inclination to hoard everything for yourself, believing that you just don’t have enough, you need more, so you couldn’t possibly invest anything you’ve been given. Are you always anxious, fearful, pessimistic about your life and resources? This of course will mean you are never generous with your time, talent, treasure because it all needs to be protected. It’s yours after all. You’ll bury it if you want to!

This cannot be the mindset of a follower of Christ.

Go with me for a moment.

If God is the origin of all things, and he has blessed you with your specific time, talent, and treasure in this specific time and place, then why in the world would you have a scarcity mindset?

Matthew 6:25–34 CSB

“Therefore I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? Can any of you add one moment to his life span by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Observe how the wildflowers of the field grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t he do much more for you—you of little faith? So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

The Heavenly Father knows you need them.

God is the origin of all good gifts, and he knows you - both what you need and what you are equipped to manage at this point in your life.

So you are free to have a mindset of abundance, being a good and generous steward of what God has blessed you with - even taking perceived “risks” in order to do kingdom work.

It may seem “safe” to bury your blessing, but you can’t do that and be obedient to God at the same time.

The different mindsets of the three servants are clearly demonstrated in how they handle their master’s possessions that they have been entrusted with. So when the master returns after a “long time” and meets with each servant to settle up with them, the conversations are a bit different as well…

III. Return (19-30)

It’s important to note that the master does not judge each servant based on what the other servants did, but what they each did with what they were given.

The first two servants

They present both what the master has given them and what they have earned with it back to him.

There’s no “holding onto” what they have - the clear expectation is that they would give back to their master what they had earned. They didn’t take a percentage, or ask for anything, or dishonestly hold any amount back. It doesn’t even appear to have entered their minds that they should not give everything right back to their master

It would kind of make sense that they would want to hold onto it - after all, they earned some of it! It’s “theirs.”

The master responds to each servant’s work with a now-famous phrase - “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

This refers back to Jesus’ words in the previous chapter, as he is setting up these parables - Matthew 24:45–46 ““Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give them food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom the master finds doing his job when he comes.”

The master also gives them each a promotion - they will be rewarded.

Whatever this “reward” or “promotion” looks like, the most important piece is that they will “share in their master’s joy.” They have shared in the work, they will share in the joy.

The third servant

The third servant’s response is…different…to say the least.

Regardless, this servant immediately begins to give excuses for why he didn’t do anything with his master’s resources.

He makes excuses and also insists that he knows the master and how he operates - he makes assumptions about his character, his methods, and ultimately tries to shift the responsibility away from himself.

For this, the master is harsh in his response.

He describes the third servant as “evil,” and depending on the translation you use, “worthless, good-for-nothing, useless, unprofitable, slothful, lazy.”

It seems like he is being sarcastic in repeating back to the servant how he has described him. The master isn’t affirming that he is that way, he’s throwing that description back in the servant’s face to say - “okay, if you really think that’s how I am, you could have at least done the bare minimum!”

In other words, this third servant didn’t just do nothing with what he was given - he did less than nothing. It almost took more work for the third servant to do what he did than if he had done the bare minimum.

The third servant is punished for his foolishness - cast out where he won’t have to work, won’t have to be around the master, and won’t have any resources to waste.

He didn’t share in the work, he won’t share in the joy.

I’ll admit, and you might agree, this seems a little harsh. After all, what did the servant do that was that wrong? He kept his master’s stuff safe, right? Gave it back to him? Yeah, he didn’t go and invest it like the other guys but the master didn’t tell him to do that!

But, look carefully not just at the third servant’s actions, but also his words.

There are at least three things that the servant reveals about what is going on in his heart:

1) He had a negative perception about his master and his work.

2) He was afraid of his master.

3) He did not really know his master.

He assumed his master was a cruel, harsh, self-serving taskmaster who made his servants do all the work while he did nothing.

He was afraid (or pretended to be afraid) of being punished for messing up so he refused to even try.

Ultimately, he completely misunderstood his master and made false assumptions about him because he didn’t know him.

So, burying his blessing seemed like the best course of action.

The “problem” isn’t ultimately that the servant didn’t earn a bunch more talents, but that he had a heart that was far from his master - far from God.

You’ll bury your blessing if you don’t understand who blessed you.

It is easy to make assumptions about God even if you know God.

Let’s look at three of the things that were going on in the third servant’s heart and see how they might be reflected in our lives:

You may have a negative perception of God and his work.

Are you tempted to be tight-fisted around any sort of ministry, whether it’s a local church or some other ministry, because you just really aren’t sure if they are really doing God’s work?

In other words, do you have an air of suspicion, constantly, about investing in any place that claims to be doing God’s work?

I’ll be the first to say - some of that suspicion is warranted.

But here’s the thing - if you are suspicious about every ministry, where are you going to invest? Where are you going to use your time, talent, and treasure? You don’t have a lot of options left but to bury them!

I’m not saying that every ministry that claims to be doing God’s work is in fact doing God’s work. There are tons of examples that show otherwise.

But that is not an excuse to disregard the clear command of Scripture to invest what God has given you.

We believe that Scripture tells us that the local church is the primary place where a Christian invests their time, talent, and treasure for the good of the kingdom of God. That is not to say that you can’t also invest in other ministries - of course you can and you should.

But if it is Northstar, another local church, or another church in your future, I would challenge you to see that as the primary place for you to invest, and also the primary place where you grow in your faith in community with other believers.

I do think that sometimes we misunderstand the way churches operate - we don’t have a special currency that we get to use. If we don’t pay our electric bill - in dollars - our electricity gets shut off.

We didn’t just pray really hard and come out here one day and a building had appeared.

What we did do was pray very hard and God responded by drawing his people into generosity, ultimately providing this amazing space where we can daily equip each other to do God’s work, worship God together, learn more about him together, invite others to know him, and serve and bless our community.

We, like every other local church, are not perfect, but we listen very closely to the Holy Spirit and are burdened about being good stewards of what has been entrusted to us, and we are not afraid to pivot if we feel as if the Lord is leading us in a different direction. And we are not afraid to be radically generous ourselves as the opportunity allows. And we do this all together. Sharing in the work, and sharing in the joy.

But if you get stuck in a negative mindset, you’ll miss out on all of that. You will go through your life holding God’s people at arms’ length in suspicion, refusing to invest and get involved, and end up burying your blessings instead of investing them.

You may be afraid of God.

So maybe you’re in - you want to invest - but what if you do it wrong? What if you aren’t generous enough or generous in the way that God wants you to be? Maybe you’re fearful of judgment.

Listen to these comforting words from Jesus:

John 15:12–16 ““This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.”

The master knew the servant but the servant didn’t know his master. If you’re a Christian, you know God and he knows you. He calls you to be obedient, to be generous, to invest what he has blessed you with whether it be your time, talent, or treasure, but he is not standing over you with a hammer ready to whack you if you make a mistake.

God has invited you in to his work, and he has equipped you, uniquely, to serve him. So a call to invest is not something to be feared but something to be thankful for! God didn’t have to invite us into the work, but he did. We get to labor for the God of the universe, spreading the good news of the gospel and helping people know him more.

Maybe you just don’t know God.

It is possible you may need to rewire your brain about some of the very bad things you’ve believed about God - untrue things. That he is cruel, harsh, unforgiving. Or you really just haven’t understood the reality that God desires to work through people to accomplish his work, and so you don’t understand why he doesn’t just start printing off money in heaven.

It’s also possible that you - literally - do not know God. You aren’t a Christian. You haven’t believed in the good news of the gospel, that God in his generosity has made a way for humanity to be made right with him. Every person needs to be made right with God - we are lost, and powerless to save ourselves. If you repent of your sin and of living a life that has been going your own way, doing your own thing, and instead turn and believe that Jesus Christ the perfect, holy Son of God came to earth and lived the life we couldn’t live and died the death we couldn’t die - rising from the dead and thereby robbing death of its power - you will be saved. And you will be welcomed into the glorious mission that our God has given us - to use our blessings - given by God - to do good and make his name great in the whole world.

Conclusion

Do you know what to do with what you’ve been given?

We have each been blessed uniquely by God with time, talent, treasure, and sometimes a combination of all three.

What do you do first with what you’ve been given? Is your first inclination to instinctively bury it, hide it, keep it safe?

Have you in error believed that you own your blessings, they are yours to do whatever you want with - even bury, if you think that’s best?

Have you embraced a scarcity mindset, believe that there isn’t enough, you have to hoard and protect, never take any risks or step out in faith?

And have you misunderstood your Lord and what he has called you to do?

In the parable of the talents, the third servant misunderstands the assignment and blames his employer. But the reason he misunderstands the assignment is because he misunderstands his Lord. B and his lack of investment for his Lord indicated a lack of relationship with his Lord.

If God is not generous so why should we be generous?

If you are here and don’t know God - my first prayer for you would be that you would know him. You would put your faith and trust in Jesus and become a Christian this morning.

But if you do know Jesus - remind yourself of the truth of who your God is. He is a generous God.

Our theme verse for this series sums it up:

2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.”

God reveals himself to us in Jesus as a God who is generous. Infinitely self-giving and holding nothing back from us.

God does not need us to be involved - in fact, he could probably accomplish his work much more efficiently if we weren’t involved. But God has chosen in his grace and love to invite us into his work, giving us time, talent, and treasure to invest for the kingdom of God. We each, to varying degrees, have been given blessings to give right back to God. The problem for the lazy servant wasn’t that he didn’t make as much as the rest, or wasn’t as productive, but burying his blessing was a symptom that his heart was not surrendered to God.

What blessings I been given? What blessings I burying? How can I surrender my blessings back to God, investing them for the good of his kingdom?

We are invited by God into the joy of generosity, because we serve a generous God.