Matthew 25:14-30
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Last week, we dealt with the parable of the 10 virgins.
And the point that we hammered last week was that we are to be ready for the sudden and unexpected return of Jesus Christ to this world.
There is an urgency to this.
There is coming a day where Jesus, the King of Kings will return.
And on that day, you will either be prepared or you will be unprepared.
Last week, the wise were prepared. The foolish were not.
This week we come to another parable, where Jesus will tell a earthly story in order to illustrate and give us a better picture as to how the end of time will be.
Again, last week, the point was to be ready for the judgment.
This week we will deal more so with the question of:
How will we fair in that judgment?
Look with me beginning in verse 13…
Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.
We ended with verse 13 last week.
Be ready. Watch therefore, for you don’t know when it will happen.
And he moves right in to the next parable.
And in this parable, you have a master, and he has servants, and he is going away, but before he goes away, he gives three of His servants something to take care of.
He leaves them in charge of stewarding his property.
Now, notice here something important, the master does not give out his property in equal measures.
He gives one servant five talents
He gives another two talents
And then he gives one of them one talent.
So the master has examined his servants, he gives the talents based upon his determination of each’s ability.
So not all are given the same amount of talents.
Now, let’s talk about a talent for a moment.
When we think of talent, we think of a talent as a natural ability or a gifting or a skill of some sort.
And so, you listen to someone sing, or play an instrument, or you watch them play a sport, and you may hear someone say, they are so talented.
That is not the way talent is being used here.
In this culture, a talent was a measurement of weight.
We measure things in pounds or ounces.
If someone told you they have a pound of gold, they would have something very valuable.
It would be very similar… If someone told you they have a talent of gold, that would be extremely valuable.
And so with that, depending on what you were measuring would determine the value of the talent.
Now, we aren’t told what they were measuring here, but most scholars believe, this talent was a large amount of money.
I have read multiple opinions on this this week about how much a talent would have been worth, and the opinions ranged anywhere from $300,000 modern terms to about $1 million modern terms.
And so regardless, a talent is a lot of money.
If we take the high number just for argument’s sake, then he would have given one of them $1 million, one of them $2 million, and another one of them $5 million.
And so, if it’s 1 talent or 5, in either case, it is a large amount, very valuable to the master.
And so the master who owns the servants and owns the talents, gives the talents to the servants, and then he goes away.
Here’s where the story picks up to tell us exactly what each of the servants did with the property he had trusted to them.
Pick up with me in verse number 16–
He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.
And so very, simply, the one who had been given the five talents, he took the master’s money, traded with it and made the master five more talents.
Essentially, he invest the master’s money wisely, and he doubles the master’s property that he had been entrusted with.
Then we are told, the servant who had been given two talents does the same thing.
He takes what the master had given him and he makes him two talents more.
He doubles what the master had given him.
But then, we are told one servant who had been given one talent takes the master’s money and buries it in the ground for safekeeping.
Now, I’ve never understood the whole burying your money in the ground thing.
I know this is something that people used to do.
And if you know of anybody, who did it and you need help digging it up. Just call me.
Be glad to help.
But I just can’t imagine doing this with this amount of money.
But this is what he does…He buries his master’s money in the ground.
He doesn’t do what the other two do with it.
He doesn’t make anymore. He does nothing with it.
But then the master returns.
Look what it says beginning in verse number 19–
Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them.
Don’t miss that first portion. It says after a long time.
This was not a short trip away.
This was a long trip away.
But eventually, he does come as promised, and as expected, and he comes suddenly.
And immediately, when he comes, he comes to settle accounts.
In other words, he wants to see what each of the servants has done with what they have been given.
And here’s where the rubber meets the road isn’t it?
And so he comes back, and they all stand before him.
Look in verse 20.
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.
And so, the first servant comes and gives the report.
He was given five talents, and he has made five more.
The master commends him for his faithfulness….
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.’
Same exact thing happens with the one who had been given two talents.
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.’
But then he comes to the third servant, and the third servant gives the report of what he had done.
And don’t forget, this is the guy that did nothing.
He buried it in the ground.
But before he gives his report, he gives an excuse as to why he had been unfaithful.
Read it again there in verse 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, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’
Don’t miss this—
His excuse is that-
He knows the master is harsh and cruel, and is apparently a cutthroat business man, and so he just stores away the master’s money.
Now, this doesn’t make sense. And this is actually going to come back to bite him, because essentially his excuse is going to be turned back around on him..
Look at verse 25.
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? 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.
So his excuse is that he knew how cruel his master is and how he was afraid of losing his money because of that..
But actually, that doesn’t make sense because at the very least, he should’ve taken it to the bank and at least he would’ve gotten interest off of it.
This guy did as little as possible with what was given to him. He didn’t even get a little more for His master.
This is a story of laziness, and waste of opportunity.
The Master calls him wicked and slothful.
Wicked and lazy
And that is what he is.
He is not faithful.
He’s not good.
He is wicked.
He seems to be just like the others, but when examined, he proves to be fake.
And so, because he has wasted what he has been given. Because he did nothing with the gift from the master, the master commands that the talent be taken from him.
Look in verse 28.
So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents.
This is a strong and pointed parable here.
Every parable has spriitual meaning and they all tend to strike a deep theologically rich note.
This one is no different.
The first thing I want you to see from this parable is this..
Everything is the Lord’s.
All things are His. Your things. My things. Other people’s things.
It all belongs to God.
And they are His by virtue of the fact that He has created it all to begin with.
The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
for he has founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.
All things are the Lord’s by virtue of the fact that he created it.
And so, he has the right to demand from it that it be his servant.
That everything He creates would do everything to and for his glory.
In fact, this is what Paul says in
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
Everything was created by him and for him.
And so this is really important and fundamental.
That we are the property of the Lord along with the rest of creation.
As a result, we must give an account for how we live our lives and how we steward that which God has given us.
All three of these people in the parable are the servants of the master.
He owns them.
And so they also are held accountable by him.
I think the speaks of the general reality that all of us as human beings are made in God’s image.
We bear the stamp of his image so there’s something in us where we know by creation and conscience that our lives are owed unto God and that we will be accountable to him one day.
Church, Hear me… Everything is the Lord’s.
If we can get that, our lives will be transformed.
The second principle in the parable is that, just as the master does, God gives his gifts as he chooses, and he does so in perfect wisdom as to what we can handle.
In the parable, to one, he gave five.
To one he gave two.
To one he gave one.
Each according to his ability.
As the master, it is his prerogative.
He gets to do what he wants with what is His.
But this is also true, what each servant has been given, regardless of the amount, is a gift from the Lord to be stewarded in a faithful way.
And so what does this mean for us…
It means—
Some people are given more.
Some people have more resources.
Some people are born with more resources and more money than maybe you and I will ever have.
Some people are given bigger opportunities than others.
Some people are more gifted.
Some people are in the right place at the right time we say.
Some people are smarter.
We have to understand though..
All that is a gift of God that must be stwearded back to the Creator in worship.
It all belongs to him.
Your skills, your resources, your home, your things, your money is all apart of God’s creation.
We live on borrowed breath.
He is ultimately one who gives all things.
Regardless of what you’ve been given, we are required to be faithful unto God with what we’ve been given.
Whether or not what we have is large or small, the expectation is the same.
The servant in the parable who was given five talents was given incredibly more than the one who was given two talents.
He was given five times more than the one who was given one.
But again, that is the decision of the Lord.
And so whatever you have been given, just like in the parable, you can do one of two things with it.
We take what God has given us and we do with it the best that we can, and we return it back and even do our best to multiply it to the glory of our Lord and master.
In other words, We try.
We give it all we have for His glory. And we thank God if and when he blesses those efforts.
That’s what happens in the parable with the first two servants.
They tried, they were faithful, they ended up being fruitful, and they pleased their master.
However, the other option in the parable is we can be wicked and lazy with what we have been given.
We can live our life on the couch with no initiative or effort, and be lazy with what we have been given.
We can even make excuses about why we haven’t done anything, about why we can’t do that, about why we’re too old, or too young, or too this or too that, we can blame it on others, the servant blamed it on the master, but listen church family, those excuses will not fly whenever we stand before our Creator.
That doesn’t end well for the third servant in the parable.
Some have suggested that maybe he was angry that he wasn’t given as much.
You know we have that tendency as well… looking around at what other people are given , and then looking at what we’ve been given and instead of being thankful for what God has given us, we almost live, paralyzed and unuseful, thinking that we should’ve been given more.
That we should have gotten the five talents, and not this lousy old one talent of ours.
In that, there is some serious problems with our heart.
And really, we have to come to the point that we understand that all that we have is of grace.
Cotton Matther, an American Puritan, he said this…
“My usefulness was the last idol I was willing to part with…but now I can part with that, and am content to be laid aside and forgotten so that He may be glorified.”
He’s admitting that, even as a godly man, he struggled with pride—specifically, the pride in being useful to God and others.
He had made an idol out of his own effectiveness, productivity, and importance.
It’s easy to cling to the idea that our worth is tied to what we do, even in ministry or service.
Here, he’s saying he’s finally come to a place of surrender. Even if he is forgotten, if the Lord is glorified, then He is content.
This echoes John the Baptist from John 3:30
He must increase, but I must decrease.”
I think its also important to see here that in the parable, the master gives according to ability, and he gives more once the servants have proven to be faithful with what he has given.
If you notice in the parable, The man who was faithful with the five is given the one that the one man buried.
He takes away from the one that was unfaithful to give to the one that was faithful.
Why does he do that?
He does that because he knows that what he gives his faithful servant will be multiplied and used to add to what the Lord has given.
You were faithful with this, and so I will set you over more.
Let’s be faithful with what God has given.
The third principal I want you to see here is that the standard of judgment is the same with all three servants, regardless of what they have been given.
Look again at verse 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.’
Then if you look at Matthew 25:23
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.’
In both cases, the one with 5 and the one with 2 are told the same thing.
The one who was faithful with five, and the one who was faithful with two were all the exact same thing. ‘
Well, done, good and faithful servant.
You know, as I studied this this week, I asked the question, why is there three?
The parable xould have been told with one unfaitful and one faithful servant right?
But then we would the point, that you can be faithful to God and even commended by God by being faithful with 2 talents as with being faithful with 5.
He doesn’t tell the one with five that he did a better job because he made him more.
The commendation is the same. The commedation is for faithfulness.
This has to change the way we think about success in ministry.
And just in general as Christians and believers.
Success in God’s eyes is faithfulness.
You know, when we think about the heroes of the church well known men—Paul, Peter, John, J Edwards, G Whitefield, Spurgeon, Billy Graham, RC Sproul, John Macarthur..
We think of their lives and We think I bet they got told this or will get told “Well done good and faithful servant.”
And if they were faithful, and they were true to the Lord’s plan for their lives, then they most certainly will receive the commendation of “well done good and faithful servant.”
But what this text also teaches us is that with faithfulness as the standard of judgment, that also means—
The 90 year-old woman who faithfully loved her husband for years and stayed by his side to the very end, That woman who attended her church faithfully, teaching the children in her church in Sunday school, being a good mother and grandmother. Sharing the gospel faithfully with her family, and with those with whom she worked, and perhaps she was virtually unknown, that woman, who lived in faithful obscurity for years, never once gracing the stage to address a crowd, but faithfully living out her faith in Jesus Christ in front of those she was entrusted with, she will hear that same commendation from the master…
Well, done, good and faithful servant.
Hear me this morning and be encoruaged—The commendation is given, not based upon everybody being as fruitful as everybody else, Or as gifted as everybody else, or doing the same ministry as everybody else.
The commedation is given based upon faithfulness in what the Lord has given you.
The question that this passage demands is this.
If the master were to return now, would he commend you for your faithfulness with what you have been given?
Now, let me pause for a moment and say something really important—
This parable is not teaching that we are saved by our good works or by how productive we are.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
The point of the parable is not that the faithful servants earned their way into heaven—it’s that their faithfulness proved the genuineness of their relationship with the Master.
We don’t work to be saved. We work because we’ve been saved.
The only way any of us can ever be faithful is because God has shown us grace in Jesus Christ—who lived the perfect life we couldn’t, died the death we deserved, and rose again.
So if you feel the weight of this passage, if you feel convicted, Good!!
Cry out to Jesus to save you and He will.
And you can be prepared!
He has already been away a while.
In the parable, he went away a long time, but He is coming back one day.
Will you be ready?
Would he call you a wicked and lazy servant because you did not take what he had given you use it for his glory?
Listen to how this parable ends.
So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 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. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
These last verses, tell us that if we are faithful here on earth, that we will be awarded heaven and rewarded with an abundance of more than we can think or imagine.
But for those who are deemed unfaithful. Those who are deemed wicked and lazy servants even what they have will be taken away.
What is worth noting is like the 10 virgins, this servant seemed to be just like the others, but in the final analysis. he proves to be not like the others.
There will be nothing to cling to on the day of judgment with the master returns.
The wicked servant no longer had anything of the masters, but he was cast into the place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
To the believer this morning, let me encourage you to be faithful.
Just be faithful. In whatever God has gifted and given you, be faithful.
Faithfulness to the Lord means being obedient to him, persevering through trials by keeping your eyes on Christ, and stewarding what He gives—all for His glory. It’s not about being great in the world’s eyes. It’s about being faithful in God’s eyes.
It means living out Psalm 113:3–
From the rising of the sun to its setting,
the name of the Lord is to be praised!
To unbeliever, once again, this text and parable serves as a reminder and warning that there is coming a day where all those in God’s world, will stand before him in judgment.
Are you prepare to stand before your creator who gave you the breath in your lungs and the beating heart in your chest and answer for how you have stewarded what God has given you?
The good news is that if you have wasted your life thus far, you can find new life today in him, and live a life not wasted and for His glory.
Just call on him, and he will save.
