Luke #43: Theme: Faithful Stewardship (19:11-27)
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Luke 19:11-27
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Bye, kids!
Good morning, and welcome to Family Worship with the church body of Eastern Hills: People helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day. Whether you are here in the room, or online, thanks for being part of our celebration of Jesus this morning. I’m senior pastor Bill Connors, and I’m grateful for this church family and being able to gather together.
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Opening
Opening
Way back in chapter 9, verse 51, in our study of the story of the King in the Gospel of Luke, we started what is commonly referred to as Luke’s “travel narrative.” That was eighteen sermons ago. This morning, we come to the end of this “travel narrative” section of Luke with the last parable recorded before Passion Week: the parable of the ten minas.
The title of our message today is “Faithful Stewardship.” This is not the first time in Luke that Jesus has used a parable to discuss the topic of stewardship. We most recently saw this several weeks ago when we looked at the first part of chapter 16, where Jesus gave us the parable of the worldly steward. Trevor preached on stewardship from chapter 12 back in August.
So please open your Bibles or your Bible apps to the 19th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, and stand as you are able to do so in honor of the recitation of the Scriptures, as read verses 11 through 27:
11 As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem, and they thought the kingdom of God was going to appear right away. 12 Therefore he said, “A nobleman traveled to a far country to receive for himself authority to be king and then to return. 13 He called ten of his servants, gave them ten minas, and told them, ‘Engage in business until I come back.’ 14 “But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We don’t want this man to rule over us.’ 15 “At his return, having received the authority to be king, he summoned those servants he had given the money to, so that he could find out how much they had made in business. 16 The first came forward and said, ‘Master, your mina has earned ten more minas.’ 17 “ ‘Well done, good servant!’ he told him. ‘Because you have been faithful in a very small matter, have authority over ten towns.’ 18 “The second came and said, ‘Master, your mina has made five minas.’ 19 “So he said to him, ‘You will be over five towns.’ 20 “And another came and said, ‘Master, here is your mina. I have kept it safe in a cloth 21 because I was afraid of you since you’re a harsh man: you collect what you didn’t deposit and reap what you didn’t sow.’ 22 “He told him, ‘I will condemn you by what you have said, you evil servant! If you knew I was a harsh man, collecting what I didn’t deposit and reaping what I didn’t sow, 23 why, then, didn’t you put my money in the bank? And when I returned, I would have collected it with interest.’ 24 So he said to those standing there, ‘Take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’ 25 “But they said to him, ‘Master, he has ten minas.’ 26 “ ‘I tell you, that to everyone who has, more will be given; and from the one who does not have, even what he does have will be taken away. 27 But bring here these enemies of mine, who did not want me to rule over them, and slaughter them in my presence.’ ”
PRAYER
I have shared my personal testimony of coming to faith in Christ before, but this morning, I need to share some of it again because of how it connects to this passage—not that this passage was a part of my conversion, but my understanding and explanation of this passage shares something in common with my conversion.
As many of you know, I came to faith out of atheism. I did not believe that God existed, and that everything in the Universe—in fact the existence of the Universe itself—was a gigantic cosmic accident that occurred without any external forces acting upon it. In my senior year of high school, I started dating Melanie, who was already a believer in Christ. Through her witness, I was challenged to ask the question: “What if I’m wrong?”
This led me to evaluate the assumptions that I made about my existence. Given what I could observe about the Universe, about the world around me, and about my very self, what was more likely: That everything, including me, was just a fortunate happenstance—that nothing plus no one suddenly popped unbidden into existence from nowhere? Or that it and I were designed? Design is vastly more likely, given the complexity and specificity of the Universe and of my own body and mind. And it seemed reasonable that only the God of the Bible is powerful enough, and wise enough, and personal enough to want to create little old me.
So if God designed me, then that suggests that there is an intention behind the design—an intention focused on Him and His purposes. And if that’s the case, then the question became: am I living my life in such a way as to fulfill that purpose, or not? The answer was, “No.” I realized that my existence created a responsibility to live my life with and for Him, and I knew I was just living for myself. I knew that I had always lived for myself, and that I could never get back to “right.” And that’s when I understood what it meant that Jesus had died for me.
But I want to bring it back to this idea of a responsibility. Each of us is made by God on purpose, with purpose, for purpose. And if we are Christians—if we have surrendered our lives to Jesus in faith—then we have been given a very specific stewardship… the stewardship of our very selves for His glory. For the most part, we get to make choices about where we go, what we do, what we say, etc. How we manage our lives matters.
We find three managers or stewards in today’s passage in Luke 19. This is again a parable, which generally are earthly stories with a spiritual meaning. In the case of the parable of the minas that we’re looking at today, Luke provides us with the reason for Jesus’s giving this parable, which allows us to interpret it in a very specific way:
11 As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem, and they thought the kingdom of God was going to appear right away.
Luke tells us that this parable is about the final “appearance,” or consummation, of the kingdom of God, which the people thought was going to occur as soon as Jesus reached Jerusalem.
In the Jewish mind, this meant that Jesus was going to go into Jerusalem, manifest the authoritative power of God and be declared the rightful King of Israel, and then set Israel up as the greatest nation on earth by overthrowing the Roman occupation. And since Jesus was heading for Jerusalem, they assumed that that must be what He was about to do—the appearance of the kingdom of God was upon them!
But this tells us that they hadn’t really been paying attention to what Jesus had said would happen when He arrived in Jerusalem: that He would be handed over to the Gentiles, mocked, insulted, spit on, flogged, and killed… and then would rise on the third day (Luke 18:32-33).
Luke’s declaration of this parable’s meaning actually allows us to do a little allegorizing, which I usually try to avoid with parables. We—the church, those who follow Christ—are the servants or stewards in this case, and we have been entrusted with a stewardship, to be occupied in stewardship, and will be held accountable for our stewardship.
1: Entrusted with stewardship
1: Entrusted with stewardship
Interestingly enough, Jesus may have modeled at least the initial concept of this parable on something that had already occurred in Israel’s history not too long before this, which would have echoed in the minds of His audience. In 4 BC, after the death of King Herod the Great, Herod’s son Archelaus traveled to Rome in order to demand that he be made king of Judea in his father’s place, and a delegation was sent behind him to object to his ascension to the throne. Unlike the parable, however, Archelaus was not made king, but instead was named “ethnarch”: ruler over the Hebrew people. The nobleman here in the parable makes a similar journey with a similar purpose. But before he does, he entrusts ten of his servants with a responsibility to steward.
12 Therefore he said, “A nobleman traveled to a far country to receive for himself authority to be king and then to return. 13 He called ten of his servants, gave them ten minas, and told them, ‘Engage in business until I come back.’
The nobleman was going away to be given the authority to be king over everyone. He gave each of his 10 servants one mina, worth about 100 denarii or drachmas, or about three to four months’ of wages. This was an incredibly gracious action.
We are not told how long the nobleman would be gone, just that he would return and that until that happened, his servants were to “engage in business” with what he had given to them. Whose business? The business of the master. Those were still his minas, after all. Certainly the assumption is that he would settle accounts with them upon his return, which assumes that the delay will be lengthy (if it was short, how could they engage in productive business?).
Since we know that we are the servants in this parable, then we immediately know who the nobleman/Master/King is: He is Jesus Himself. Just as the nobleman went away stating that he would return in power, so Christ after His resurrection ascended to the right hand of God the Father, where He awaits the time appointed by the Father when He will return.
9 After he had said this, he was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going, they were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them. 11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven.”
This return in glory and power is the appearing of the kingdom of God that the Jews were thinking was about to happen, but they were mistaken. We are in the midst of the time in between right now.
And just as the servants were entrusted with a stewardship of what the master had given them while he was away, so Jesus has entrusted us with a stewardship given to us while we look forward to His return.
Many try to connect this parable with the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30, which we won’t read now. But there are several major differences between this parable and that one. So many, in fact, that they simply cannot be the same parable given at the same time or with the same purpose. I won’t go into all the differences for the sake of time, but if you compare them, you’ll see what I mean.
But one major difference I would like to point out right now is that, unlike in the parable of the talents—where each of the servants is given a different number of talents in accordance with their ability (Matt 25:15)—in the parable of the minas each servant is given exactly the same resource in the same amount: one mina. What could this represent?
I believe that the mina represents opportunity. I think of it this way: Who has more time each day: the retired person, the career climber, the mom who works at home, the high school student, or the elementary school child? None of them. Why? They each have exactly the same resource to work with every day: 24 hours, 1,440 minutes, 86,400 seconds. We might think that because we have things on our calendars that we don’t have as much time, but that’s just not true. We just don’t have as much unscheduled time. The question isn’t how much time we have to use, but how we use the time that we have.
How about money? Which of us has the greatest percentage of money? None of us. We all have 100% of the money that we have, and while the amount will change over our lives, the percentage does not. God doesn’t expect us to give the amount that people who have 10 times our income can give. That would be impossible. But He does call us to faithfully and cheerfully steward the amount He has given to us, for example though giving a percentage of our income to the work of the church. It’s not a question of how much money we have to use, but how we use the money that we have.
And what about the Gospel? We all have the same Gospel to share with the world. We’re all equal when we come to the cross of Jesus, and we can all share as we have the opportunity to do so. The question isn’t how many souls come to faith through our sharing, but how faithfully we share when we have the chance.
The question really is how we view ourselves: Do we see ourselves as our own masters, to which we have tacked on the label, “Christian,” or are we actually His servants? Paul told the church at Corinth that they were to see him and those who minister with him as managers, as stewards, of the mysteries of God in the Gospel.
1 A person should think of us in this way: as servants of Christ and managers of the mysteries of God. 2 In this regard, it is required that managers be found faithful.
We are to be faithful to manage well whatever opportunities God has called us to and given to us to manage. It might be time, it might be resources, it might be relationships, it might be skills or abilities, and it always includes the Gospel. We exist for Him, and our lives are a constant stewardship of God’s resources: we are to be occupied with the act of stewardship, which is our next point:
2: Occupied with stewardship
2: Occupied with stewardship
When I am “occupied” with something, it means that I’m focused on it. It’s in the forefront of my mind at that time. When I was writing this sermon, I was occupied with that, and at this moment, I’m occupied with the task of preaching. But for a broader picture, I’m occupied with the call of pastoring, of which preaching is a major part. And while we don’t get to see the servants’ day-to-day use of the resource that the nobleman had left with them, we do get to see the results when he returns not merely as nobleman, but as king:
15 “At his return, having received the authority to be king, he summoned those servants he had given the money to, so that he could find out how much they had made in business. 16 The first came forward and said, ‘Master, your mina has earned ten more minas.’ 17 “ ‘Well done, good servant!’ he told him. ‘Because you have been faithful in a very small matter, have authority over ten towns.’ 18 “The second came and said, ‘Master, your mina has made five minas.’ 19 “So he said to him, ‘You will be over five towns.’
The settlement arrived for the servants in the parable. We only hear about three of the servants’ work, and the first two were faithful in the stewardship the king had given to them.
Many commentators suggest that the first servant was fully faithful, the second halfway faithful, and the third (which we will review in a moment) not faithful at all. I disagree. I think that the first and second servants, who made a 1000% increase and a 500% increase to their minas, were both 100% faithful in their particular areas of expertise. Some businesses are just generally more profitable than others, but that doesn’t mean one business is “better” than the other. Not only that, but each person has their own particular skillset, and shouldn’t be judged by someone else’s skillset. It’s up to God to give us the skillset that He wants us to have, the gifts that He wants us to steward. Our task is then to use those gifts for His purposes:
10 Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God.
The only One we need to compare ourselves to in this regard is Jesus Christ. Certainly, we are instructed in Scripture that we should take note of those whose lives are fruitful and imitate them (Phil 3:17, Heb 13:7), and learn from the errors of those who don’t obey so we DON’T imitate them (2 Thes 3:14, 3 John 11), but ultimately our comparison is only to Christ, not to each other:
4 Let each person examine his own work, and then he can take pride in himself alone, and not compare himself with someone else. 5 For each person will have to carry his own load.
When I came to faith in Christ, as I grew in my faith I discovered that there were skills that I had been given that I could use for kingdom purposes. I’ve always been musical. I could use that for Him. I love to learn and love to teach. I could use those. I have some tech capabilities. Those could serve the King as well. This isn’t to toot my own horn: just an example of the ways that I could skillfully invest my “mina.”
We all have opportunity to steward God’s gracious gifts. Where are the places where you can “engage in business” with your “mina?” How can you use your talents, gifts, resources, time, and relationships for the purposes of the kingdom?
See, there isn’t any area of our lives that can’t be stewarded for the glory of the King out of gratitude to Him for His incredible grace:
4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, 5 he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. 6 He poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life. 8 This saying is trustworthy. I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed God might be careful to devote themselves to good works. These are good and profitable for everyone.
The issue isn’t the return: it’s the faithfulness of the steward to the call they have received.
Now we come to the really incredible part: the reward for those who occupied themselves with stewardship. The one who made a ten-fold profit is given management over ten towns in the kingdom. The one who made a five-fold profit is given management over five towns. The point isn’t the number of towns. The point is the generosity of the reward: These faithful men went from being servants to being rulers.
This is an incredible and surprising shift in the parable, and I’m certain that the people who heard it were shocked. But we shouldn’t be surprised, because we know that this is the case, because it has been promised to us in the Scriptures:
6 Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
11 This saying is trustworthy: For if we died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
I can’t explain what this looks like—I just know that it’s true, because the Scriptures are trustworthy. However, in the parable not every “servant” was truly a servant. Not every person who called themselves a “servant” actually knew the King. One of them only served himself, and so denied the king. And he was called to account for his failed stewardship, which brings us to our final point:
3: Accountable for stewardship
3: Accountable for stewardship
The problem with the last servant is one of two things: Either he didn’t actually see himself as a servant of the nobleman made King, or he didn’t think that the King was ever coming back to settle accounts. So he ignored the king’s instruction. So he was unprepared when the King returned to call their stewardship to account. His attempts to justify himself before the King display his disobedience and his dishonesty:
20 “And another came and said, ‘Master, here is your mina. I have kept it safe in a cloth 21 because I was afraid of you since you’re a harsh man: you collect what you didn’t deposit and reap what you didn’t sow.’ 22 “He told him, ‘I will condemn you by what you have said, you evil servant! If you knew I was a harsh man, collecting what I didn’t deposit and reaping what I didn’t sow, 23 why, then, didn’t you put my money in the bank? And when I returned, I would have collected it with interest.’ 24 So he said to those standing there, ‘Take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’ 25 “But they said to him, ‘Master, he has ten minas.’ 26 “ ‘I tell you, that to everyone who has, more will be given; and from the one who does not have, even what he does have will be taken away.
The interesting thing about this is that the servant says things about the king that we know aren’t true: he doesn’t seem to have been harsh at all with his servants. He gave them a large sum of money and instructed them to do business with it, and appears to have been rather generous in his rewarding of those who were faithful to carry out his instructions. The portrait that the supposed servant paints is simply inaccurate.
But the master doesn’t need to defend himself. Instead, he uses the unfaithful servant’s words against him, because not only is he lying about the King, he’s lying about his fear—if he were truly afraid of the master, then he would have at least put the mina in a secure location and had it make a little money, rather than simply ignoring the master’s instructions by wrapping it up in a cloth and forgetting about it. He wasn’t afraid: he was unfaithful. He didn’t serve the master: he served himself.
The one mina was given to the one who had the ten minas, and Jesus echoed the words that He said back in Luke 8, which we saw back in May:
18 Therefore take care how you listen. For whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.”
But my point this morning isn’t to say: “Be better stewards. Work harder. Sacrifice more. Sin less.” The point is to say: look at the blessing that the faithful stewards received! This guy missed his opportunity to be blessed. Giving of yourselves, your resources, and especially giving away the Gospel is an opportunity, not a burden. It’s a blessing, not a curse.
Here’s an example: Paul knew how to be content with whatever he had, and yet he still encouraged the Philippians in supporting his ministry while he was in prison, because they would be blessed as they gave, not because he needed the money:
17 Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that is increasing to your account.
And if we are in Christ, the stewardship that we have been given means that we have an opportunity to showcase the greatness of King Jesus by how we live our lives, and there will come a time that our stewardship will be evaluated. We are to put the greatness of God on display with our very lives:
14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
But take the illustration even one step deeper: The servant didn’t really know the master, did he? He saw the King as a thief, a bully, and a tyrant. How many of us have this same picture of God in our minds: we think that He’s always angry, always waiting for us to mess up, always ready to bring the hammer of punishment for the slightest infraction.
But this isn’t true. God loves you! And He has proven His love for you by giving Christ in your place so that He could have a relationship with you through faith. When we surrender to Christ, trusting that His perfect life, sacrificial death, and triumphant resurrection justify us before God and give us eternal life, submitting to Him as Lord, then we are saved, and become His servants, His stewards as I’ve been speaking of throughout this message. This isn’t some frustrating thing forced on us...The stewardship that He calls us to is an incredible gift that we get to give to Him in gratitude, both because of what He has done, and because through it He draws us nearer and nearer in relationship to Himself. It’s not just about the reward at the end (although that’s a great thing to look forward to as well!).
Closing
Closing
There’s one group of people that are a part of the parable that we haven’t addressed. These are the rebels. I skipped verse 14:
14 “But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We don’t want this man to rule over us.’
The rebels were subjects of the king (whether they liked it or not), and thus had a responsibility to him, but tried to reject his position. But the position of King wasn’t up for a vote. That was not a democracy. The position of King of the Universe isn’t up for vote either. Jesus is King over every thing and every one. These rebellious subjects are those who refuse to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Sadly, perhaps around a week after Jesus gave this parable, the Jews would say basically the same thing about Him:
15 They shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Should I crucify your king?” “We have no king but Caesar!” the chief priests answered.
The outcome for the rebels is a dire one. They are destroyed.
27 But bring here these enemies of mine, who did not want me to rule over them, and slaughter them in my presence.’ ”
Jesus has already come in the flesh and died as a means of providing the way to the Father. When He comes back, and He will come back just like the master in the parable, it won’t be to die again. It will be to give salvation to those who are His servants.
27 And just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment—28 so also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Once He returns in all authority and power, it will be too late to change our allegiance. Trust in Christ this morning because He is your King, who loves you and wants to be in a relationship with you. This is our first step of proper stewardship of our lives—believing that Jesus is Savior and Lord.
Salvation
Baptism
Church membership
Prayer
Giving
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Remember that our mission is to be People helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day.
And in the process of fulfilling this mission, we have four primary values:
Authentic Family
We have fun and encourage each other through life’s ups and downs.
Real Truth
We dig into Scripture for clarity in a confusing world.
Transformational Growth
We thrive as we learn to become more like Jesus together.
Practical Impact
We seek to meet the needs of our neighbors wherever we find them.
Bible reading (Philemon, Ps. 120)
Pastor’s Study tonight
Prayer Meeting
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
Our benediction passage today just gives us the example of Paul as a faithful steward of the grace of God in His life, as an encouragement to us today:
6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time for my departure is close. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved his appearing.
What hope this is for us who steward our lives for His purposes and glory! Go and fight the good fight this week.
