Seeing Yourself as God Sees You

Matthew 25:14–30 NIV

14 “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. 15 To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16 The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. 17 So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. 18 But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’ 21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ 22 “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’ 23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ 24 “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ 26 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. 28 “ ‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

My Decision: I choose to fulfill the mission that God has in mind for me.

Introduction

One man in a group that was being received into membership in the church heard the pastor say, "Now God has given each of you a unique talent. When you join the church, you are expected to serve God with whatever abilities you have." Well, it just so happened that this particular man was a reformed criminal. After he was released from prison, he had renounced the life of crime and gone straight. Joining the church, making a commitment to follow Jesus, was the first step in that effort. Serving God was a little out of his line, but he wanted to do what he could. So he went to the pastor and said, "Preacher, church work is something I'm not real familiar with, but I can fix the church's electric meter so that every other day it will run backwards. That way you'll never have to write another check to American Electric." Well, some talents are just inappropriate for use in the service of God, no matter how sincerely they're offered! But God has given all of us gifts and talents that are to be used to help build His kingdom.

Proverbs 31 has been read and studied so frequently at women’s events around the world that the character who emerges from these pages is known by everyone as the Proverbs 31 Woman, a wife who is worth more than rubies: She loves her work and is busy from the wee hours of the morning until late at night, she provides for her family with beauty and abundance, she has people who work for her, she is business savvy and profitable, she is physically strong, she generously cares for the poor, she is married to a leader, she has dignity and peace, she is wise and loved, and she fears the Lord. What a woman!

What a woman? What a person! It’s not just women who can learn from her. All of us could hold her up as a model, though I suppose many of us would quickly turn the page when comparing ourselves to her, hoping to find a Proverbs 32 woman who isn’t quite so intimidating.

Some people would rather have it that others have low expectations of them, that way they won’t be disappointed. Having high expectations of ourselves may be intimidating, but it sure beats having low expectations. I’m glad that God doesn’t think our being like the Proverbs 31 woman is out of reach. He wants the best for us, and he’s made it possible for us to achieve that.

1. God Wants Us to Excel

How do we make sense of the Proverb 31 Ultimate Role Model when so many other passages seem to promote weakness as the ultimate virtue. Passages like “Blessed are the meek,” “The first shall be last,” and “Turn the other cheek,” all say that strength is not the key to inheriting the kingdom of God.

Humility is clearly a high value of Jesus who himself became a servant. We are to emulate him, to be humble. Right? Of course. But we have to remember that in our humility we find awesome strength. Just like Jesus humbled himself even to the point of death on a cross and trusted God, three days later God made him the greatest victor the world had ever seen!

God wants us to “be more than conquerors,” to “run to win the prize,” to not be timid, but bold. He gives us the strength to fly like eagles and he says we can do all things through him.

We sometimes avoid leadership and fear success because we know that selfish ambitions are prohibited in scripture. And yet biblical characters like Esther’s uncle Mordecai, a respected leader in a secular culture, are presented as heroes. Like the Proverbs 31 woman, Mordecai was strong, bold, successful, famous, wealthy — all the things we’re told not to pursue.

Maybe it’s the pursuit of worldly success that is the problem, and the success itself is not actually very significant. When we pursue glory, we may get it, but glory will be our reward. When we pursue the mission of God, and we do not seek glory, any glory we get is simply incidental. We may or may not be famous and wealthy, but when we walk with God, we’ll certainly be strong and bold — and humble, because it is not ourselves we are promoting, but God. So we use our strength and boldness not for ourselves, but for others, just like Jesus did on the cross.

God wants us to excel. The parable of the talents makes that abundantly clear. The master gave his servants money and expected them to manage it wisely, even to turn a profit. Likewise, God gave us gifts and skills and talents and he expects us to use them to further his kingdom.

He is counting on us to do his work. How can we “turn a profit” if we are scared of our own shadows? How can we draw people to Christ and defend the cause of the weak and be caretakers of the earth if we don’t use the gifts God has given us?

And we have been given gifts. We’ve been given different talents, and different degrees of ability — exactly what we need to fulfill the mission God has given us. “To some has been given the gift of (you fill in the blank…)”. God wants us to use what he has given us, to boldly pursue the mission that he has in mind for us.

A little child with no earthly goods is accountable to God the same way a brilliant CEO is. The child may have been given the gift of faith with a God-given mission to pray for others. The CEO may have been given the gift of leadership with a God-given mission to earn large sums of money that she can use to do God’s work in the world.

What is your talent? If you’ve been given much, much will be expected of you. Are you living up to God’s expectations? Are you leading the people who are watching you along the path God has set for you? If you’ve been given little, are you using even that to the best of your ability? Are you serving joyfully and respecting the leaders God has placed over you? The day is coming when God will ask for an accounting of your life. He’ll be looking for excellence, not excuses.

2. God Wants Us to Enjoy Good Things

So, God wants us to excel, but is that only for his benefit? Doesn’t he want us to have any pleasure for ourselves? Does he want us to be successful only so we can give our hard-earned cash away?

It may seem like it. Jesus went so far as to say that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven”. The Bible calls the love of money a “root of all kinds of evil”. That doesn’t sound good.

Feeling guilty about the good things we have probably goes back to our childhood. Did your mom ever say something like, “Don’t you know there are starving children in Africa?” We see coverage of poverty-stricken nations or maybe we’ve even been to one. When we see the shacks they live in, or the lack of hygienic medical facilities, or the distance they have to walk to get water it’s hard to not be embarrassed about having several bathrooms and cars.

But, like me, you probably enjoy having a place to live and driving a decent car and being able to pay for groceries — maybe even eat out once in awhile. Is that so bad?

Poverty is not what God envisions for us. In fact, poverty is not what God planned for anybody. Poverty is a result of the fall, something that breaks Jesus’ heart; his command to us to provide for the poor clearly indicates that poverty is not an ideal situation. He made the world with an abundance of resources for us to enjoy and manage.

Just as we might look at our beautiful home or car or other beloved possession and say, “I love that!” so God did after he created the world. “It is good,” he said each day in admiration of his own work. God is the author and creator of beauty and order; he crammed this world full of good things; he made us the crown of creation, stewards or caretakers of the earth — surely God wants us to enjoy these good things. Even the role model he gave us in Proverbs 31 is a wealthy woman who enjoys beautiful, costly things.

God loves us and created us to be heirs and even co-managers of his blessings. Unless God has called you to a lifestyle of poverty, having material blessing is not a sin. It’s a blessing! Be grateful for your good gifts, and enjoy them. But remember what they are and whose they are; they are gifts of God, and you have been given them to use—everything we have still belongs to Him - He has given it to us to use!

3. God Wants Us to Live Within His Will

Not all of us have an abundance of material things. In fact, when we look around, it may seem that the people who have all the success, all the power, all the money are not deserving people at all. So often in our society, the wicked prosper, at least for the time being. The godly Proverbs 31 men and women are few and far between.

Scripture tells us not to be jealous of the wicked. They may appear to have it altogether now, but God scoffs at them; they are like chaff that will be blown away in the wind.

God wants us to live within his will. He calls us to his mission and purpose in the world, and he also gives us talents to be able to accomplish that mission. In the parable of the talents, the servants’ task was to take care of the master’s property; likewise, God entrusts us to care for his world and the people in it. Our focus should be on joining that mission; the talents are simply the tools God gives us for that mission.

The Proverbs 31 woman is wealthy and talented. Notice, however, that her hands are open. She is generous and hardworking. She is living in such a way that her wealth is an advantage to her, not a hindrance. The reason there are so many warnings about wealth in the Bible is because it can so easily morph from a blessing into a curse. Wealth, in and of itself is not sinful, but if we have wealth, we have great responsibility. The same can be said of gifts or talents that we have been given by God. And the truth is that everybody here and everybody watching on our livestream has been gifted in one way or another.

There is a psychologist at Harvard named Howard Gardner who is trying to revolutionize the study of intelligence. He says we have been studying I.Q. all wrong. On our intelligence tests we only measure one or two forms of intelligence. Gardner says that there are actually seven forms of intelligence. Some people are gifted with linguistic intelligence, he says. These are our writers and poets. Others have what he calls logical/mathematical intelligence. They make good accountants and scientists.

Some people are gifted spatially. These are our artists and architects. Some are gifted kinesthetically. Their bodies are unusually graceful and coordinated. These are our athletes and dancers. Others are gifted interpersonally. They know instinctively how to get along well with the people around them. These are our sales persons, counselors, teachers. Some are gifted in their ability to look within. These are our philosophers " our wise people. Some are gifted musically.

Here is the important point. Gardner claims that everyone he has ever tested has scored high on at least one of these seven forms of intelligence. All of us are gifted in our own way. Many of us are smarter than we think we are. Don't you wish that someone had told you that a long time ago?

Sir Michael Costa, the celebrated conductor, was holding a rehearsal. As the mighty chorus rang out, accompanied by scores of instruments, the piccolo player a little pint-sized flute thinking perhaps that his contribution would not be missed amid so much music, stopped playing. Suddenly, the great leader stopped and cried out, "Where is the piccolo?"

The sound of that one small instrument was necessary to the harmony, and the Master Conductor missed it when it dropped out. The point? To the Conductor there are no insignificant instruments in an orchestra. Sometimes the smallest and seemingly least important one can make the greatest contribution and even if it doesn't seem to make that big a difference to the audience at large, THE CONDUCTOR KNOWS IT right away!

In the Church the players and the instruments are diverse-different sizes, different shapes, different notes, different roles to play. But like the piccolo player in Sir Michael's orchestra, we often in our own sovereignty decide that our contribution is not significant. Our contribution couldn't possibly make a difference. And so we quit playing. Stop doing that which we've been given to do. We drop out. But the Conductor immediately notices. From our perspective, our contribution may be small, but from His, it is crucial.

Do you want to know how to enjoy your gifts to the fullest? Throw them into the awesome work of God’s mission in the world.

Conclusion

The parable of the talents, the description of the model wife, and a myriad of other passages in the Bible all point to the same thing: God expects big things from you. He sees you as a great person.

God has a purpose for you, and he gives you everything you need to join his mission.

God’s expectations may intimidate you or build your confidence. It’s up to you how to respond. But if you want to fully enjoy the good gifts God has given you, don’t sit on the sidelines with them. Use them to make a difference in this world. Be all that God made you for by putting your gifts and talents in play to honor the Lord.

This Week: Identify and use the gifts God has given to you for his mission.

The Communion Supper, instituted by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is a sacrament, which proclaims His life, His sufferings, His sacrificial death, and resurrection, and the hope of His coming again. It shows forth the Lord’s death until His return.

The Supper is a means of grace in which Christ is present by the Spirit. It is to be received in reverent appreciation and gratefulness for the work of Christ.

All those who are truly repentant, forsaking their sins, and believing in Christ for salvation are invited to participate in the death and resurrection of Christ. We come to the table that we may be renewed in life and salvation and be made one by the Spirit.

In unity with the Church, we confess our faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. And so we pray:

The minister may offer a prayer of confession and supplication, concluding with the following prayer of consecration:

Holy God,

We gather at this, your table, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, who by your Spirit was anointed to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, set at liberty those who are oppressed. Christ healed the sick, fed the hungry, ate with sinners, and established the new covenant for forgiveness of sins. We live in the hope of His coming again.

On the night in which He was betrayed, He took bread, gave thanks, broke the bread, gave it to His disciples, and said: “This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

Likewise, when the supper was over, He took the cup, gave thanks, gave it to His disciples, and said: “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.” Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And so, we gather as the Body of Christ to offer ourselves to you in praise and thanksgiving. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us and on these your gifts. Make them by the power of your Spirit to be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the Body of Christ, redeemed by His blood.

By your Spirit make us one in Christ, one with each other, and one in the ministry of Christ to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

And now, as Jesus has taught us, let us pray:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Before the partaking of the bread, let the minister say:

The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, broken for you, preserve you blameless, unto everlasting life. Eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and be thankful.

Before the partaking of the cup, let the minister say:

The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, shed for you, preserve you blameless unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and be thankful.