Matthew 25:14-30
Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to the New Testament, to the book of Matthew. Our reading
today is Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 25, verses 14 through 30. This is one of Jesus’ kingdom
parables. Toward the end of Matthew, he
spends a little bit of time explaining to his disciples what the kingdom
of God is like. And in the previous parable,
at the beginning of chapter 25, he speaks of the parable of the
ten virgins, and it speaks of waiting on the kingdom of God
to appear. And he speaks of them having
oil in their lamps or faith. And they wait and they wait for
the king to come. Today’s passage is the parable
of the talents. It’s not a message about waiting,
but working. And so we get two twin or pairs
of what is the kingdom like stories in chapter 25 of Matthew. And so we look at the parable
of the talents today as we consider why our church must be stewards.
So let us hear God’s word together from Matthew’s gospel, chapter
25, beginning at verse 14. This is Jesus speaking, and he’s
speaking of the kingdom of heaven. 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, and yet another
one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 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. Now,
after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled
accounts with them. And he who had received the five
talents came forward, bringing the five talents more, saying,
Master, you deliver to me five talents. Here I have made five
talents more. 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.
And he also, who had the two talents, came forward, saying,
Master, you delivered to me two talents. Here I have made you
two talents more. 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.
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. But his master answered him,
you wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I reap where I
have not sowed and gather where I have not scattered any 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 take the talent from him and give it to him who has the 10
talents. For to everyone who has will
be given more, 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, into that place
where there will be weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Amen. This is God’s holy and inspired
word. Let us pray together and ask for God’s grace and mercy
that we might hear and receive it. Our great God, we thank you
that you are a God who speaks. You speak and the world comes
into existence. You speak and your powerful world
word upholds all that you have made. You speak and new life,
the dead receive. You speak and the wind and the
waves die down. You speak into our hearts through
the preaching of the word. And so we ask now. that our minds
and our hearts and our hands might be willing and ready and
able to hear and receive your word, that we might leave this
place thinking and feeling and ready to do all that you ask,
that we might accomplish your holy ends for your glory and
the good of our neighbors. This we ask in the name of Jesus,
our great savior. Amen. Yesterday, there was a
headline in the local news that a man working in a recycling
factory was taking apart an old television that had been sent
to be recycled. And inside that television, he
found a pile of cash. And it amounted to $100,000.
It was in stacks of 50s. And so the man, being a good,
honest man, reported it to those in authority over him. They tracked
down the owner of the television. And what they found out was that
about 30 years ago, a man had stashed this money, this $100,000,
into the console of his television. Now, in my mind, I’m picturing
that it was one of those console televisions in a cabinet that
sat on the floor. Many of you remember from days
gone by. Nowadays, we look up at TVs.
It used to be that we looked down at them. how our nets have
been strained over the years. But inside this television was
$100,000 that this man had put inside a cash box. And his intent
was that it would stay there safely until someday his family
might inherit it. Well, as the story goes in the
news, this man was glad to receive back his $100,000 that he had
departed with some 30 years ago. He had forgotten it. He had given
the TV to a friend. That friend had now sent the
television to be recycled. $100,000 is quite a chunk of
change. And you think about 30 years ago, that would be sometime
in the mid-1980s when that man stashed it. You figure it was
in the 60s and 70s that he began to accumulate and save that money. It’s interesting to think about
what we would have done if we were in his shoes. This man took
real money, real cash, and he did not put it in the bank or
inside some safe deposit box where it might be safe from danger
or fire. No, he put it in a rather dangerous place inside a television
where it gets hot, where there are wires and fires can be caused. But also, he didn’t make that
money work for him. You think about what that money
would be worth now, 30 to 35 years later, at just a few percent
interest, his money could have grown. It’s a good way to think
about this story of the parable of the talents. The story goes
like this. A man is about to leave to a
foreign country for some time, and he brings a couple of his
household servants into him and says, I’m going to leave, and
I’m going to, while I’m gone, entrust you with my wealth. And
so to one, he gives the five talents, to another two, and
yet another, he gives one talent. And he expects that upon his
return, they will have done something to make a return on his money. Now, understand that a talent
was an amount of money. It was a weight, in fact. But
a talent was an amount of money in biblical times, which would
have taken a lifetime for most people to earn. And so you can
imagine that the one talent, the two talent, The five talents
was a great sum of money. It was a great resource that
could have been invested and grown and would have materialized
into something greater if it had been put to work. Well, at
once, two of the servants go out and make a return on their
money. The one who had received five
talents turns it into 10. The one who received two turns
it into four. But one digs a hole and he hides
it. And the master returns after
some time. The one who has five talents
shows him that he has 10. The one that had two shows him
that he has four. And there’s this third servant,
he says, I know that you’re a hard man. You understand he’s accusing
him. He’s saying to a master something
that somebody with good, decent sense would not do. You’re a
hard man. You reap where you do not sow.
You gather where you’ve scattered no seed. And I’m afraid of you. And so my wife and I were watching
TV one night, he says to the master, and we thought it would
be a great idea to take the money you’ve given us and hide it in
our TV. You think that’s what he said? But it’s the same principle. He took good money. did nothing
with it and had nothing to show in return. And what is God saying
to us in this passage? Well, he’s saying to us, put
it in our modern terms, some of you are given five million
dollars. Some are given two million dollars. Some are given one million
dollars. It’s a talent. It’s a gift, a stewardship from
God. And he means for us to take whatever
is given to us. And it’s not just financial,
it’s in our spiritual gifts, our abilities to serve him and
his kingdom and his church. But he gives to us differing
gifts, each according to our ability. Some five, some two,
some one. And he gives us those talents.
Not that we will hold them and hide them, but that we will invest
in them and make the most of them in order to produce for
the kingdom of Almighty God. The Apostle Paul reminds us in
his letter to the Corinthians that it is required of stewards
to be found faithful. It is required of those who are
given a stewardship when the return is requested of us by
our master, that we be found faithful, that we will have done
something responsible with what has been entrusted to us. And
that can be our faith. It can be our family. It can
be our finances. As a church, it can be our facility.
It can be the faces we see and the people we must take care
of. But God entrusts to us many gifts and graces. And we are
called not to hold them or to hide them, but to invest and
to make the most use of them for the kingdom of almighty God.
It is required of stewards to be found faithful. And for a
few moments, I want us to consider how we are stewards of our faith,
of our finances, of our facility. of the faces or the people who
are here in our church, how we are stewards of our family, our
family of God. You see, Jesus has entrusted
to us gifts. He’s entrusted to us talents.
He’s entrusted to us gifts and graces that we might serve him
for his glory and others for their eternal good. Every one
of us has different abilities. Every one of us has the opportunity
to give of our finances, and our resources are all varied
and different. We have different spiritual gifts. We have different
abilities. Some are small. Some are great.
Some are somewhere in between. And as the body works together
in unity, what a wonderful and beautiful thing that is. This
weekend, my family was able to attend the North Carolina Symphony.
We got there early enough to hear the orchestra tuning up.
I don’t know how many instruments or players there were, just say
there were a hundred. And before the performance began,
all 100 were playing their instruments and they were not playing off
the same song sheet. They were tuning, they were fiddling,
they were messing with their instruments to get accustomed
to it, to get the wind and the pipes and the bow and the strings
accurately. And they made all sorts of different
sounds. But what they were doing was
getting ready to play. And when they played together
off the same song sheet, it made beautiful music. It made music
that has been timeless and classic for centuries now. There was
one particular piece, though, that was played last night. It
was written in the modern era. It was written by a young man
who was born in the 1980s. It was a very postmodern piece.
And it broke every single rule, at least the rules I think of
when I hear music. have unity, it ought to move together, it
ought to make sounds and noises and music that moves together
to a certain point. Well, this music was different.
Now, I can’t speak on musical terms very well, but as the conductor
said, some of it’s in sevens and some’s in threes, some’s
in fives. And as you listen to this piece of music, you realize
there are a lot of nice sounds, but they’re not playing together.
And we live in a postmodern world where we like to do what we like
to do the way we like to do it. And rarely do we like to serve
together. But God calls his people as stewards
to work together in unity, to serve together as one. And when
we do, we make beautiful music. And so if it is required of us
as stewards to be found faithful as the church of God, what will
that look like as a church? Well, we’ll share our faith.
We are entrusted with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
are entrusted with the gospel, and we must make sure that the
gospel on this earth is preserved, that we keep it pure and entire,
that we proclaim it, that we declare it, and that we do not
alter it or change it, and that when we hear it in its adulterated
and impure forms, we correct it. But it is our job as stewards
of the gospel to proclaim our faith to a hurting and dying
world. We’re also to take care of our
finances. As a church, we are stewards
of a good number of financial resources, and it’s our job to
be faithful. It’s our job to make sure we
spend them well, to raise them well, to receive them well, and
to steward them in a way that gives us a healthy financial
picture. It’s good for us to take care of our facility. We
have a wonderful building that this church has owned now for
over 50 years. What a wonderful location. What
a beautiful place. It’s been well cared for over
the years. We have some things upcoming in the years to come
we must take care of. But God has given us this building as
a place where we might gather, where we might learn and where
we might worship. It’s where the home life of First
A.R.P. Church takes place. And so we
must take care of our facility. What about the faces? What about
the people around us? We are stewards over one another’s
gifts and graces. And we ought to encourage one
another to use our gifts to serve for God’s glory, as well as to
serve for the good of those in our congregation. If we have
gifts, we ought to use them. If we have gifts, we ought to
develop them. If we have gifts, we ought to
Use them for the glory of God and good of others. If we see
gifts and graces in others, we ought to encourage them to nurture
them and to use them and to bring them along. After all, as we
said a few weeks ago in our ministry of discipleship, one of the most
important aspects of discipleship, apart from knowing God and knowing
ourselves, is the church is gathered and equipped to do the work of
the ministry. And so one of our great stewardships
is that we make sure everybody is played in position. Everybody
is put to work according to their skills and abilities. Everybody
has a useful place in the kingdom here in our local church. We also have the stewardship
of the family. And we’ve spoken of this in different
ways in the weeks past. We’ve spoken of our obligation
as a family to worship together, to learn together. Last week,
to be merciful towards those in the household of God. But
we have a stewardship to hold the family of God together. The
book of Hebrew says that we should encourage one another while it
is still today, while Jesus has carried. We have to encourage
one another to be together. Other places in the Bible that
say that as far as possible with us, we ought to be at peace with
all men. And so sometimes in the family
of God, just as in your families at home, we have little squabbles.
We have times where we get upset with each other. We may not understand
each other. We have little tussles and tiffs. And so just like in the home,
in the church also, we must nurture the family relationship. And
we must go to the scripture and say, what is good and right and
true? We must speak to one another when we’ve offended each other.
We must repent when necessary. And as Jesus has granted us forgiveness,
we must quickly grant that to others in the family of Almighty
God. There are many different things
we could speak of in order to understand our stewardship. But
just think of these faith and finances, facility, faces, and
church family. That’s a lot to take care of.
And we have missions, we have outreach, we have all sorts of
other things we could speak of. Simply put, God has given us
a stewardship and he expects us to be industrious for the
gospel. He expects us to labor hard in
his kingdom, giving of our time and our talents and our resources
that we might serve the king of kings and his children on
earth for their good and for his glory. So what is our position as a
church? What is your position as an individual? Are you making the most of what
God has entrusted to you? Do you even know what God has
entrusted to you? Or maybe you know what God has
entrusted and you’re busy serving the kingdom. Or have you buried
your talent, saying, I know my master, he is he’s a tough one.
He’s a judging one. He’s an avenging one. And so
I’ll bury the talent and return what is his without any gain
or any loss. You see, in the story of the
parable of the talents, you may not catch it in your English
translations of the Bible, but it speaks of the first servant. When he hears of his master’s
return, it’s as if he runs to him and says, look, master, You
gave me five talents and here are 10. I’ve earned, I’ve grown,
I’ve stretched, I’ve labored and look at what I have to show.
He was excited. And then on the opposite end
of the spectrum, we have, we have the lazy servant, the unwilling
servant who says I buried it because quite frankly, master,
you’re a big jerk and I’m afraid of you. What’s our position? You see, friends, we have to
understand that in Christ Jesus, we have been saved and set apart
to serve the kingdom and to serve the king. And we have been redeemed
by the Lord Jesus Christ and given a stewardship. It’s an
obligation that we must fulfill. Now, you know how it is when
the master is away. What do we say when the cat is
away? The mice will play. You know how it is when you were
growing up at home, when mom and dad were gone, it was party,
party, fun, fun. But when you heard the car cutting
through the gravel driveway, you said, quick, we must clean
up. Well, in this story, And in reality, we do not know when
the master will return. We will not get a warning of
Jesus return. It is imminent. Even Jesus says,
I don’t know the day or the hour the father will send me. And
so we don’t have the opportunity to scramble and to tidy up and
to go take our talents and make them work. God will come at any
moment of any day. And we must give an account to
him. He will come and settle accounts.
Did you notice the adjectives that are used of the servants.
The one who made five, the one who took five and made 10, the
one who had two and made four, God said to him, the master said,
well done, good and faithful servant. But did you catch the
adjectives that were used towards the other servant who did nothing? It says you wicked and slothful
servant. Which adjectives would we like
God to use about us? Wicked and slothful, lazy, not
working for the kingdom? Or do we desire, do we desire
to hear well done, good and faithful, hardworking, laboring for the
kingdom, industrious for the sake of the gospel, building
the church at all costs? Which would we like to hear? You know, very often we look
back on our lives and we say we should have, we would have,
and we could have. Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ,
who forgives us of all our sins and he gives us the chance for
do overs. He gives us the chance to start
again. And so let me encourage you. Let me challenge you. Let
me let me exhort you to take some time today and say, where
am I serving the king? We have different gifts. We have
different abilities. We’re all at different ages and
stages in life. And so we don’t need to guilt
ourselves into something that is not true. But ask God by his
Holy Spirit to reveal to you through his word or through the
encouragement of others what you are good at and what position
you might play in God’s kingdom. For God has called us to be stewards
of his church, stewards of one another, stewards of his kingdom.
And we must remember it is required of stewards to be found faithful. And may that be so. Let us pray
together. Our great God, we come before
you this day and we stand in awe of all that you have done
for us. You make us, you take care of
us, and you redeem us. And you have set us apart for
your glory and for the good of our neighbor that we might serve
you and others in your kingdom. And we thank you that you’ve
not only redeemed us through Jesus blood, but through Jesus
gifts to men, you’ve given us all gifts and abilities, talents,
a stewardship. You’ve given us collectively
a stewardship here to bear the light of the gospel in this place.
Oh, Lord, make us faithful. Give us minds and hearts and
hands that desire to serve your kingdom, to labor hard in your
vineyard. and to be industrious for the
sake of the gospel. Lord, may our faith be alive.
May our zeal be strong and may our work be not for works of
righteousness, but may it be for the work of the kingdom in
order that more men and women and boys and girls may come to
faith in Jesus and come to saving knowledge of him and worship
him both in this life and the life that is to come. And we
ask it in the strong and powerful and mighty name of Jesus. Our
Redeemer. Amen.