Brian Cropp: Today we’re going to wrap up our summer series on the Parable of Jesus. These are illustrative teaching stories that Jesus told His disciples and the audiences around Him. You can find these parables and others in the first four books of the New Testament. These are biographical accounts of Jesus’ ministry. Those are the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and parable are not a common teaching form these days. We have been using this definition so that we have a better understanding of what Jesus was trying to accomplish by telling these parables. We’ve said that a parable is an illustrative story using a natural object of human circumstance to convey a spiritual or moral subject. The most common storytelling form like a parable that we would be familiar with would be a fable. Think of Aesop’s story of “The Tortoise and the Hare” or “The Ant and the Grasshopper.” These are largely symbolic stories that are getting at a truth for how we can live our life better.
Jesus was trying to accomplish a couple of things when He told these parables. One, He was trying to give us a picture, something that would stick in our minds that we could remember and chew on over time. But, they also serve as a mirror, a way for God’s Truth to reflect back to us. They also serve as a window for us, a way for a new perspective to open up to us as we look at God’s kingdom in light of our own circumstances. As I hinted at earlier, there are a lot of different symbols in this parable. I want to go over those first, as we read the parable, so that you can get a better understanding of what’s going on. There’s a master with several servants, and He gives each one of them different amounts of money. The master/king represents God, and the servants are going to represent you and me, and that sounds a little trippy but it will make sense here in a minute. The amounts of money they are given correlate to different amounts of responsibility or opportunities that each one of us has been given.
Understanding that, let’s now read the parable together. “For it…” ...or the kingdom of Heaven… “...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. 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 five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered 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 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 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 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.’”
So the moral of this parable is that you and I have been given a certain amount of responsibility, and we’re going to be held accountable by God for how we invested them. Depending on how we invest those opportunities and responsibilities, that will determine whether we hear, “Well done” or “Get out!” If the difference between those two statements that we hear from God depends on my ability to win God’s favor, then that’s going to make me reckless or feel helpless or fearful or hesitant or any number of other things. But the good news is that A—we can’t win God’s favor. But also, God wants us to win. He has set us up so that we can win in our relationship with Him. He has made winning possible. We looked at that just a little bit last week.
He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, out of heaven to earth to be a perfect human so that He could pay the sin debt that we owe before God. But, that’s not all. God also put His Holy Spirit in the heart of every Christ-follower, both to be a comfort to us but also to be our Helper so that we can be able to walk in God’s ways. But, that’s not all! He also gave us His Word. He assembled forty men over the course of about 4,000 years, and I don’t have time to go into the whole story right now, but you can do your own research. All of those writings got assembled into what is called the Bible. Over the course of a lot of time and literary styles, we see a very accurate picture in the Scripture of what it looks like to live life God’s way successfully and also how to live life not God’s way and what that leads to, as well.
So first of all, let’s look at this. Faithfulness with God’s Word grows the fruit that God wants. Whether that is a specific word out of the Scripture or whether that’s just the internal correction that we get from the Holy Spirit, God’s Word makes our hearts right. We talk a lot about spending daily time with God in prayer and Bible reading, and as we marinate in God’s Word over time, that can change how we perceive our circumstances. By that, we can then see our circumstances the way God sees them, and then we can navigate those circumstances in a way that honors God. And, we win.
There was a man once who asked Jesus a very interesting question, and it was this. “‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’” So, this is admittedly just a little broad, and you might be asking, “Well, how do I practically love God with all my heart and all my soul and all my mind? And, how do I love my neighbor as myself?”
I want to highlight just a few verses that talk about this, and you can see that as we accurately make a good investment and aim our life in God’s direction, then as different opportunities come up to us, we will better know how to navigate those in a way that helps us hear the words, “Well done.” The first is from one of Jesus’ early followers named Peter, and he writes this—“...but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy…” Here holy is a special word that means to set something apart as special. The command for you and I is to in our hearts set Christ apart as unique, as ultimate. We need to make Christ the King that we love and serve everyday. We need to align all of our heart’s desires and our expectations with God’s desires and expectations. While that seems like the perfect recipe for not getting what we want, over time we’ll find that as we’re aligning ourselves with God that that is the only recipe for getting really what our heart deeply craves. So, that’s one.
Second, we need to fill our hearts with the King’s commands. Psalm 119:9-11 starts off by asking a very interesting question. It says, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you, let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” The best way for us to win in our relationship with God is to fill our hearts with His Word and then to meditate on His Word everyday.
The third way is that we need to guard our hearts against all rivals. “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” This is an active thing that you and I can do to be actively working towards God’s ways because there is so much in our everyday life that is working against our vigilance and moving it in other directions. The Bible says that the heart is the deepest part of us, the real us that's way down deep in there. If we love and serve Jesus everyday, if we serve Him everyday, if we fill our hearts with His commands and if we guard against all rivals, then we are set up to invest our time, our money, our emotions, our relationships, our other life capital in a way that helps us to win in our relationship with God.
So, the Word of God helps us to get our hearts right, but it can also help us to get our minds right, as well. God’s Word has this transformative ability to shape our thinking so that over time it aligns with God’s ways. Romans 12 puts it this way. It says “...to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” How do we get to experience this transformative ability of God’s Word?
Well, first we need to meditate on God’s Word day and night. We find this in the book of Psalms. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” This could mean your daily quiet time, but it could also mean setting reminders or alarms on your phone to review verses that you're trying to memorize. It could mean listening to quality worship music or to the Bible in your car as you’re going about your day. Also, it likely means limiting the amount of Netflix and YouTube and Facebook that you take in, as well. Because whatever we mull over, whatever we spend focused attention on, that is what is going to shape our thinking one way or another for good or for ill.
Now another way that we can get our minds right is to take captive and kill every enemy thought and emotion. 2 Corinthians sets us up for a vision of this when it says that “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” I used to work as a teller at a bank, and I would get all kinds of cash deposits from customers. And you may know this, but one of the best ways they trained us to spot a counterfeit bill was to become very, very familiar with a genuine dollar bill. There actually were a couple of times when just going through a cash deposit something just didn’t feel right about the bills. Sure enough, it turns out that it was a counterfeit bill.
The same is true for God’s ways. If we want to be able to detect ways that are not in alignment with God’s ways, we need to be able to be super familiar with God’s ways. Being super familiar with God’s Word is a great place for that. We also need to remember that while we have emotions and we have thoughts, those thoughts and emotions are not us. We are separate from them, and while, yes, they can control us, we also have the ability to control them. We are not slaves to our thoughts and emotions.
You might have heard us talk about “Hey! Say, pray, and obey.” That looks like this. When we recognize that we’re having an enemy thought or and enemy emotion, we say, “Hey! That’s out of alignment with God’s ways.” Then, we can say a verse that we have memorized that reminds us of God’s Truth. We can pray to God and ask for His help in the situation, and then we can obey and take the next right step that would honor God even when those thoughts and our emotions start to go to war with us. As Christ-followers, we have this ability because remember, the Holy Spirit is helping us from within.
Now, you all may be wondering what on earth all of this has to do with the Parable of the Three Servants. How we deal with our responsibilities and how we approach God will say a lot about our ability to later on hear from God, “Well done,” or “Get out!” When we get our hearts and our minds right, we do that so that we can invest our lives well. God has given us different areas of responsibility and stewardship and opportunity, and we need to invest them well for HIs kingdom. Ephesians 4:25 puts it this way. It says that “...each of us has received a gift; use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”
So now, I want to look at the three biggest investments we can make. The first investment is time. Now, I put this first in the list because it’s the most finite resource that you and I have. We can’t make more time. We can’t save time. All we can do is use the time that we have presently for God’s kingdom, and this isn’t easy. We need God’s help because the Bible tells us this—“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” That phrase, “the days are evil,” means that the days are working against us. We have all kinds of plans and hopes, and it’s just hard to do. That has never been more true than right now. We have all kinds of plans and hopes, and it’s either that they’re not happening or they’re happening slower or in a different way than we planned. It’s going to be an effort to get anything done in our days because the time is working against us. We really need to invest that time in things that are eternal and God-honoring.
We’ve also been given money. Just as the servants in this story were given different amounts of money, each one of us has been given different amounts of money, as well. And just like those servants, you and I can see that all of our money ultimately belongs to God. It all belongs to God. We are only managers of those funds, so long as we draw breath. Much of the Bible was written from the perspective of a financial situation where animals and plants were used as currency. If I were to give up my best animal or my best crops, then that would be a significant financial investment in God’s kingdom. God talks to the ancient Israelites at a time when they were offering stuff in sacrifice, but there was still something wrong. Let’s look at this.
It says, “Hear, O my people, and I will speak. O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.” In this passage, God is reminding us that everything belongs to Him. The people were worshiping Him. They were using their animals for sacrifices and acts of worship, but there was still something wrong. The thing that was wrong then can still plague us today. See, our use of money reveals our heart toward God.
Ultimately God wants our hearts, and He wants our minds to be aligned with Him. How we use our money should reflect how we view God. If ultimately we’re looking at our bank account as “I made this,” instead of “God provided this,” then we might still give at church. But, it may come from a perspective of obligation or I’m bribing God or just trying to pacify Him instead of out of gratitude and thankfulness and a reminder to ourselves that this isn’t mine. I’m just managing these funds, and I want to invest them in God’s kingdom because that is what is ultimately important. God doesn’t need our money, but He wants our heart and our mindset aimed in His direction and our heart and mindset toward money reveals a lot about where our heart and our mind is aimed in relationship to God.
Faithful servants invest in God’s kingdom cheerfully, sacrificially, and regularly. We read this in the Scripture. “The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” It says that God loves a cheerful giver. Do you know who else loves a cheerful giver? Absolutely everyone loves a cheerful giver! No one wants a gift that’s given because you have to, so I would encourage you if you’ve never given to God’s kingdom with your money, start. If you’ve already started to give, then I would pray about ramping that up to a full ten percent of what you make. The Bible calls that a tithe. Then if you’re already tithing, I would encourage you to up that if you can and see how God still takes care of you financially. I have many stories where just because I gave up part of what I thought was mine God still was able to take care of me financially.
The third investment that we can make is in our relationships. Time and money may be ultimate for you and me, but you and I are ultimate to God. He loves people, so we who follow God should also be about the betterment of other people. The way we state it at Hope Church is that we want to invite people to discover and experience God’s ways. We can make that investment in a couple of ways. One is we can serve others. Galatians 5:13 says this—“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” Our lives are not to be about our own betterment but about the betterment of other people. So, we can use our superpowers to lift other people up. Obviously, we can serve other people in the context of Hope Church, though that’s going to look a little different than it has in the past.
You can also serve friends and neighbors and co-workers. It is so not normal for one person to just serve another person that that can really open up interest in a friendship and in God’s ways. But, we can also share with one another. 1 Thessalonians says it this way—“So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.” Because people are so important to God, we need to share our lives with other people. We need to get them involved in our daily ups and downs. Then they get to see that as God is involved in our lives and our ups and downs then in their own ups and downs they can see a God who might also love them and want them to win at life and in their relationship with Him.
So, we have the opportunity to use the investment that was made in us to invest in others and to hear Him say to us, “Well done.” You know, it’s good to remember in the story that each one of the servants was given a different amount of money, and that’s true for you and me, too. Each one of us has been given different amounts of resources by God. He wants us to use whatever we have been given for His kingdom and for His kingdom’s benefit. Remember the king in the story; he’s not upset that he gets back different amounts from each one of the servants. He’s only upset in the servant that made no investment at all. I want us to reread the end of this parable together, and we are going to pretend for a little bit that we are one of the servants that are in this story.
I have found that over time if I can inject my own circumstances into the middle of what God is saying, it helps me better see my circumstances in light of God’s Truth. I’ve put an example of this at the end of your notes, and I encourage you to fill in your own information. I’m just going to read my own. Follow along with me. “Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And (Brian) who had received a wife, kids, creativity, a platform to talk about God’s kingdom, came forward bringing many who are walking faithfully with Christ, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me all of these opportunities to help people walk closer with you, and here I have so many more.’ His master said, ‘Well done, Brian, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little, and I have set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’”
I hope that all of you hear words that are very similar to this as we give our account to God at the end of our life. Please join with me in prayer. Father, I praise You for investing in me. I certainly don’t deserve it, and I certainly have not always honored You in the way I have used my time and my money and my relationships. I pray for myself, but also on behalf of those who are watching and listening, that You would help us through Your Holy Spirit and through Your Word to get our hearts and our minds right so that we would see our lives and our opportunities as You see them. Please help us to invest the resources that You have given us well. Help us to fight against the days that push against us and thoughts and feelings that try to steer us down other paths. Help us to step into this week committed to making an investment in Your kingdom. It’s in the name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
