Extreme Adventure Series

Series: Destinations on the Journey of Faith

Extreme Adventure

Matt 25:14-30

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.’

ILLUST: One of the best stories told at a missionary conference in Shanghai was of a man who said he was afraid he was going to be of no use in the world because he had only one talent. “Oh, that need not discourage you,” said his pastor. “What is your talent?” “The talent of criticism.” “Well, I Advice you,” said his pastor, “to do with it what the man of one talent did with his. Criticism may be useful when mixed with other talents, but those whose only activity is to criticize the workers might as well be buried, talent and all.”

Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc., 1996), 293.

Intro: We all have talents and God expects us to use them for the good of the kingdom…

As we go on this Journey of faith we have experienced an awe inspired start followed by a stop at the museum of knowledge where we focused completely on ourselves and gained as much knowledge as we could…now we are about to pull into the destination of excitement.

Leslie and I renting horses in the mountains…hers wouldn’t go mine wanted to run where ever he wanted to go…

In any case this stop is the one of activity…this is the doing stage of our spiritual journey of faith…

We spent all this time at the previous stop learning and being trained now we are going to put it into practice…we know that as we work for the Lord that we are being fed…but sometimes this transition is scary and we feel pushed into action…like the time some friends pushed me into bungie jumping…I certainly wasn’t ready for that one…

I. What does this destination look like?

Once we stop and commit the adventure here in destination 3 we find that it is very rewarding…

Our Uniqueness in the Community

We find that we have this individual talent and gift that we can use to contribute to the community of believers…what happens is we accept these gifts as from God and we want to use them to glorify Him and in a sense to become completely ourselves…