Much of the content of this sermon was taken from a sample sermon by Rick Rusaw, author of "Living a Life on Loan" Standared Publishing
Luke 10:27-37, Matthew 25:14-30 “Reassign Your Resources”
INTRODUCTION
We are people who have been created, loved, forgiven and called by God. God has touched our lives and moved in our lives in a powerful way. God’s movement in our lives is not just for our benefit, but rather we are blessed so that we can be a blessing. We respond to God’s love by loving others.
The question that now confronts us is, “What is God looking for from each of us as we invest our lives for him?” That is what this series Life on Loan has been about: How God has given us this life and what we do with it matters a great deal, and how we honor him with our lives.
How does your life count? How is your life of value? That is what we are looking for. It’s not that somehow the position we hold matters most to God. What matters is what we are going to live in a way that honors him. I want to look at two stories that Jesus told. He often told stories, and he told those stories to make a point. The first one you have heard before—the story of the Good Samaritan. We all are familiar with some version of that story. Here’s what Jesus is doing: An expert in the law came up to him and asked him what the most important commandment is, and how he could get to have life with God. Jesus asked him what was written in the law, and he said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27). And he went on to say, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Luke 10:27). Then Jesus tells a story to illustrate the point.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN
We have heard that story, whether we have ever been in a church or not. We have seen it on the news sometimes—the Good Samaritan who stops to help out. What does it mean to be a good neighbor? Jesus tells this story: a guy gets beat up on a roadside, and Jesus, in an ironic way, puts the extra twist in it. He says to these Jewish people who were gathered together: Here’s this Samaritan, someone who hates Jews and Jews are hated by them, he stops and he is the one who ends up being the good neighbor. The guy with the religious title, he passes right by him on the one side. The guy who is on his way to teach the Law at some school, he also crosses the street. We all know a Good Samaritan story, someone who stops to help someone at a point of need.
There are five things the Samaritan that would be good for us to do if we are going to live an invested life on loan. The first thing he does, in verse 33, is assist the person in a time of need. That seems pretty obvious, but look what that meant: He didn’t just pass as the others did. This guy had a schedule, he had an agenda, and there was some place he was heading. But he stopped, and because there was this need that presented itself—he didn’t start out his day by saying, “Boy, I hope I find some guy beat up, naked, bleeding and half dead on the road. That would make my day.” That was not how he started his day. But here he comes along to this man in need. What does he do—he stops!
And sometimes for us, when things happen by chance, when things happen because we have the opportunity, when a circumstance arises, or a person with needs bumps into us, we get to choose at that moment what we will do. And the truth is, there has been a good chunk of my life when I have found a way around that issue. I flagged someone down to help out, or reported it when I got somewhere else—I found a way to find someone else meet that particular need. Whatever it may have been—it isn’t always someone left for dead on the side of the road. Maybe it is someone who calls you, or someone you bump in to at work, maybe it is someone you recognize that has some issue going on. It is easy to get so caught up in what we are doing that sometimes we pass right by the needs that happen.
Getting out of our own way is more difficult than I care to admit at times. Sometimes what I am doing—my agenda, my schedule, my plans - almost always, or at least used to, supersedes the things going on around me in peoples lives. It isn’t that we aren’t good-hearted, we are just busy, aren’t we? Somebody will help out, and maybe we will too, sometime. When an opportunity comes, do we choose to respond? Steve Sjogren, the pastor at Vineyard Church in Cincinnati, said it takes between 12 to 20 positive bumps—refreshing encounters with the Christians or churches—before people come to appreciate Christ, or God, or the church. Often times what you do in a simple act of service becomes a very positive bump for somebody, but so often we are too busy.
In Luke 10:34, there are several things this guy did. The first thing the Samaritan did was offer medical help. We may not be able to do that, or be gifted in that area. If it is up to me to give CPR…I have actually done it a few times, but I am not into the germ thing. This is what I’d prefer (blows from a distance). This guy got his hands dirty, and he got engaged. It meant that he got down off of his donkey, and got involved in this guy’s life. He got this guy cleaned up, he got bloody a little bit, and he got messy and dirty. The truth is, if we are going to serve the people around us, sometimes it means we get messy. Sometimes it means that we get our hands dirty. Sometimes for us it means we move out of our comfort zone.
I know some of you look for ways to help out, and you get your hands dirty. That is what this Good Samaritan did—he got into the stream, he got wet, he got dirty, and it was uncomfortable. He recognized there was a need, and somebody had to get off his “donkey” and do something about it.
Another thing he did was he actually gave up his transportation. In other words, he was willing to be inconvenienced. When we choose to get engaged, sometimes it means we will be inconvenienced. When we meet the need of someone we know or some stranger, sometimes it means that this is not what we had planned at this moment. We have a whole host of people in our church who get off their “donkeys” regularly. Some take people to doctor’s appointments or provide transportation to school events, and some help people get here to a worship service. It doesn’t have to be some dramatic act—it can be some simple way that you and I choose to serve.
In Luke 10:34 the man also provided lodging and companionship. Here’s what happens: He “hung out” with this guy for a little while, and he saw past the victim’s issues and the blood. He saw past the way he got in this situation in the first place. What he saw was a person with a name, and a story, and a future. He took some time to do that. And sometimes you and I need to do that, too.
He also provided money. I thought it was interesting that it was the last thing he did. The truth is that sometimes it is easier for me to write a check or give some money than to get engaged or to get involved. In fact, the truth is sometimes writing the check helps me not have a guilty conscience, but I don’t actually do much. Often what the most disenfranchised people in our life need is someone to be plugged into their lives, someone to know them and engage them. Not just your money, because most people need relationship more than they need cash. “Who was the man’s neighbor?” Jesus asked. It was the person who did something. So, are we a good neighbor? Are you a good neighbor? Am I a good neighbor?
THE PARABLE OF THE TALENTS
So here’s the point of this story—that God has given us opportunities and abilities. And, we have the freedom to choose. We have this “life on loan” from him, and what we do with it someday we will be held in account. Now, if I were telling the story, I would have told it differently. I would have taken those eight talents and divided them into 3, and that is what they each would have gotten—an equal amount because everyone is created equally, aren’t they? But that is not how Jesus tells the story. And, if I had to give them different amounts, guess who would have won? The underdog guy, the one with the single talent. But I am not telling the story—Jesus is. Here’s what he is saying: Every one of us has abilities, and opportunities, and moments. And, what we do with it matters a great deal. We could, and should, do something with this “life on loan,” with these moments we have.
The one-talent guy failed, and there are three quick reasons why that I want to give.
The first is the he didn’t take any risks. “Safety first” was his motto. Now there are reasons to be safe, and to be cautious, and we certainly ought to be careful sometimes. But you can’t live like that, you can’t have relations like that, you can’t have opportunities like that. He took his talent and he buried it. Then here he comes and says, “Here, I didn’t blow it. I didn’t squander it. I didn’t waste it. I didn’t invest it poorly. I didn’t make any bad choices. Here’s what you gave me—I am giving it back to you. ”
But, God is saying that your life matters more than that.
The Bible says that God has created you for a purpose, for some good works to be done. You are to make a difference in others’ lives. And, the only way you are free to succeed is to be free to fail. Only when we are open to the possibility that what we are doing might not work do we find out that what we are doing might actually work. It doesn’t mean that everything we choose works. Henry Banks said, “If at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment.” Not everything goes like we think it should right out of the chute. This guy failed because he didn’t take any risks. When you and I choose to get engaged in those around us—to teach little league, to lead scouts, to teach ESL (English as a Second Language), or mentor, or help out in hundreds of ways—there is some risk with that. When you and I choose to invite a friend to come with us to church or to join us in our small group, there is some risk with that. If God is placing a burden on your heart, it may call you to do something that is unfamiliar or outside of your level of comfort. But, it is too easy for me to go out in my backyard and bury what I have, and then say to God, “See, I didn’t blow it, I didn’t mess up. Here it is.”
The second reason he failed is he applied no effort. The master said to him, “You are lazy, and you are wicked.” Maybe he saw it as resourceful. Someday when I have more money, someday when I have more time, someday when the kids are grown, someday when I get out of school, someday when my job settles down, someday when I get that next promotion, someday when I retire, or someday when I get….And the truth is—someday our lives are over and what did we do with our lives? I am even guessing that this guy was actually very busy, but busy with his own stuff. And, he missed out on the opportunity to take what he had and invest that back in the lives of other people.
The third reason he failed is that he saw no choice. Fear was his only option. “I was afraid of you,” he said to the master (Matthew 25:25). He was afraid of the master, afraid of failing, afraid of succeeding, or afraid of himself. Lots of us live with those fears. I can’t tell you the number of times it has been said to me, “I don’t think God can care for me. You don’t know what I have done.” And you’re right. I don’t know what you have done. But I do know what God has done. And he wants you to take your life wherever you are at this moment, and to redeem those moments for him, and to invest your life in the lives of those around you. What would happen if you and I were to be engaged—if we were to use whatever we have, whatever abilities we have, whatever opportunities we have, and whatever resources we have? All you get are the moments you have right now. Looking isn’t necessarily going to fix anything, only maybe cause us to waste some more moments, hoping somehow we get better.
CONCLUSION
What are you doing right now to live a life on loan from God? What are you doing right now for your moments to make a difference in someone else’s life? Whether that is a stranger we meet on the roadside, or a person we live near in the neighborhood, or we work across the aisle from. Jesus tells these stories to drive home a very simple point: Your life is a “life on loan” from him, to be used to honor him, to make a difference in your part of the world. And, there are people who need you to invest in them, however that happens for you. I hope for all of us that we choose to live invested, not afraid of using what we have, but using it up in a way that God is honored.
That is what Jesus says in these stories. If you want to hear the words, “Well done,” then you have to do well. Who knows, but maybe God, the Father of the universe, will be standing at the gate saying to you, “Well done! You have used what you had, you looked outside yourself, you met needs, and you lived a life on loan with honor.” That is the life God wants us to live, to invest, and to make a difference with.
Amen
