Opening illustration: Several years ago, Donald Trump said this in an interview: "I'll be 36 next year and I've done everything I can do. Sometimes I think it was a mistake to have raced through it all so fast. What's the next level up? The grass isn't always greener … I work, and I don't worry. How can you top that? … I protect myself as well as anybody can. I prepare for things but ultimately we all end up going … I don't believe in reincarnation, heaven, or hell. But we go someplace. Do you know? I cannot for the life of me figure out where.'"
That is a picture of a man who is so busy possessing this world he is making no preparations for the next. Before we point a finger, we ought to realize it's easy for us to do the same thing. The fact is - most people have absolutely no idea what life is all about.
There are three things you can do with your life: you can waste it, you can spend it, or you can invest it. Let us turn to Matthew 25 in the Word of God and catch up with our final narrative and see what 3 different people did with their lives …
Introduction: Jesus is winding down his ministry on earth; he spends his energy just before his final dinner, betrayal and death answering a weighty question his disciples bring before him. They ask, in 24:3, “when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of this age?” It sounds like an informational question, but the emotions behind it run deep. They are asking, “How will we know that you are coming back and that you will set things right when you do?” They are afraid of being left behind to fend for themselves in a cruel and painful world.
Jesus responds compassionately, answering them with a series of stories meant to encourage them both to trust Christ to return to complete his promise and to occupy their time continuing his work until he does return. The parable of the Talents is the last of three parables, and should be read in conjunction with what follows it – Jesus’ description of the final judgment. With it, Jesus answers our fears. He tells us that God keeps his promises, and that we are not abandoned, but are well equipped to reflect the grace and kindness of our God. He also tells us that, *because* we have been generously invested in by God, we are expected to invest in God’s world, and we will be shaped by the choices we make.
Why has God given us this life?
1. Our Life is an Opportunity (vs. 14-18)
This parable is about a wealthy employer who entrusts three key employees with some of his money. He gives the 1st employee 5 talents, the 2nd, and the 3rd 1 talent. A talent in that day was equal to about 10,000 denarii, and 1 denarii was equal to a day’s wage, so the guy who received 1 talent had about 27 years wages. It was an incredible amount of money!
Think about it – up until now these guys were just ordinary working stiffs, but with a single act, their master changes their destinies forever. It was an opportunity of a lifetime – it was a defining moment for them. Now, the first guy, realizing the opportunity, immediately goes to work. He wastes no time because he knows that he may never get another opportunity like this.
Now remember, Jesus is telling a parable. So the master, the servants, and the money represent something deeper. The master represents God who gives generously. The servants represent believers, who have been entrusted with much, and the talents or the money represent the abundant life God has given us. It represents all of life - our mind, our abilities, our spiritual gifts, our body, our money, and our will. Like the servants in the story, our God, our master, has given us in this one life we live, literally an opportunity of a lifetime.
The master has called each of us, and He offers us some incredible opportunities in this gift of life:
• To do away with our old life and bring a new one.
• To have our past cleaned up & our sins forgiven.
• To have a friend who will never leave us.
• To gain a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind.
• To be led to do right, encouraged when we are discouraged, lifted up when we fall, filled when we’re hungry, equipped for every good work, and given the power to overcome any circumstance.
• To be given a hope for dying, a peace that passes all understanding, a joy unspeakable, and a purpose for living.
God has given us an incredible opportunity so we need to learn to live it well. It is a gift from God.
Illustration: Billy Graham was won by Mordecai Hamm, who came thru Billy Sunday, who came thru J. Wilbur Chapman, who was won by D.L. Moody, but Moody was won by his Sunday School teacher in Boston when he was 17. He was just a businessman named Edward Kimball, who went out after work and visited every member of his class to ask them if they were saved. He found Moody in the stock room behind the shoe store where he worked, and there in a room full of shoes he led one guy to Christ, but also started a chain reaction that won millions and is still in progress today!
Good thing Mr. Kimball didn’t bury his talent, but used what little he had for God! He took his duty seriously, and wasn’t just a duty Christian warming a pew. God rewarded not great talent, but just faithfulness. You may not feel like you can do much, but this is something you can do ... you can be faithful with what you have!
2. Our Life has Accountability (vs. 19-25)
In our parable, the master returns back to hold his servants accountable for what they had been entrusted with. It is interesting that the one talent guy is the one who goes and buries his gift. Maybe he thinks that his one talent is so small compared to the others, that it doesn’t matter. Maybe he wished that he were one of the other guys that got more. We don’t know why he buried his talent, but he did.
The point is; we need to quit trying to compare ourselves with others and quit wishing we had what belongs to them. Listen, if you spend your life wishing for gifts and talents that you don’t have – you will miss out on the life that God wants you to live. At the end of the day, God will not ask you why you didn’t lead someone else’s’ life or invest someone else’s’ gifts. He will not ask you, “What did you do with what you didn’t have?” Instead, God will ask you, “What did you do with what I gave you?”
One day God will come back and hold us accountable for our life. So what we do with it matters. Have you buried what God has given you? Are you living life in the easy chair because you have been comparing your life with someone else’s - and some how you feel ripped off, treated unfairly – short changed?
Listen, in Christ, God has given you everything you need to accomplish and fulfill the purpose for which you are created and to live a life that pleases Him. You haven’t been short changed – maybe you’ve just been trying to live someone else’s’ life. The master is coming back someday, and He is going to settle up with everyone. He’s going to want to know what you did with your life. And He’s not going to ask your boss, your spouse, your parents, or your friends – Jesus is going to ask you.
But look at the reply of the one talent guy in vs. 24. Life in the chair is full of excuses. It’s always, blame someone or something else for the things we do or fail to do. Like so many of us, this guy tries to make excuses for the way he lived his life. “I was afraid to try. I was afraid I’d fail. You expected too much out of me. I wasn’t comfortable doing that. If you’d been more gracious… I might have done something. It’s your fault – that why I stayed in the chair… that’s why I buried your gift…”
What the master doesn’t say is: “You know you’re right. I should have been clearer. It’s none of my business how you live your life or whether you use your gift or talents. I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable. I should have been worried about giving you a comfortable chair. Let’s just forget the whole thing.”
But no, he didn’t say that. He called the man “wicked” and “lazy.” He told him that he knew what kind of gracious master he was! Don’t misunderstand God’s grace. Many people look at God’s grace and think that God’s purpose for them is to put them a nice easy chair, but it’s not true. The Lord of opportunity is also the Lord of the accountability.
Every one of us is responsible for our own lives. In this story, the master brings everyone into account. When Jesus returns He will do the same. And Jesus has no intention of settling for mediocrity. We will be held accountable for the stewardship of the life the master has given us. But notice this, the 3rd servant is not judged for doing bad things. Rather he’s judged for doing nothing. He didn’t steal or embezzle or defraud – he just buried his gift – stayed in the chair and did nothing! He didn’t do anything with his life. The potential was there to do something positive, but the 3rd servant refused to even try to develop it.
The rebellious choice is to live life in the easy chair. But the rewarding choice is to get out of the chair of “do nothing” and do something positive and beneficial with this wonderful opportunity of life God has given us. And look at the reward in vs. 21 & 23. Jesus’ reply to the faithful servants was: “Well done … You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now, I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!” (NLT)
What you do with your life matters because God has given you a wonderful opportunity of a lifetime - His gift of Life. It matters because God will someday come and hold us all accountable for what we have done with this opportunity.
3. Our Life bears Consequences (vs. 26-30)
After being gone a long time, the master returns to settle up with his slaves. Two of the slaves seem eager to show their master what they have accomplished in his absence. The first presents his master with ten talents. He doubled the money his master entrusted to him. The second slave presents his master with four talents. He, too, doubled the money his master left in his care. Both of these faithful slaves are rewarded well for their faithful service.
(i) First, they receive their master’s commendation, “Well done, good and faithful slave.”
(ii) Second, because they have proven themselves to be faithful with the few things entrusted to them, they are now given even greater responsibilities by their master.
(iii) Third, they are invited to “enter into the joy of your master.” Just what does this mean, to enter into the master’s joy?
We’ll talk about this a bit later, but for the moment, I am inclined to understand this expression in contrast to another in our text, “‘And throw that worthless slave into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’” (Matthew 25:30). The “joy of the master” must, in some way, equate to enjoying the bliss of heaven, with our Lord. “Weeping and gnashing of teeth” in outer darkness” must, on the other hand, involve spending eternity without God, and without joy.
The “joy” that was before our Lord would seem to include the salvation of lost sinners (Luke 15:4-10). Is the salvation of lost sinners not “profit” in the eternal sense? Is this not fruit? Is this not cause for rejoicing (see Acts 11:19-24)? As a businessman takes pleasure in making a profit, so our Lord takes pleasure in the profit gained by His faithful servants in His absence. And part of the reward the faithful slave is entering into is the joy of his Master in bringing salvation to men.
The third slave is an entirely different matter. This slave does absolutely nothing with the talent that has been entrusted to him, nothing but bury it. We need to distinguish between his excuses and the master’s assessment, both of which are conveyed in our text. The slave’s excuse was that his master was a harsh man, and this caused him to be afraid of his master, thus doing nothing with the money entrusted to him.
Assuming, for the moment, that the slave was correct in his assessment, why would he not be motivated by his fear to seek a profit for his master? If he were afraid to take any risk, then why did he not at least put the talent in the hands of the bankers, who would conservatively invest it for him, and gain at least some interest? Granted, the interest one gets from a savings account is not the kind of increase one might get from investing in the stock market, but it would at least be a small increase. This way the slave would not have to attend to the money on a day-by-day basis. A small gain could have been obtained without great risk or effort on the part of the slave, but he chose to do nothing at all. And the longer the master was gone, the more interest was lost by the slave’s inactivity.
Application: Jesus is coming again. You can’t avoid standing before Him in judgment. Well if Jesus were to return today, and if it was your time to give an account to the Lord, what would be the outcome? Would you hear commendation or rebuke? Would you receive reward or removal of all that you have? Well the fact that God will hold us accountable should be a great incentive to do what we must do to ensure a good outcome.
I am speaking to some Christians that are not ready to face the Judgment Seat of Christ. Perhaps you are not using your time, talent, and treasure for the Lord. Perhaps you have allowed laziness to creep into your life. Perhaps you have not been faithful in giving your tithes and offerings. Now is the time to turn back to the Lord, and recommit your life to the Lord. Don’t put it off. Respond to God’s Word today!
