“Tragedy of the Unopened Gift”
Introduction:
The Antiques Road Show is an interesting television show to watch. Every now and then on the show a person will come in with something they have had for many years, maybe a family heirloom that they thought was worthless, and a antique expert will price the value for them. Sometimes the people will be shocked when they learn they unknowingly had a hidden fortune.
That is the tragedy of the unopened gift. When we receive gifts from someone, we are expected to use it. People do not give gifts for us to put on a shelf and never to touch. I remember as a child I would feel bad if I didn’t play with all my gifts because I knew that the gifts I received, no matter how large or small were intended for me to use.
Many years ago as missionaries would travel to other countries and work with the tribal people they would bring and give them sundials. The natives were so fascinated by these sundials that they put a roof over them.
Is there something today blocking what God has given you? He has given us gifts and they have a specific purpose, but if we do not use them they are as useless as a sundial covered by a roof. That is the tragedy of the unopened gift.
Today in the church many people are content without being involved in anything. Many people think that just attending services in a building is accomplishing what they needed to do and punching their time clock with God. Many are content doing just enough to make it by. God has entrusted us each with gifts and talents that he intends for us to use for the strengthening of the church, and for so many they repeat the tragedy of the unopened gift.
As a child I used to collect baseball cards. I still have thousands upon thousands of cards. Most of the presents I received had to do with my collection of baseball cards. I especially loved the older cards of the real great players that played before I was even a twinkle in my mother’s eye; you know the ones that many little boys ruined in the spokes of their bicycles. I loved them because they were worth more, they were a better investment. One time in particular I remember my next door neighbor going through some baseball cards he had from when he was a child. Luckily for me he knew nothing about baseball. He let me look through them and gave away many great cards because he had no idea of what he had. On one occasion as I dug through those old cards I found a Nolan Ryan rookie card. That may not sound like anything that special to most people, but that card was a obvious treasure to me. First of all Nolan Ryan may have been the greatest pitcher of all time and secondly it was his rookie card, which greatly increased the value. I took that card home and grabbed my book, which gave the value of the card; it was worth several thousand dollars. My neighbor had no idea what he had, sadly my parents made me take it back to him and let him know what unopened gift he had there.
That is the tragedy of the unopened gift. Many people have a gift that God has given them and they refuse to use it for whatever reason. Perhaps today you are living the tragedy of the unopened gift. I want you to know this morning that God has given each of us a different and special gift to use for the kingdom and not using that gift hinders us from experiencing the full joy that God intended for us to have in Christ.
Text: Matthew 25:14-30
I. Reasons For Unopened Gifts
In this parable that Jesus told there are many different variables. There are three different servants with three different gifts that they were entrusted with. The thing that Jesus is trying to point out though has nothing to do with the varying amounts that they were given, but rather with what the three different servants did with what they were given.
Any time that a gift is given the person who receives that gift must choose to respond in one of two different ways. One, is the gift is too valuable to ever be used and the second is that the gift is too great not to be used. When I was collecting baseball cards I knew that unopened packs and boxes of cards were worth more than opened ones, but I hated leaving them unopened because I would never know what was inside.
I believe that there are several reasons why people refuse to unwrap and not use the gift that they have been given by God.
a. Gift Comparison
Perhaps today you are comparing your gifts with other people’s gifts. Perhaps you are looking at someone else who may be a five-talent person and wishing you weren’t the two-talent person. I want you to notice that the five-talent and the two-talent person in this parable received the same reward because of their faithfulness to what they had been given, not to the amount they profited. They showed an equal amount of stewardship of what they had been given and received an equal award.
So many times we look at others in the Kingdom and think as if they are better than we are, or we envy that they have a different or even what we perceive as a more useful talent. Comparison of your gifts will lead to pride and envy. We must come to enjoy and put to use what God has given us, we must prove faithful stewards of what God has blessed us with, whether we are speaking of gifts that he has given us, relationships, or even money.
We never learned exactly why the third servant simply buried his gift instead of putting it to good use. In fact, when I look at that, I begin to think, “Well, at least he saved”. He didn’t just let it all ride and take a risk. He was conservative with what he was given wasn’t he? Shouldn’t the master have been thankful that the third servant didn’t loose that money? The master didn’t loose a thing, why was he so upset? The master was angry because he left the servants in charge, he expected them to put to work what they had been given, and he wanted them to take a risk. He wanted them to use it. Perhaps the third servant was jealous that he was only given a small amount in comparison to the others so he decided to bury it, maybe he was afraid of what would happen if he lost the money and didn’t want to take a chance.
The master delegated the varying amounts of talents the Scripture says based on their ability. The third servant may have been jealous, but before he could be entrusted with five talents he had to prove faithful with a little. I don’t really know why he would have been too bothered, one talent was still a considerable sum of money, over a thousand dollars, which during that time would have been a large sum of money.
We have each been given gifts, some people have different gifts than others, but that does not make them any less useful in the church. Perhaps your gift is different from mine or even the person next to you, and that is alright, that is how God made you. He has entrusted you with your own gift, and it is not wrong that you don’t have the same gift as someone else, you are not less significant, when it becomes a wrong is when you do not use that gift no matter what it may be. No one is dispensable in the church. The Scriptures call the church the body of Christ and the people who make up the church are like the parts of a body. All the body parts are needed to make the body function as intended. All parts of the church are needed to make the church function as it was intended. I wonder how the church is hindered from doing what God intended it to do in the world by all the parts of the church not functioning as God gifted them to function. Comparison of gifts can lead to the tragedy of the unopened or buried gift.
b. Fear
Have you ever been asked a question about your spiritual life and lied about it? How is your prayer life? How is your time in God’s Word? How are you holding up under the struggles you have had? If you have, and most people have, what is the reason for that? The main reason is probably fear. Fear of the way a person may respond to knowing that you have struggles, fear of embarrassment or pain, or fear of failure. A lot of times we give into things that we know are wrong because of fear. Fear is what led to Peter denying Jesus in his greatest time of need; fear is what led Moses to not want to go before Pharaoh after God had called him, fear made Gideon doubt God’s power to use him, and fear made the Israelites want to go back into Egypt.
The third servant in this parable told the master that he hid the talent because he was afraid. The master didn’t just forget the issue because the main issue at hand was that it did matter what the servant did with what he was given.
Fear of using our gifts often hinders us from being what God wants us to be. Fear of failing if we step out in faith or maybe fear of rejection. Whatever the case may be fear is not an adequate excuse for not using what God has given you. In the end God is concerned about what we do with what we have been given. The question that Jesus will ask us is what we did with what he entrusted us with. Do not let fear lead to the tragedy of the unopened gift.
c. Laziness
We live in a world where laziness is made easy. The La-z-boy has become a best selling chair and our society does not have the work ethic that it once could boast about.
Laziness is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs doing, not just physical laziness.
There are many people who do not use their gifts that God has given them because they are lazy, because it would take some effort to put them to use. Our gifts are a blessing and it is a privilege to serve God, but it takes some effort on our part to put those gifts to use and to become a better steward of that gift. We may have to do some work to use that gift or better our gift.
Since we have been getting all out stuff ready for the baby that is coming, the boss has had me put together a lot of different things. We have put together furniture, and many other things that the baby will need. What I hate about those packages is to read on them, “some assembly required”. I know what that really means in real English: it means, “you are going to spend hours putting this together, you will be mad, confused and frustrated, and you will have many parts left over that surely were supposed to go somewhere.”
Some effort was required on our part to assemble what we had purchased. Work is required to better our gifts and to put our gifts to work. In the parable that Jesus told, did you notice what the master called the third servant who buried the talent? He called him a wicked and lazy servant. Why was he lazy? Because it was much easier for him to take the gift and bury it than to sit around and think about what he could do to put it to use and give an increase, because he may have to work to use it the way the master wanted. He was much more content being lazy. I believe that is how many people in the church are with their gifts. They are content being lazy and not using their gifts.
Proverbs 15:19
Laziness has consequences and leads to the tragedy of the unopened gift. I want you to know that God has given you a gift, and He expects us to put it to use in the church. Will you work and use your gifts or will you be content being lazy and leaving the gift unopened?
d. Comfort
American society truly values comfort. We have all sorts of inventions and contraptions to make comfort possible. We have mattresses, which boast of extreme comfort. We have cars and vans that seek to bring comfort and even allow kids to watch television in the back. Furniture is advertised according to their comfort levels. The best selling chair is the La-z-Boy. We even have remote controls to make it so we never have to get up from our La-z-Boys.
Taking the gift outside of the box is always a risk. If you decide to use a valuable gift it can get ruined, but you may be missing out on a hidden treasure.
Comfort is not what God has called us to. Sometimes coming to Christ or serving him means we have to step out of our comfort zones. It may mean that we have to do something that we wouldn’t normally envision ourselves doing. It may mean sacrificing time, energy or even money. It may mean that our wills are laid aside for God’s will. It wasn’t a comfortable thing for Peter to leave his nets to follow after Jesus. Moses wasn’t comfortable accepting God’s call to lead the people of Israel. God has called us to use our gifts and sometimes we are frankly more comfortable where we were than we will be using our gifts. Many people will never use their gifts because they are much more comfortable where they are now. That is the tragedy of the unopened gift.
II. Jesus Will Deal with the Unopened Gift
The master one-day returned from his journey and he wanted an account of what his servants had done with what he entrusted them with. He wanted to settle the accounts.
A. There is a Punishment for the Unfaithful
We have the tendency to think that we can worm our way out of things when we are in trouble. I used to try to bribe my Mom to let me off my grounding early by doing chores around the house. She usually knew what I was up to before I ever asked. Often times we blame our failure to use our gifts on outside circumstances. “If I wasn’t so busy I would be able to use my talent better for the Lord.” The reality is that often times that is us just trying to justify ourselves not doing what we were supposed to do. The third servant tried to justify what he had done; he tried to worm his way out of it. Maybe he thought that if he had a good enough excuse he would be exempt from the master’s anger. I wonder how long he spent thinking of what he was going to say in response to the master when he returned. He probably spent more time trying to justify what he did not do than it would have taken him just to do what was expected of him. There is no way that the master’s return came at a shock to him, but I can assure of one thing, when that third servant saw the master had arrived, it probably wasn’t a happy moment. He probably wasn’t too excited to share the news with him that he had not done anything with what he was entrusted. Maybe he thought the master returned too soon, maybe he planned one eventually getting around to the work he was called to do. Maybe he was extremely busy, maybe he was going through some difficult times, maybe work kept him busy, family was probably crazy, and maybe his health wasn’t great. The master’s return may have just been sooner than expected.
A lot of times we do that with God. We spend countless hours trying to justify why we aren’t doing what we are supposed to do. We try to justify our sin and we try to work our way around our complacency. We should not be surprised by the fact that Jesus is one day going to return and ask us to give an account to him. I know that we view our day of giving an account to God is far off. We are like teenagers who we say sometimes consider themselves invincible. We see the return of our master of whom we must give an account far off. We have every reason in the book for why we haven’t done what we should have. We are just waiting for the timing to be all right. The truth is though we cannot pull one over his eyes. There is a God that we will one day stand before and we must give an account to him of what we have done with what he has given us, he is going to settle our account and we do not know the time of that account giving.
Imagine that your life is over and you are standing before God and giving an account for your life and God decides to pop in a video. You think, “this is different than I expected.” You see the title of the tape is, “What Might Have Been.” In that video God shows you what could have happened had you let him. You may see what God might have done with your character had you been open to change, you may see what may have happened to your finances had your trusted God and given in faith, you may see what could have happened to your giftedness had you trusted him to use you and stepped out in faith. I do not know if God is going to make us watch that video, but I do wonder in my life what might have been. God is going to bring to judgment those who squander what He has given them. That is the real tragedy of the unopened gift. Have you left your gift unopened and hoping that Jesus return and our giving an account is delayed?
B. There is a Reward for the Faithful
Did you notice what the master said to the two faithful servants? He said, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness. There is a reward for those that prove faithful and they are entrusted with more. We should not expect God to keep giving things to us until we can prove that we can be faithful with what he have. This is true whether we are talking about time, money, relationships or our talents.
I Peter 4:10
I want you to know that Jesus could take the 5 loaves and the two fish and multiply them and feed thousands. God could take a weak, stuttering vessel like Moses and use him to lead thousands of Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. God can take a cross that was stained with the blood of his only Son and lead to the empty tomb. God can take 12 followers who have seemingly no education and have a hard time grasping the basic principles Jesus taught and change the world through their labors. God is powerful, and he can take our little and turn it into a lot. He can take our weakness and use it to uplift the Kingdom. He can take our giftedness, which he has given us, and use us for something that makes a difference in eternity. However, God has given us the gift. It is up to us to open it. It is up to us to harness is and to improve in it. Will you today stop making excuses, stop comparing, stop being afraid, stop being lazy, step out of your comfort zone and use your gift. You would not believe what potential you have in the Kingdom of God. In the Church everyone is a someone and no one is disposable.
