Summer In The Parables - [Matthew 25:14-30]

including hundreds of voices. As the mighty chorus sang out in unison with the thunder of the organ, the roll of the drums, the blasts of horns and clashing cymbals, a man far away in one corner who played the piccolo said to himself, in all this mighty volume of music, it matters little whether I play or not.

I will not be missed. And so he ceased to play. Immediately, the great conductor's stop flung up both hands and all was still.

Then he cried out, where is the piccolo? His quick ear missed it.

To him, there was incompleteness because one little instrument ceased playing.

Oh, ye humble hidden one, play thou thy part and play it well.

There is an ear, capital E, that hears. Bring no discord into the harmony of the divine oratorio.

Play on. Many a worker, humble soul has been cheered by the rhythm of your steady tread.

And who knows how many in life's struggle have lost heart because one hidden soul has reasoned,

I will not be missed. And so broke ranks. Oh, ye tempted ones, we must have your part of the divine chorus.

In God's great organ, there are no useless keys. March on, pray on, play on.

There are ears that hear, there are hearts that approve and standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

And standing in the midst of the parable of the talents is a crossroads. One road includes perseverance, faithfulness, diligence, and hard work.

And the other road includes fear, laziness, and wickedness. Which road will you choose?

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the opportunity to stand before these people.

I thank you, Father, for just the refreshment of your word. I pray that the saints here might be refreshed by the words.

They really are clearly not my words, but words of yours through your scripture, your holy scripture, and words through inspiration of your

Holy Spirit. Lead and guide, Father, and may you be honored and glorified in Christ's name, amen.

Okay, week three in the parables. Today, we're gonna talk about the parable of the talents. Oh, did everybody get a quiz, by the way?

There's quizzes on the chairs as you come in. So it's

Matthew 25, verses 14 to 30. I'll read the parable.

For it 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 would receive the five talents one at once and traded with them, and he made five more.

So also he who had the two talents made two 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 more, saying,

Master, you delivered to me five talents. Here I have made five 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 have delivered to me two talents. Here I have made two 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 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 10 talents. For to everyone who has, more will 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 utter darkness.

In that place, there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So you can tell by the quiz that we have, we'll just do it together.

Nine true false statements, one multiple choice question, no brain teasers, all fairly simple questions.

And we'll just work through the quiz together. So the first one, true or false, parables are merely fun stories told by Jesus as he respite from his hard teachings.

True or false? Boy, you guys are brilliant. In truth, since when are any of Jesus's words less important?

If we were able to put a mic on Jesus while he was here 2000 years ago and miked him for 33 years, every word that proceeded from his mouth would be worthy of our hearing, would be worthy of our submission, would be worthy of us putting into practice.

There are no words of Christ that are more important than others. They are all vastly important.

Christ himself said in Luke 21, 33, heaven and earth will pass away. In other words, anything and everything could happen, but my words will not pass away.

All of the words in the canon of scripture, the measuring rod are important. Parables speak words of affirmation to those who believe and understand the hard sayings of Christ.

Likewise, they pronounce judgment and condemnation on those who are foolish and don't believe.

While we're in week three of parables, does everybody know what a parable is?

Does anybody wanna tell the class what a parable is? A parable comes from two

Greek words or maybe it's one Greek word, para, beside, and ballow, to throw or to cast.

Dr. Roskup, Pastor Cooley's professor at Master's Seminary said, the idea then, this is regarding parables, the idea then is that the facts in one realm which the hearers know are cast alongside facts in the spiritual realm so that they will see by analogy or correspondence what is true in this realm.

Now the hearers, as Dr. Roskup talks about, can be believers and unbelievers, but when he talks about the spiritual realm, only believers can understand that.

You've probably heard the little phrase, what a parable is, an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.

I think that's a pretty good description, but we have to understand that while that's nice, we have to also add on the tagline, but there are consequences.

There are rewards when we read a parable, understand it, and follow what it says, and there are consequences when we read a parable and ignore it, and there are consequences for those outside of Christ who would neither read them, but if they did, not heed them.

If I were to hold parable night at West Boylston Library and invited all the townspeople to come in and we sat in a circle and I read parables, just like the one we just read, it's not so heady that someone outside of the kingdom couldn't understand the meaning.

The problem is they wouldn't understand the whole meaning. Intellectually, that story isn't so difficult that we can't wrap our arms around it, but it's impossible for an unbeliever to understand the eternal consequences of it, and the reason why is those of us sealed by the

Holy Spirit have, in essence, the decoder ring. We can understand the hidden meaning of the parable.

The natural man, the unsaved man, doesn't have that decoder ring. Paul says, as we know in this verse fairly well, 1

Corinthians 2 .14, the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Those outside of Christ cannot understand the true meaning of a parable. When the disciples asked

Jesus in Matthew 13, why do you speak in parables? He answered them and said, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

In some ways, that was Christ in a compassionate way, saying, unbelievers are already under condemnation.

They are destined for hell. I am not going to heap more burning coals or heap more problems on them, more misunderstanding.

I speak in code. They can't understand. It doesn't increase their condemnation, but you, believer in Christ, you will understand.

So we know that parables are not just cute little stories told by Jesus as a respite.

All his words are of equal value. Any questions or comments? Question or statement two, true or false?

Another brain teaser. No one needs, excuse me, one needs no additional context to properly understand the parable of the talents.

In other words, if we just read Matthew 25, 14 to 30, we can fully understand what that parable means.

I think we all know well enough that we've sat under the teaching of the leadership of this church.

We know that everything is context, context, context. And this parable is no different.

If we read Matthew 14, 25, 14 to 30, we don't really get the entire context of what this parable means.

John MacArthur says regarding understanding scripture and applying it properly.

He says, the duty of any faithful exegete of God's word is to find out its true meaning and then to preach it to the people.

In other words, what does the Bible mean if we were dead? I don't know about you, but in my formative years of being a

Christian, I went to far too many Bible studies where we would sit around in a circle, read some scripture and say, what does it mean to you?

And what does it mean to you? And what does it mean to you? And what does it mean to you, Scott? Quite honestly, it doesn't matter what it means to me.

What John says is we need to step aside as if we were dead, as if we don't matter and make sure that we are using original languages, that we're using faithful commentaries and that we've strove, striven, strove to interpret scripture properly.

And then once we know what the scripture really means, apply it, submit to it.

It's that simple. Now, as I said, we can't just look at this parable and say,

I can understand this. We have to really look at Matthew 24 and 25.

Now, we're not gonna go through every bit of it, but I am gonna talk about Matthew 24 and 25. Does anybody know what this section of scripture is called?

Matthew 24 and 25 have a particular name. And I'll give you a hint, if you don't know right off the top of your head.

And I'm gonna emphasize one word. Matthew 24, three says, as he sat on the

Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us when these things will be.

Does anybody know what this might be called? That is correct.

The Olivet Discourse, meaning that Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives and taught his disciples.

Now, as many of you probably know, Matthew 24 is eschatological.

It is the talk of end times. The disciples wanted to know the signs of his second coming.

And Jesus explains to them the signs of tribulation and the second coming.

And then he exhorts them and us through the use of parables of the need of preparedness.

And we're just gonna touch on them briefly. Matthew 24, verses 32 and 33, the parable of the fig tree.

Jesus said from the fig tree, learn its lesson. As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out leaves, you know that summer is near.

So also when you see all these things, you know that he is near at the very gates.

Watch and be ready is what he's trying to say. Then the lessons of the days of Noah, Matthew 24, 36 to 41.

It's symbolic of the fate of unregenerate men. They're not watching for signs.

They're not concerned with their internal condition. They're not prepared for the return of Christ nor of the day of the reckoning of their own souls.

And then judgment specifically is spoken of in verse 40 and 41. Two men will be in the field.

One will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken, one will be left.

The message, be prepared once again. Then next, flipping to Matthew 25, the parable of the 10 virgins.

Context, 10 virgins waiting for the coming of the bridegroom. Five are prepared.

Scripture says they are prudent. They are prepared for the potential delay or return of the bridegroom.

They bring extra oil in their lamps. The other five have their lamps full of oil, but bring no extra oil and are completely unprepared.

Well, guess what? The oil goes out. The bridegroom still hasn't come. So the unprepared five go and buy oil.

And while they're gone, the bridegroom comes and they miss his coming and then are not allowed into the feast, signifying their unbelief.

And then condemnation, judgment, Matthew 25, 11 to 13. Afterward, the other virgins came also saying,

Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered, truly I say to you, I do not know you.

Watch, therefore, for you do not know neither the day nor the hour. Now, we talk about context being important, don't we?

And I'm just gonna share three verses, not out of this passage, that have to do with context and making sure that we have proper context when we look at things.

Three, I guess it was two weeks ago, Steve Plotnick was here and he was teaching Sunday school and he was telling that story about binding

Satan and loosening Satan, that whole thing from Matthew 18. And let me just read that, it's

Matthew 18, 18. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Among other things, when you think of Matthew 18, what is the theme of Matthew 18? Bruce. Right, church, the whole process of church discipline and the steps of church discipline.

Exactly right. So that's the context here. And so what you have to understand is, it's got nothing to do with binding

Satan or anything like that, this is the context. We have a sinning brother, we know that there's a problem, we've gone through the steps.

In essence, if you have faithful people involved in the process who are interpreting scripture properly, all this passage really means is that when you've applied scripture properly and you're going through the process of discipline or restoration of a brother or a sister, if you've applied scripture properly, heaven's in agreement.

If earth is bound, heaven's bound. If earth is loosed, heaven is loosed. All it means is that heaven's in agreement when you discipline someone properly.

I didn't notice when I walked in, everybody seemed to have two eyes. It says in Matthew 5, if your right eye causes you to sin, then tear it out and throw it away.

I got news for you, my right eye causes me to sin. And for a while back, my left eye caused me to sin when

I had an eye infection. But for it is better for you to lose the members of your body than that your whole body will be thrown into hell.

Folks, our eyes get us in trouble. If you've heard that Bible scholar in the first century,

Origen, it is very possible that he was convicted so much by this passage that he had problems with sexual sin that rumor has it or legend has it that Origen actually castrated himself.

So the problem is we need to understand the context. The context is that sin has radical consequences.

Sin can cause death. Sin causes separation from God. And we need to make radical changes.

That's what the context of this passage is. And we don't need to remove body parts because you wanna know something?

If you took it literally, removing a body part isn't gonna stop you from sinning. That's the problem.

Third, I use this verse again in my formative years as a Christian thinking as we did vacation

Bible schools in New York, in New Jersey, and we went to Illinois one year and we use this verse over and over again as some salvific means to share with some young child.

You'll know the verse, Revelation 3 .20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door,

I will come in and eat with him and he with me. It has nothing to do with salvation.

It has all to do with a lukewarm Laodicean church and Christ is pronouncing judgment on the lukewarm

Laodicean church. Remember he says, I wish you were either hot or cold, but you are lukewarm and I will spew you out of my mouth.

He's in essence, when he says this verse, he's pleading with them. If one believer would step forward and be the man and play the man,

I will come into that church and bless it. That's what that verse is. It has nothing to do with wooing an unsaved soul to come to know

Christ, nothing at all. So we do need to have proper context when we look at parables.

Any questions or comments before we move on to the third one? Statement three, true or false?

The main lesson of the parable of the talents is how to properly manage money.

Pat, you think that's funny? That's right.

I mean, it's false. Jesus used something as great value to prove a point.

It's really shocking value. It's a shocking point to sort of wake us up.

The main point of this parable is faithfulness. Would the three servants demonstrate faithfulness in the absence of the master?

That's the key here. Would they demonstrate faithfulness in the absence of the master? What's a talent?

Wow, you're getting ahead of me. You're absolutely right. You wanna step up here?

And I was hoping almost that someone would say that a talent is money. Traditionally, when you read the word talent in scripture, it is money, but talent is a measure of weight.

58 to 80 pounds, somewhere in there is a talent. It's a measure of weight, typically a measure of money, but not.

And here I can prove to you that it's not only a measure of money. You don't have to turn there, but Revelation 16 .21,

and there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven. Every stone about the weight of a talent.

So typically, a talent is a weight of money, but it's just typically just a weight.

We do know in this case though, that the talent spoken of in this parable is a talent of money.

That word talent in verse 18 comes from the word, if I can say it right, argyrion, which actually means money or silver.

Talents were typically gold, silver, or copper, and Pam had it right. 6 ,000 denarii equaled a talent, and a common day laborer working six days a week, he made a denarii every day.

It would take him 20 years of saving that denarii every day to earn the equivalent of one talent.

So you can see, although some commentators would disagree about the amount of money, some would say it's an enormous amount of money, others say, yeah, it's money, but it's not really huge.

The point is, we don't need to get caught up on the money and the multiplication of it, which is what happens, but we need to focus on the lesson of preparedness and faithfulness.

As we said, we saw from the parable of the fig tree, the days of Noah and the 10 virgins that we need to be prepared.

That's the message from those parables. The parable of the talent tells us, yes, be prepared, but now you must act.

You must act while the master is gone. Well, in setting up question four, our only multiple choice question, it says in the first verse that we read,

Matthew 25, 14, for it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted them his property.

What is it in Matthew 25, 14? For it will be like a man going on a journey.

Come on, Bruce. Kingdom of heaven, that's absolutely correct because it refers back to verse one of the same chapter talking about the parable of 10 virgins.

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins. And so then it moves from that parable right into this next parable.

And it says for it, it is the kingdom of heaven. So with that said, we know that it is the kingdom of heaven.

What is the kingdom of heaven? A, B, C, D, E.

C, could be E also.

That is, I found that on the internet. There's a movie called the kingdom of heaven. I would not recommend it, but there is a movie called the kingdom of heaven.

So if you said C or C and E, you are absolutely correct. The kingdom of heaven is the present dominion over his people.

John MacArthur, once again, another MacArthur quote, when he talks about the kingdom of heaven says, it says it refers to the sphere of God's dominion over those who belong to him.

The kingdom is now manifest in heaven's spiritual rule over the hearts of believers. Folks, you and I in the body of Christ are living in the kingdom of heaven.

I will tell you that I used to think, oh, this parable really is giving us a glimpse of what heaven is like.

No, this gives us a glimpse on how we ought to operate. That's the purpose of this parable.

And that's what the kingdom of heaven is. We are all living right now in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew has that phrase kingdom of heaven 25 times.

It's used in the book of Matthew. Nowhere else in scripture is the phrase kingdom of heaven used.

But the kingdom of God, that phrase occurs 67 times in scripture, five times in Matthew.

So the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are interchangeable terms. And you have to just keep in mind that Matthew was written to a

Jewish audience and the Jews oftentimes interchangeably used God in heaven.

That's why he wrote it that way, calling it the kingdom of heaven, kingdom of heaven. Questions, comments?

Statement five, true or false? This parable shows that a blessed person's attributes include diligence, hard work, faithfulness, and preparation.

I guess we know it because we've just been talking about this over and over again. We know the answer to this question to be true.

Again, the previous parables we talked about, fig trees, days of Noah, 10 virgins, all put us on a heightened sense of alertness.

It's crucial in the preparation of the coming of the king. And the parable of the talents shows us that hard work and effort distinguishes true followers of Christ from imposters.

If we look back at the end of Matthew 24, verses 45 to 47, there is that parable about the two servants.

And one is the diligent one, and one is just like the two servants in this passage, in the parable of the talents.

He says in verses 45 to 47, who then is the faithful and wise servant whom his master has set over his household to give them their food at the proper time?

Blessed is that servant whom his master will find doing so, doing so signifying effort when he comes.

Truly I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. So in the parable of the two servants, here's the characteristics of the true follower of Christ.

We just read it. He's faithful and he is wise. And the result of that, as it says, he'll be blessed and he is given increased responsibilities.

The same thing happens here. The first servant is given five talents and he goes and he trades with them.

The second servant is given two talents and he goes and trades with them. What does it mean to trade those talents?

James Boyce says, prompted undoubtedly by the orders they had received from their master, by the confidence he had placed in them and by the knowledge that one day they would have to give an account to him.

That's the key. That's the key. The master is gone and they realize that one day they are going to have to give an account to him.

The first and the second servants use the entrusted sums so effectively that in each case the amount doubled.

And D .A. Carson said, the good servants felt the responsibility of their assignment and went to work without delay.

It does not mean that the servant invested the money in some lending agency. Rather he set up some business and worked with the capital to make it grow.

So we know that from the parable, the story of the two servants from Matthew 24 and what we've talked about so far in the parable of the talents, that the attributes of the good servant are diligence, hard work, faithfulness, preparation.

Not just waiting and being prepared, they need to act. Question six, statement six, true or false?

The master loved the one who got the five talents the most. That is the master showed he hated the last servant by giving him only one talent.

False. The thing to keep in mind here, verse 15, the key thing, he gave each according to his ability.

We have folks in this church that are the five talent type people. We have folks in this church that are the two talent type people.

And we have folks in this church who are the one talent type people. The beauty is, or the principle here is this, when much is given, much is expected.

But here's the beauty. The rewards for the first two servants, the one who received the five talents and gained five more, the one who received the two talents and gained two more, the reward is exactly the same.

Look, and he says in Matthew 25, in verse 21 to the person with the five talents, and in verse 23 to the person with the two talents, the same exact thing.

He says, 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. The person, the servant that received the one talent could have had the same reward if he was just faithful and persevered and worked hard.

We can assume that his job was to gain one talent. He had one, gain one more.

So there's no distinction between the one that got five, the one that got two, the one that got one.

They were each given talents according to their abilities. Any questions or comments?

Statement seven, true or false? The servant who received the one talent proved that he did not know his master and deserved his fate.

True, the answer is true. Look at his characteristics. Verse 25 of Matthew 25, it said that this servant was fearful.

And in verse 26, he was wicked and lazy. He showed that he didn't love his master and he feared him in an improper way.

Now we need to understand that, yes, we do need to fear the Lord. Proverbs 3, 7, fear the

Lord and turn away from evil. So we know that there's always a fear of God and what he can do to us at any given time.

He can vanquish me in one second if he wants to. But to this point in my life, he's chosen not to.

But the point is, we need to have that righteous fear of God at all times.

All my steps are ordained by him. My days are numbered and the end of my life is already planned.

That's a fact. That's fearing God the proper way. But fearing him an improper way like this servant did meant he was paralyzed and he demonstrated his lack of belief, lack of trust, lack of respect for his master, who by the way is

Christ, we know from this parable, who is Christ himself. But he demonstrated that his lack of fear proved all things.

I'm not a follower of Christ. I don't respect you. I don't believe you. I'm lazy. I'm a good for nothing.

Here's another interesting point where the master said to him, well, if you did nothing else, why didn't you put my money on deposit in the bank?

Why did you hide it? Answer, likely answer, just like the servant that we're gonna read about in a minute.

We just talked about the good servant in Matthew 24 and we're gonna read about the bad servant in just a minute, so hang in there.

He didn't wanna put his money on deposit for one simple reason. He thought the master was never gonna return.

So if he goes, buries his talent over there and sits back and waits and does nothing and the master never returns, he can go dig up that talent and it's his.

If he put it on record with the bank, it would already be recorded that it belonged to the master and not him.

That is likely why he buried it. And I just said to you, we just talked about the good servant from Matthew 24, similar characteristics of the bad servant, similar to this third servant in the parable of the talents.

It says in verses 48 to 51 of Matthew 24, but if that wicked servant says to himself, my master is delayed, in other words, he's not coming back and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, he's just gonna whoop it up, have a great old time.

The master of that servant will come back on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour when he does not know and will cut him to pieces and put him in with the hypocrites.

And the same conclusion happens to this servant also, in that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The result of foolishness and laziness from the servant, the story of the two, illustration of the two servants in Matthew 24 and this third servant in Matthew 25, the result is the same.

Their foolishness, their laziness, their lack of trust, their lack of respect, their lack of honor of their master led them to the same conclusion that they would be cast into the utter darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Number eight, we're getting there. This parable teaches us that we're justified by works.

The two servants who worked hard received a reward and the one servant who didn't work hard was cast into utter darkness, excuse me.

True or false? We know, because we've been taught so well, that we're never justified by our works.

Romans 3 .24, by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight.

The key here is the principle of hard work, obedience, faithfulness.

They were applied to the first two servants and there was that intimacy with the master.

Now, we don't see the whole story here when you read that parable. Obviously, there's some instruction that's going on, there's some teaching, there's some leading for those two servants to then go without hesitation, take their talents and go earn something with them.

The result is they expected his return and they honored and pleased him by their efforts.

Yes. I think that's a good point.

And I wanna say anything that's heresy, but we know, just like you just said, that salvation is all a work of God.

We demonstrate it by faith, but it's all a work of God. But if I see someone come to faith and I watch them from afar,

I see them acting out, demonstrating their faith by their good works, right? That's to me, when

I see someone, that's the affirmation that someone's saved by their good works. But we know from God's perspective, he provided them the faith, they were saved because of that, their works never saved them.

But the outpouring of all of us that would demonstrate that we are in fact saved is by our works.

And that's exactly what James said. And that's really a good point. They demonstrated, these two servants here, demonstrate their faith and trust in the master by their works.

Doesn't save them, but... Were you gonna say something, Steve? Very good point.

Yes. I don't know if someone knows that verse.

I don't, off the top of my head. I knew you'd know. That's right.

So, we just need to make that distinguishing point. Everything about us, the day of our salvation, the works that we are to walk into, the life that we are to lead, all points back to a plan that was all devised beforehand by God.

Anybody else have any questions or comments? I don't wanna be unclear about that. At the end of Matthew 25, it talks about the sheep and the goats, the separation of the sheep and the goats, same thing happening here.

We've seen the unmerciful servant, his conclusion sent into utter darkness with his weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The third servant, his lack of faith, his lack of honoring his master, sent to a place of utter darkness with his weeping and gnashing of teeth.

We see the final conclusion of all those, the final judgment of all unbelievers in Christ when he separates the sheep and the goats.

It says in verse 46, these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Separation of sheep and goats. Now, for the fun question, question nine or statement nine,

Joel Osteen was right. I'm not even gonna finish reading the statement.

But if it's okay, I'm gonna read a quote from Joel Osteen. Listen to this baloney.

I want you to get a bigger vision. There are exciting things in your future.

Your future is filled with marked moments of blessing, increase, promotion. God has already ordained before the foundation of world the right people, the right opportunity.

Time and chance are coming together for you. Why don't you get your hopes up? Why don't you start believing that no matter what you have or haven't done, that your best days are still out in front of you?

Folks. Yeah, go ahead, Steve. We belong to a...

Somebody gonna have a comment? I thought I saw a hand go up. We're all part of a small church in West Boylston.

But when I look around this place, I don't see all this. I see blessing, of course, in the efforts of this church.

And I see God blessing the ministry here. But I see people suffering. I see 18 -year -old boys dying of cancer.

I see people struggling with strokes and cancer. I see men underemployed or unemployed.

I see a young girl struggling with Lyme disease. You know, my opinion is that we just,

Christians just suffer better. That's the difference. We just suffer better. I think in many ways, we have to suffer more.

You know, here's a challenge to everyone here. Are you suffering, those that are out in the workplace, or just have this opportunity to be with unbelievers, are you suffering in those situations?

Because I think if you're not suffering in those situations, you need to evaluate. You know,

I'm not trying to evaluate your salvation, but evaluate your desire to proclaim who you are in Christ.

You know, every day... I mean, I'm not gonna paint this picture, like every day I go to work, it's trial and tribulation. But I have professed my faith a number of times.

And nearly everyone that I work with is Roman Catholic. And I don't wanna say they hate my guts, but they hate my guts.

And I'm just telling, I don't see the prosperity that Joel Osteen talks about here.

This parable has nothing to do with prosperity, all to do with faithfulness, all to do with preparedness.

Each servant was given a task to do, and the first two did it. The fact that they doubled their money was inconsequential.

The real issue is the diligence of the first two servants and the laziness of the last. The amount given was an outflow of their abilities.

Stated again, the last servant earned just one, had he just earned just one talent, he would have received the same reward as the first two.

Okay, we're almost done. Last statement, success leads to more opportunities. Right, but I would say that success in ministry in terms of diligence, faithfulness, hard work does lead to opportunities in terms of further ministry.

I mean, he says in Matthew 25, 23, 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. Standing before you folks is someone who's not extremely gifted, but when

I look at my tenure here of, I guess, approaching 30 years at Bethlehem Bible Church, I'm not only humbled, but in awe of the opportunities that have been given to me over the years.

You know, I say this with all humility, but I've had an opportunity to, in some way, be involved in nearly every ministry in this church.

The one exception, probably, is I've never been on the Women's Fellowship Committee, or whatever it's called.

But I just have had opportunities, financial secretary, high school youth group leader, on and on and on over the years.

And I am truly thankful. Two tours of duty, I guess, as an elder.

I've been a deacon, and the list goes on. I am just thankful for the opportunities that have been given to me.

And what we need to do, all of us, is to prove ourselves faithful in the little things.

And we will be, oftentimes, I don't wanna say dogmatically, but oftentimes, blessed with further responsibility and blessing.

In conclusion, some of you know I work at National Grid. And my job affords me great freedom.

I have the autonomy, in essence, to make my own schedule. I can be in the office whenever I want.

I can be out visiting customers whenever I want. And generally speaking, no one interferes with my schedule.

In fact, my boss really has no idea where I am. She doesn't know if I'm in the office, because she doesn't take the time to come down and see or call me.

She doesn't know if I'm out visiting customers. She has no idea if I'm playing hooky. She doesn't know if I'm at the driving range.

No idea whatsoever. I could be like the unmerciful servant.

I could be like that third servant in the parable of the talents that decided to do absolutely nothing, to demonstrate unfaithfulness, to demonstrate fear, to demonstrate laziness.

We all could. But, you know, and I could get away with that for a season of time at work.

But because my job is goals -driven, it would only be a matter of time before I was found out and I'd lose my job.

In turn, we could operate as if God is somewhere far away.

He's not paying attention to us. So why bother being diligent? Why bother being faithful?

Why bother following His commands and imploring the lost to be saved? Answer, because it does matter.

And He is intimately involved in our lives. He's returning, like it or not. And you can't escape death, nor can

I. So the real issue at hand is, what are we gonna do about it?

Let's pray. Father, thank You as we get a glimpse of the parable of the talents, and we see the action of two faithful servants who loved

You and honored You by their service, by their faithfulness. And Father, we see the outcomes of those that would choose to thumb their nose at You, those that live in the days of Noah, the five unprepared virgins, the unmerciful servant, this last servant who chose the easy road, the broad gate, in essence, that most of the world would choose to pass through.

But Father, You have instilled in us the truth. And I pray that You'd empower us and grant us the strength and the fortitude to proclaim our faith when we have that opportunity, and also to be servant -minded, as so many folks in this church are.

Implore us, Father, help us. Urge us on to do greater and greater things, that we might serve

You, not only here on this side of glory, but on the other side. Father, thank You for these folks and for this day, in Christ's name, amen.