Judged by Your Own Words

Matthew 25 and the Parable of the Talents

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message.

From Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew chapter 25 verses 14 through 30. 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, another one, each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them and he made five talents more.

Also he who had two talents made two talents 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 talents more saying, master you delivered to me five talents here I've made five talents 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 delivered to me two talents here I have made two talents 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, 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 sowed. I gather where I've scattered no seed.

Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, give it to him who has the ten 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 that worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is the gospel of the Lord.

Living With the Anxiety of an Appointment With Jesus

In the name of Jesus. Have any of you ever made an appointment that you are anxious about, not exactly looking forward to? My wife reminds me from time to time that although she is stuck at the age of 29, I have somehow managed to proceed very close and dangerously close to the age of 50.

And from time to time she reminds me that there are certain doctor visits that I must begin engaging in once I get to the age of 50. And she always has kind of that weird gleeful smirk on her face when she reminds me of this.

And of course just the veer thought of visiting the doctor to undergo certain procedures that I have hence well been avoiding gives me anxiety shall we say. Well that is all kind of the the framework if you would.

We've been talking about the end of the world. You'll notice all of our texts talk about the end of the world in one sense or another. We all know that we have an appointment. An appointment with Jesus.

And that appointment if you think about it causes us anxiety. It causes us anxiety because we all know that we have all sinned greatly against God. That even on our best day we have still had to pray the prayer that the Lord has taught us.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. I mean I'll be blunt. I'd rather have an appointment with the doctor after the age of 50 than have Jesus open up the accounting books of my life and sit there and go whoa what's that?

Right? And we all feel this way. We all do. And with that our gospel text the parable of the talents I don't know about you but for many years I had I had no way of understanding this particular parable.

It was quite confusing to me and anxiety causing because here you've got these three fellows one's given five talents another's given two and another one's given one. And two of these guys go out and immediately get busy and putting that talent to work.

And by the way a talent is not the ability to shoot a basketball or sing a song well or play the piano or dance the ballet. That's not what a talent is. I almost feel like it does us a disservice to translate this particular Greek word as talent.

A talent technically the term is talantan and it's a very large sum of money. The fellow who was given 15 talents or five talents comes up with about 15 years wages. That's a lot of money. That's like a retirement account.

It's like giving somebody over your 401k and saying hey listen I'm heading to the Bermuda you just go ahead and do business with this as you see fit. Right? So keep that in mind. Now in order to rightly understand this parable we're going to go to a strange text in the Old Testament.

One that is quite famous in fact. Famous in this sense that it has a song written about it. If you want to turn over there we'll be in Numbers 13. You remember the song from Sunday School? Twelve men went to spy on Canaan.

Ten were bad and two were good. What did they see when they spied on Canaan? There's even hand motions with this thing. Ten were bad and two were good. Some saw giants big and tall. Some saw grapes in clusters fall.

Some saw God rule over all. Ten were bad and two were good. Yeah see then now you know the song right? I can't remember the tune exactly. Have to do it like a rap or something like that. But anyway we're in Numbers chapter 13 and oddly enough this is gonna help us to understand our parable today.

Now we're not gonna go through the verbal gymnastics portion but let's take a look at Numbers 13. The Lord spoke to Moses saying send men to spy out the land of Canaan which I am giving to the people of Israel.

From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man. Every one a chief among them. A little bit of a note here. Up to this point the children of Israel they have been set free from slavery in Egypt.

Spent a wee bit of time at Mount Sinai. At Mount Sinai they received the Ten Commandments. They received the instructions to build the tabernacle and at this point the Levitical priesthood is up and running and the sacrifices are going and next stop after Mount Sinai the promised land.

You're gonna know I mean this is a pretty quick journey. This is not very long after them being set free from slavery in Egypt but we all know they end up spending 40 years in the wilderness before they go into the promised land and there's a reason for that.

So you're gonna note then that Moses then selects tribal leaders from among the chiefs of the clan and included in the mixed are two men who are very famous Joshua and Caleb. Joshua and Caleb and we remember them because of their faithfulness and this is the reason why.

Now moving on to verse 17 it says Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them go into the Negev and go up to the hill country and see what the land is and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak whether they are few or many.

Hang on a second here. There we go. Yeah that's right I should have gone with that paper Bible. Whether the land that they dwell in is good or bad. Whether the cities they dwell in are camps or strongholds.

Whether the land is rich or poor and whether there are trees in it or not. Be of good courage bring some of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes. So they went up spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob near Rebo Hamath.

They went up to into the Negev and came to Hebron, Ahaman, Sheshai and Talmai and the descendants of Anak were there. Hebron was built seven years before Zohan in Egypt and they came to the Valley of Eshcol cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes and they carried it on a pole between two of them.

They also brought some pomegranates and figs. That place was called the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster that the people of Israel cut down from there. And at the end of 40 days, a little bit of a note here, 40 days.

That 40 number in Scripture is kind of an important number. The children of Israel will eventually wander in the wilderness for 40 days. Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days and he was tempted by the devil.

Remember this? See 40 in the Bible oftentimes is associated with times of temptation or testing. So the end of 40 days they returned from spying out the land. They came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh and they brought back word to them and all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

And they told him we came into the land to which you sent us it flows with milk and honey and this is its fruit. However, you can almost say but and in this particular context however or but always has a tendency to erase the thing that was spoken before it.

And here comes the report. The people who dwell in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large and besides we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land and the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites.

They dwell in the hill country and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan. Huh. We got a problem here. Who is the one who freed them from slavery in Egypt? The Lord did. Was it because of Israel's mighty hand that they were set free?

No. Why on earth are they doubting God? Why are they doubting his ability to make good on his promise? Would it matter if the Canaanites at that time had a modern military? It wouldn't have mattered one bit if they had tanks and rockets and grenades and and things like that.

God still would have taken quite handily care of them, right? But they're all freaking out and the reason why is quite simple. They didn't believe. They didn't trust. They thought the worst of God, not the best, despite all of his great miracles that he performed for them and despite his self-revelation that he is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Prior to this story one of the interesting things is remember the whole golden calf incident. I've talked about it before but let me remind you after the golden calf incident God punished the children of Israel for that but Moses shortly after that literally asked God, Lord I want to see your glory.

And God said to Moses, yeah I don't think I could do that because you wouldn't survive the ordeal. This is Roseboro's paraphrase of this text. But God came up with an idea. God said here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna take you Moses and I'm gonna put you into a cleft of a rock and I'm gonna put my hand over the cleft and as my glory passes by, once it is passed by I'll remove my hand and then you can see the backside of my glory.

Now I have no idea what the backside of glory looks like but I'm sure it's impressive nonetheless. But this is what God came up with. So God takes Moses, tucks him into the cleft of a rock, puts his hand over it and then we hear that as the glory of the Lord came by the cleft, Moses heard these words Yahweh, Yahweh, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and pardoning iniquity.

So the glory of the Lord passes by and with the glory we get the words that God is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and that he pardons iniquity. This tells us a lot about God. Have you ever known about somebody who you have never met but you know something about and then a friend of yours actually goes and meets that person and comes back and talks to you about that person and always the conversation goes in the direction of what is that guy really like?

I've never met him before but I kind of imagine he's this way or that way, right? Well I want you to ask, I'm going to ask you a question. What do you think Jesus is like? What do you think he's like?

I've never met him. I don't know if he's tall or short, if he's rotund like myself or lean. I have no clue. I don't know what color his eyes are. I've never heard his voice. I don't know what it sounds like when he laughs.

But all of that is kind of immaterial. The question is what's he really like? What's he really like? What do you think about Jesus? What's he really like to you? Is he angry? Wrathful? Is he a mean taskmaster?

An ornery boss who's never able to be pleased? Or is he kind and merciful, forgiving and patient, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, the one who pardons iniquity? Is that what he's like? You see, what you think about Jesus, what you believe about him actually matters.

And that's what's going on in this text. Here God has shown his mighty arm to save, has revealed that he is steadfast in his love, slow to anger, that he forgives sins, that he has saved them from slavery, promised them the land of Israel.

And these fellows think, oh, there's giants. The people are huge. They have fortified cities. And the report's going to get worse. But before that, listen to what Caleb said. Caleb quieted the people before Moses and he said, let us go up at once and occupy it for we are able to overcome it.

And he's right. He has faith. But then the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people. They are stronger than we are. So they brought the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out.

The land through which we have gone to spy out is a land that devours its inhabitants and all the people that we saw of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim, the giants, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim.

And we seem to ourselves like grasshoppers. And so we seem to them. And now all of a sudden starts to take on like a campfire ghost story kind of feel right. But it gets worse. Then all the congregation raised a loud cry.

The people wept that night, and all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation said to them, Oh, would that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would that we had died in the wilderness?

Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become prey. Oh, would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.

And you're gonna note, what do they think about God? They think that this was some wicked evil plan on God's part to bring them out of Egypt and then have them die in the wilderness. They have no faith in him.

They believe the worst about him. And they really truly are to the point where it is not even within the realm of possibility that God loves them and will fight for them and give them exactly what he's promised.

These are the people who walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. And this is what they think about God. Watch what happens next. The men of faith spring into action. Moses and Aaron, they fell on their faces before the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel.

Joshua, the son of Nun and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, they tore their clothes. These are the men of faith. And watch what they say. They tore their clothes and said to the congregation of the people of Israel, the land which we pass through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land.

If Yahweh the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Now notice they have a completely different idea of what God is like. They believe that God has their best interest in mind, that God is going to make good on his promises.

And watch what happens. So only do not rebel against the Lord and do not fear the people of the land, for they are bred for us. Their protection is removed from them. The Lord is with us. Do not fear them.

Then all the congregations said to stone them with stones. They want to kill them for trusting the Lord. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, how long will this people despise me?

How long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have done among them? The signs of his love, his mercy, his power, his strength, that he is for them. And yet they think God is opposed to them.

I will strike them with the pestilence and I will disinherit them, God says. I'll make of you a greater and mightier nation than they. And watch Moses's prayer. This is the nub of the matter, if you would.

Moses said to the Lord, and this is an ornery prayer, Moses kind of stands his ground. So well, if you do that, then the Egyptians are going to hear about it. For you brought up this people in your might from among them, and they will tell the inhabitants of this land they have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people.

For you, O Lord, are seen face to face in your cloud stands over them and you go before them in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. Now, if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, well, it's because Yahweh was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give them, that he has killed them in their wilderness.

So now Moses is catching God in his own words, catching God and basically saying, you want your name to be besmirched among the nations, you go right ahead and kill these people. They're all going to say Yahweh couldn't bring you in.

He wasn't really able to do it. He was a big talker, but couldn't follow through. But next comes up, this is what's amazing. So now please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised. Ah, Moses now catches God's with his own words.

Watch, he says, you have promised the Lord is slow to anger. You have promised that you are abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but you will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children of the third and fourth generations.

So please pardon the iniquity of this people. According to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now, Moses took God's self revelation of his own being, that he's slow to anger, pardoning iniquity, and he prays it back to God and says, you can't do this.

You said you forgive. So forgive. That's a great prayer and watch what the Lord says. So then the Lord said, all right, I've pardoned according to your word. No, he pardoned according to his own word, which Moses was praying back to God.

But here's kind of the nubbins now where it gets a little dangerous, but truly as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and yet have put me to the test these 10 times and have not obeyed my voice.

None of them shall see the land that I swore to give their fathers. None of those who despise me shall see it, but my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went and his descendants shall possess it.

Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, how long will this wicked congregation grumble against me?

I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumbled against me. So say to them, as I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing, I will do to you. And this is where it gets interesting.

Notice at this point that those who did not believe are being judged by their own words, because out of the heart, the mouth speaks. So what they have spoken reveals what's in their heart, reveals that they think evil of Yahweh.

And since they believe evil of the Lord, the Lord will only give them what they expect from him. So, as long as I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing, I will do. Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.

Why? Because they had said, did the Lord bring us out into the wilderness to kill us? Since that's what you believe about the Lord, that's what you're going to get. And of all your number listed in the census from 20 years old and upward who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except for Caleb, the son of Jephunneh and Joshua, the son of Nun.

But your little ones who you said would become a prey, I will bring them in and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness for 40 years and shall suffer for your faithlessness.

And notice what they're suffering for, faithlessness. They have no faith until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the number of days which you spied out the land, 40 days a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity 40 years and you shall know my displeasure.

I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this I will do to all the wicked congregation who are gathered together against me in this wilderness. They shall come to a full end and there they shall die.". So notice, in this wonderful story, we see faith and unbelief side by side.

Unbelief results in the person being judged according to their words, according to their belief about the Lord. So let's come back now to our gospel text. We've got everything we need to rightly understand this parable now, so let's see if we can tease this out.

For it will be like a man going on a journey, Jesus says, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another one, each according to his ability, and then he went away.

Did you notice any commands here as to what to do with his stuff? Whose stuff is this? It's the master's and he's going to go away. He's going to go away for a long time, right? He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them and he made five talents more.

Now I don't know about you guys, but if one of you decided that you're going to give me 15 years wages and head off to Bermuda, I would be quite nervous to do anything with your money, right? But what does this tell you about this fellow's view of the master?

The master gave me 15 years wages, I'm going to go do business with it. Does that reveal that he thinks well of the master or thinks terribly of him? Thinks well of him. So much so, it's like, I'm going to go put this to work and if I lose it all, I lose it all, who cares?

The master's the best guy ever. When he comes back, he'll understand. Right? I mean, that's quite the relationship, all right? So he received the five, went and traded at once with them, made five talents more.

He also, who had the two talents, made two talents more. Same kind of relationship. Two talents is a lot of money. It's a lot. But he would receive the one talent, which is also a lot of money, went and dug it in the ground and hid his master's money.

Now what do you think this fellow thinks about the master? Does he think well of him or poorly of him? Does he love him or does he fear him? Yeah? Now, after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

He who had received the five talents came forward, bringing the five talents more, saying, and listen to the joy in his voice, master, you delivered to me five talents. Here, I've made five talents more.

It's his stuff anyway, right? Yeah? And his master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little. I'll set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. Joy.

Second fellow, let me find my place. He who had also the two talents came forward, saying, master, you delivered to me two talents. Here, I've made two talents more. His master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant.

You've been faithful over a little. I'll set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. There it is. I mean, if you're in line and that's what the first two guys ahead of you said, I mean, what do you think the disposition of the master's like?

I mean, the joy of your master? This is the best guy ever. But he who had received the one talent came forward saying, master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, gathering where you scattered no seed.

So I was afraid. I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, have what's yours. This sounds like the 10 spies. They believe God is awful. And you read this description, you sit there and go, you think this about Jesus?

Jesus is the same God of the Old Testament in human flesh, born of the Virgin Mary in order to save us. He was perfect, died in our place on the cross. He's slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

And you think Jesus is a hard man and you're afraid of him? What planet are you from? What on earth is going on here? I was afraid. I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, have what's yours. So his master answered him, you wicked and slothful servant.

All right, you knew what I reap where I have not sowed and I gather where I've scattered no seed. Notice he's judging him according to his own words. Well, if that's the case, you ought to have invested my money with the bankers and at my coming, I should have received what is my own with interest.

So take the talent from him, give it to him who has the 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.

Cast that worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. You see, this is a fellow who hears the law, but doesn't hear the gospel, who thinks that God is this terrible, stern, awful person who just can't wait to throw people into hell.

But he's nothing like that. The cross tells us what God is like. You see, it says in scripture that God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins. I don't know about you, but knowing that about Jesus and his great love and his mercy and that he forgives sins makes it so that that appointment that I know is coming from me and it's coming for you, too.

I don't dread it. In fact, I do dread going to the doctor after 50. But I'll tell you what, and this is a little bit personal. I don't have a framework for understanding what my meeting with Jesus is going to be like.

But I have something that I hang on to inside of my heart. Years and years ago when I was a kid, my parents divorced, and it was a terrible, ugly divorce. And my father, when I was eight years old, actually showed up at the place where I was being watched by a babysitter after school one day.

I remember it very clearly. He was in his police uniform. He was a police officer at the time. And he told me that he was quitting his job and moving out of state. And from the time I was eight until the time I had graduated eighth grade, I had no contact with my father.

It was awful. It was just absolutely terrible. And thanks to my grandparents, I was able to re-establish contact with my father. And as you can kind of figure out, it wasn't my choosing that I didn't have contact.

It was his. And finally, when contact was re-established after I graduated from eighth grade, my grandparents took me to where my dad was living. And I hadn't seen him since I was eight years old. It was amazing.

Walked into his yard after we pulled up in the car. He lived in a red house on a corner lot in Idaho. And the tears in his eyes. There were no words. He just grabbed me and hugged me. And the thing I remember the most is that it was such a strong bear hug.

And I remember feeling the scratchiness of his face because of his whiskers on my face. And we just wept. But it was tears of joy. You see, because of God's great love and mercy for us, this is what it's going to be like.

It's going to be like being reunited with your father, whom you haven't been able to see for whatever reason for years and years, who you've longed to see. So what do you think about Jesus? What do you think he's like?

Do you look forward to seeing him? Or do you dread it, thinking that he's awful and terrible? You will be judged according to your thoughts, what's in your heart, and what comes out of your mouth, your words on that day.

But I assure you, there is mercy in Christ. So repent of your sins, the ones that you are afraid of, afraid of being judged for. You're right. You should be judged for them. But God is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and pardon, iniquity, and forgiving sins.

This is the glory of God. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Closing Announcements and Copyright Notice

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