Matthew 25:14-30 Making It Better

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Pastor Don Filsak is preaching through a sermon series called The Rest of the Week, Loving God from Monday to Saturday. Let's listen in.

All right. Sounded pretty good, huh?

Praise God. Well, good morning.

Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm glad that you're here, glad that you've taken time out of your busy week to gather together as God's people and worship Him.

Be sure to check out the connection card—I mean, the worship folder that you received when you walked in. It's got all different kinds of activities and events and different things that are going on in there, so you can check that out.

But if you really want to get connected, then fill out the connection card that you received. You can turn that in in the black box back there. If you do share an email address with us, we do send out a weekly email called the eCast with a lot more than what you're going to get in here.

This is just a summary, but you get a lot of links and different connection points there. So be sure to take advantage of that, especially if you're calling this your church. I hope that you're receiving that eCast.

Even if you're not reading it each week—I know that sometimes we get in this pattern of you get a bunch of emails and you just kind of mark as read, you know what I mean? And you don't necessarily read it, but now you know where to go and get the information if you've got a question or you need something else.

And then you received an offering envelope. Any offerings you would choose to give also go in that same black box on the table out in the hallway there. Again, giving is just a response out of the gratitude of our hearts for what God has done for us.

It is indeed a spiritual act, and we don't want anybody to give because they feel pressured. We want your giving to be out of the overflow and the abundance of what God has done for you and a recognition that we're stewards of all that he has given to us, stewardship being a theme for this morning.

And so as we're diving in, that's what we're going to be looking at. And then remember that any gifts that are marked expansion fund go towards our hopes and prayers that God would provide us a building, a place for us to call our own, and ultimately a place, my vision for that is a place set aside in this community for us to bless the community with that facility and that being an opportunity to loan it out and let it be used for a variety of different things, but also primarily a place for us to gather together and worship in an environment that doesn't necessarily talk about eating smart on the walls and things like that.

And so I don't know if you've noticed some of the decor in here, probably kind of background noise to you now, but those are some sweet pictures of grapes up there and stuff. So, um, this morning we're wrapping up a five part series called, uh, the rest of the week.

It's been my goal in this five part series just to take this brief time, um, from going marching through books of the Bible, as you know that I do, um, but take some time to bridge the gap between Sunday morning and the rest of our week by helping us to see from the pages of scripture that there is a dignity and a significance to our daily.

Work.

Our vocations matter in terms of our shaping our world and shaping ourselves. I don't know if you've thought about that component of your work shaping you, but it is an opportunity in your work and in your daily labor to actually become more and more conformed to God's image.

How many of you had an opportunity this week to practice patience at your employer or in your vocation or in your home? If you're a stay at home mom or whatever, you've had an opportunity Monday through Saturday to practice patience.

That's God's refining work in your life. There's all different kinds of opportunities to have joy in the midst of things not going the way that they are, that we intended for them to go. And that is right in the middle of our everyday.

God is working to shape us. And so in our work, we have the chance to help shape our society, but we get the chance to serve others and we get the chance to practice the righteousness that God has called each one of us to.

Take work out of the equation and our practicing righteousness often amounts to, like I've mentioned a few times, praying before meals and showing up at church on Sunday morning. Maybe reading a couple verses out of the Bible regularly and then feeling bad if we miss a day or something like that.

But we have an opportunity to redeem a huge chunk of our time by recognizing how it connects in this opportunity for God to transform us and change us and for us in turn to help love others and love God by our work.

Way back in the beginning, God clearly conveyed what human existence is all about. He instructed the first man and woman to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue, to keep, to work, to cultivate, and to improve the garden.

Have you ever thought about that?

God told man from the very beginning, created man and woman in the garden, and we have a tendency to think that that was a perfect place. But in a real sense, we've been given a mysterious and glorious place of joining with God in an ongoing process of creativity.

He's enlisting us for the betterment of the world. There's this ongoing process of creativity, of improvement, and development that he laid upon humankind. He didn't plop us into the middle of a fully developed universe with nothing further to accomplish.

Could he have done so?

Yeah.

But instead, he actually created a world that he declared to be very good and then said, go make it better, go improve, go cultivate. There was a task, a responsibility on us from the beginning. He dropped us in this very good place and said, take it from here, cultivate it, explore it, care for it, steward it as a gift from your master.

Steward it as a gift from the Almighty. We certainly, how many of you would agree with me on this, we haven't nailed that assignment.

Very well.

Would you agree with me on that?

We haven't nailed it. As a matter of fact, we broke it with our sin, and yet that assignment still continues even in a broken world, that assignment to cultivate, that assignment to care for and explore and steward this world.

And this morning, we're going to turn to a text, I think probably a quite familiar text to many of us, where Jesus is going to give us a story about what it means to be a steward in the kingdom of God.

Even in a broken world, we have to understand what we are, what we are in truth, what we're created to be. And a good theology and a good life always begins with a right understanding of who God is and a right understanding of ourselves.

We have to, to be a well-rounded, well-balanced individual requires a proper understanding of who He is, but then equally, a right understanding of who we are in light of that. Who are we? What were we made to be?

Even in a broken world, we must understand that we are who we are. My concern is that many of us don't spend our Monday through Saturday considering that the appropriate title for ourselves is steward.

It's steward.

A lot of times we think of ourselves as owner or doer, possessor. And when we consider in our text this morning what a steward does, it may be that finally this final text that we're talking about for work helps us to put our work and our vocations into perspective.

So I want us to open in our Bibles to Matthew 25 verses 14 to 30. If you don't have a Bible in front of you or a device to navigate over to Matthew 25, then please raise your hand and there's some guys with extra Bibles back here just to bring you one.

We want everybody to have a copy of the Word of God. And if you don't have one at home, please take one of those. There's some on the table out there that are just gifts, so you can take that with you if you don't have a Bible.

But follow along as we read a decent-sized chunk of Scripture and a complete story that Jesus told, Matthew 25, 14 through 30, God's Word for us this morning. For it, it being the kingdom of God, this is Jesus speaking.

If you have a red-letter version of the Bible, the majority of this text is read this morning. Jesus talking, and he's talking about the kingdom.

It says,.

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 who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also, he who had the 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 have 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've 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 do not sow and gathering where you scatter 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 scatter no seed.

Then you ought to have invested the money with the 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 the ten talents, for to everyone who has will more 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 outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning.

Father, I pray that you would drive deep into our hearts this understanding of what it means to be stewards of your kingdom. Father, you have entrusted to us, you have entrusted us with a privilege to serve you, to honor you, to expand and to create more and to do more.

And Father, these gifts, these abilities come from you, these resources as we think about in the text are ultimately yours. We have nothing in, that includes the breath in our lungs. We have no guarantee that we are promised another minute on this planet.

And so from a place of humility, I ask that we would, our worship this morning, our praise in song would rise up to you, Father, that we would recognize that you are worthy and we are not. And at the same time, we have great value and great worth because we are created in your image and you love us.

So Father, I pray that from a place of being loved, we would sing these songs to you this morning in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, thanks to Josh and Sean for leading us in worship this morning. Glad that they have skills. Certainly that I do not. So I'm grateful for them. And I encourage you to get comfortable. Remember if you need any cold water, coffee, donuts, juice, whatever you need there, whatever it takes to keep your focus on God's word this morning, we want that to be the case.

Stewardship as Our Daily Vocation

If I were to ask you for a list of five nouns to describe your role on planet earth, your role here, what would they be? Five nouns to describe your unique function, your unique role on planet earth, what would.

They be?

Now some of us might get really specific or more specific and say father or nurse or manager or driver or whatever. Some might say Christian or student or doormat, whatever it is that you think you might be.

Some may get really general and say worker or worshiper or some general terms that would try to encompass more of your life depending on how you're put together. You might be, you know, hear that assignment and go.

I've got to cover all the bases and so I've got to get some more generic words in there. But consider where the word steward fits into your understanding.

The word steward.

Not a word that we use very often and so probably not one that pops to the forefront of your mind when I ask you for nouns that describe yourself. But I hope that by the end of this message every single one of us would have steward in that top five descriptive words for our purpose on planet earth.

This role when properly understood and properly undertaken has the power to unleash us to live out all of our days for the glory of God. All of the things that we do bouncing back to his honor and to his glory.

Jesus' Parable of the Talents as an Economic Illustration

So Jesus in the middle of teaching about his kingdom here in our text in Matthew chapter 25 if you're not, I encourage you to have your Bibles open to that by the way as we're going through Matthew 25, 14 through 30.

And here in the middle of this teaching about his kingdom he describes it using a parable about business. About business. It's important for us to understand that this is a flat out economic illustration plucked straight out of the working world of people of his own time.

He's talking about business here. And a lot of times in our minds we have a tendency to think of Jesus as talking about pie in the sky or ethereal things and he rooted his teaching where people lived in his time and in his era.

And he is indeed talking about economics. Now have any of you ever really thought and considered that Jesus during his time here on this planet was involved in economics, in business. He was in a sense a business owner.

He was a carpenter who his livelihood came through the work and the product of his hands. For 30 years he served, well I mean probably not from infancy, but for many of his 30 years he served as a carpenter working and figuring out how much to charge for his work.

I mean he had those kinds of things. Now I doubt that he ever gouged anybody. You know what I'm saying? I mean I'm sure he did the best that he could with his skills and his abilities, but he was setting economic prices for things.

He was involved in business.

Have you thought about that?

Probably haven't put much thought to the fact that Jesus was involved in business. And he used a lot of his parables. A lot of his parables are surrounding, he certainly used agricultural things, which was business in that time.

A pretty booming business, a pretty central thing to the economy of that day and age. But he used flat out managers, owners, that kind of stuff and talked about it. Jesus didn't shy away from talking about business, exchange, transactions, interest, investment, money, and other business concepts.

These things show up in his parables, in his interaction. And he weaves a story for us about an extremely wealthy businessman here in our text that I read earlier. Extremely wealthy businessman. This man was going away for quite some time, so he decided to diversify his investments by placing a few guys over his wealth while he was gone.

He didn't want to go with one single brokerage, so he broadened out and he had three different guys responsible for his money. And the word entrusted in our text here shows a significant confidence and expectation on his servants.

He is entrusting his wealth to them. The wealthy man, of course, retains the ownership of the property, but he allows these other men to utilize his wealth for gain. This is the concept of stewardship.

Lester DeCoster in his book, Work, that I pointed out has been a resource that I've used and I showed you a few books last week. He defines stewardship as this, the way we choose to use moment by moment all that God places on loan to us for precisely the purpose of testing the sculpting power of our vocation.

Let me read that again. Stewardship is the way we choose to use moment by moment all that God places on loan to us. All that God places on loan to us. What do you own? What do you have that is of your doing?

You've caused it, you've brought it about, it's on loan to us for precisely the purpose of testing the sculpting power of our vocation, our calling, the shape to which God has called us into usefulness to our community, to our society, to our families, to our church, to a whole host of people that we interact with and come in contact with.

There's a shape to our usefulness. We have this mandate of stewardship on us to sculpt and to create within the realm of our giftings. Think about that. You have the power to create and to organize this great world that God, and he's entrusted each one of us with a specific set of skills in order to benefit others, to be useful to others.

It's a glorious concept, this concept of stewardship. In other words, maybe Lester DeCoster's definition is a little too academic. So stewardship recognizes that we don't own it and simultaneously recognizes that we have a creative mandate to expand it.

We don't own it, but we are mandated to expand it. The it being specifically different for each one of us as we're going to see in the parable, some five, some two, some one. But each one of us with an endowment from God to expand and to improve the world around us and the lot of others through the skills and abilities that he's given to us, through our means, our resources.

The wealth of this man in the text, by the way, is astronomical. Some of you maybe have heard this before. To the first steward, he gave about 100 years of wages, 100 years of wages. A talent was the largest unit for measuring weight during this era.

So think like ton, okay? So this is like a ton. A talent is an actual Greek measurement of weight. And it's estimated that a talent of silver would amount to about 20 years of labor. So this wealthy man had how many talents to invest?

Maybe I'm like quick trying to do the math. He had eight talents to invest, meaning that he had at his disposal to invest 160 years worth of wages. Is this guy wealthy? He's extremely wealthy. 160 years worth of wages.

Now a quick word to clarify, we get lost in this parable pretty quickly. We interpret it quickly and let it lose its force because this parable is talking about money, but it uses the word talent. And because it starts to use the word talent, where does our mind go?

Your musical ability, your gift of administration, your this, your that, you know, and we go to talents. Well, I didn't even know this going into this. As much as I've studied the Bible and going to Bible college and all of this and seminary, I did not realize that the word talent is actually brought into English because of this.

Parable.

When you use the word talent, they have basically adopted the analogy from this back in ancient language in the English language, and that's the origin. So this very parable is the origin of the word that you and I use regularly for talent, ability, he's talented or whatever.

That's interesting. It's where this word comes from. So we borrowed from this parable using the word talent, but remember in our text, what is a talent? A talent is a unit of measure. It's a monetary thing, a pretty substantial one.

I want us all to be careful in this process of understanding this to not jump too quickly over the Greek definition of that word. It's a large sum of money, and Jesus wanted his listeners, he didn't want his listeners jumping over the analogy of money to gifts and abilities and, you know, what I have to contribute, but this is a large sum of money and he wanted them to intentionally be thinking about money in this parable.

Even though the parable certainly, certainly applies to much more than money as we drive through this and we get to the point of what Jesus is trying to communicate to us, it is certainly more than money, but it must start with money.

According to the text, according to what Jesus is trying to communicate to us, he's using an analogy of money, and he gives varying trust, this owner gives varying trust to each of these three men. To the first he gives five talents, to the second he gives two, and to the last he gives one talent.

A lot, remember that talent is a lot of money, and I cannot help but imagine that the rich man has some sense of decreasing trust in these stewards, it says he gave them each according to their ability, well who was the judge of their ability?

The master was the judge of their ability, and there is certainly some sense of decreasing trust in these various stewards, but he gives all of them, this is key, he gives all of them a shot at investing his resources, all three of them have an opportunity to invest, do they not?

Five, two, one, and they all have the opportunity. Two quick observations about this, not all are given the same level of resources, we know that right? We experience that in real life, not all in this parable are given, and Jesus is reflecting real life, and he says not all have the same resources at their disposal, not all have been given the same measure of wealth, not all have been given the same amount to invest, not all of us have, and then to carry it forward into the analogy, not all of us have the same giftings and abilities and all of these things, we certainly don't all have the same amount in our bank accounts.

But all are given the same opportunity to expand, to invest, to create and develop the resources of our master. Secondly, I notice no argument from the stewards, absent is their cry of unfair, he gets five and I only get two, and then the guy with one says well at least you got two, I got just one, that's gone, that's not here, and I think that this is a valuable observation only in that all three of these men understood themselves to be stewards, they knew this guy wasn't handing out his wealth as a gift for Christmas, this was a responsibility on their shoulders, right, so that I can imagine that the one who received, the guy who received one might have gone, whew, less risk, right, you might have that expectation that there would be not, why didn't you give me five, but man I don't think I could handle five, have any of you ever felt that way in life, kind of glad that you didn't have that responsibility, I mean people who, have you ever heard the interviews with people who have won the lottery and wish they hadn't, they actually wish that they hadn't, now from our vantage point it's like oh come on I could handle a little bit of that, right, could you, could you, would you want to, maybe like give me a shot, just give me a chance to see, right, it's not always a good thing to be entrusted with more, right, they all understood themselves to be stewards, and knowing our position as being those who are going to give an accounting of our stewardship, we may find ourselves at times grateful that we haven't been given more, to whom much is given much is required, with his wealth unevenly dispersed, the wealthy man took off and was gone according to verse 19 for a long time, and what is easily overlooked in this text is the labor, the effort, the risk, and what I would suggest to you is not a stretch to say probably some sleepless nights on behalf of these stewards, but at least we are told that the most trusted steward at once, literally the text says worked with his talents, at once ran out with the five talents and began his work, now when I say, you might be confused when I say sleepless nights, there's an investment going on here, there's work that's going on here, there's labor that's going on and expanding this money, and it's a long time the text tells us, in our minds we go right through and it's a pretty quick transition over that long period of time, but there's a long time that goes on, where there's ups and downs in the market and there's investment and there's exchanges and there's probably sowing some seeds in a field and hoping that the harvest comes in and sometimes it's a good harvest and sometimes it's not and the implication by this phrase long time is that years transpire before there's a reckoning, sounds kind of like life, years that go by, is there a day of reckoning coming for our stewardship?

Is Jesus giving an illustration of what you and I are doing here on this planet? A long time passes, but at once the guy with five goes out and immediately invests, seeks to grow and to improve upon his master's estate.

Now we don't find out how the first or the second steward doubled their trust, but I can assure you it was not easy. It's assumed that these guys did not double the money by interest by the way, simply because the rich owner is going to eventually indict the lazy guy by saying, at least you could have invested it with the bank.

He didn't say at least you could have done what these other guys did, he says at least you could have invested it with the bank. So telling us that this was not invested at five percent and sit back and let it roll, okay?

This was work, this was toil, this was labor, this was ups and downs and calluses on their hands and a sweaty brow to turn this money around. We have this tendency to think, okay, these stewards are investment analysts or are working the market, but there really wasn't a stock exchange back then.

Mutual funds were not an option. They're barely an option now, right? Invested in antique cars or something, I don't know. The implication throughout the text is that the two good and faithful stewards improved the estate of their master through hard work and business savvy.

The phrase traded with them, by the way, I'm not trying to work this because you go traded with them. Oh, it says right in the text, Don, I disagree with you because it says traded with them. The technical term there in Greek is worked them.

Translate it literally. These two stewards worked the talents. They worked them. Nobody takes five million and turns it into ten million on behalf of another without some significant risk, agreed? You don't just turn that around without some risk involved in it.

And so, the man entrusted with five makes five more. The man entrusted with two makes two more. And the man entrusted with one makes one more. End of story, right? That's how it goes? They each doubled it and off we go.

Of course not. The last man entrusted with one made squat. He went home, dug a hole in his backyard. I kind of laugh at that. A talent of silver, big hole. He at least worked hard at burying it. That's a pretty big hole to bury a ton of silver, right?

And he attempted, I guess, maybe he was planting a money tree. What do you think was going to happen to that? He's like, let's see what happens if you bury a ton of, maybe some of it will sprout, I don't know.

And the text tells us a long time passed. The stewards' beards grow long and their kids grow up and go off to college and the master comes home to settle accounts. The master comes back right from the get-go.

He is super stoked when the steward, who had been entrusted with five, brings out ten. How did he bring out ten? Was there wheelbarrows involved with there? Oxen with carts to show the, you know, all of the wealth that has been gained.

It's visible. This is not a bank statement that he offers him. He brings it out. I mean, this is immense wealth and it's been doubled. Boom. This is like ten talents brought out at once. And the master offers a hearty, one translation says, bravo, bravo, well done.

That would be a modern translation of this. Well done, bravo, great job. And he offers two words for this steward and the second one as well. Good and faithful. Good and faithful. And these are relational words.

These are not business savvy words. These are relational terms that he uses for the blessing and benefit that he has come into with this steward. In other words, this first steward that he commends has done what is beneficial, has done what is good, has done what is kind, has done what is helpful to his master.

And he has acted faithfully, showing loyalty and commitment to his master through his work. Through his work. How has he demonstrated faithfulness? How has he demonstrated good intent towards his master, towards his king?

By faithful work. Hard work for his master. King. And what would have probably caused a gasp among his original audience when Jesus was telling this, remember this is in an original context where he's telling this story.

He gets to be, by the way, you're seeing a lot of Jesus when you're looking at his parables because he's making these things up. So you're seeing his heart and his eyes on the community and the culture around him.

You're seeing how he interacted with them and all of this. He's the one telling this story and he has the master say this in the story. This steward has been faithful over a little. A little? Ten million in cold hard cash is a little?

Whoa. What do you want to kind of, like this master has it going on. He's doing well if ten million is a little. And he says, you've been faithful with a little. You wait to see what I've got in store for you.

Faithful in just the little things. A little bit of ten million dollar investment that we've doubled here. What? The master offers to set him over much. The work is rewarded, of course, with more responsibility.

How many of you knew that that's where this was going? There is more responsibility involved in this. Faithfulness begets more trust, but also begets more joy, according to the text. At the end of verse 21, it's implied that the master's joy overflows, bubbles over to the joy of the stewards, those first two stewards, and they will benefit from this interaction.

Although it's not explicitly stated, it's implied that they will indeed benefit from the increase. Whether that's through the master sharing some of that increase with them, or just in general making their lot easier or better is unclear, but they benefit as a result of this goodness and faithfulness.

But the first two stewards receive that same exact identical commendation. And I believe that Jesus didn't include the middle man just for dramatic effect, but there's a reason that the middle guy is in here.

It's to let us be clear that it is not the amount that's gained that matters. It's not that it's five as opposed to two. Now certainly he keeps the proportion the same. They both double the investment.

But faithfulness to improve things is what mattered. You see that in the text? It's faithfulness to improve that which they were entrusted with. The one given a lot provided more increase. The one given less provided less increase.

But both are declared to be good and faithful, and both are entrusted with more, and both are brought into the joy of their master. The one was given less and he increased less, but he's still blessed by his master.

Things take a turn in verse 24. You see that? The last steward breaks from the pattern of the first two by making excuses right away. First two, the pattern was identical in the way that they interacted with their master.

Not this guy. He makes excuses. And what this final steward says about his master in verse 24 is not technically untrue, but demonstrates a broken understanding, and most importantly a lack of healthy relationship to his master.

There is a break in the relationship that's clear if you analyze and you understand this text. He says, you're a hard man. Another way of saying that is you're a taskmaster. You are a driver who expects great things from your steward.

He probably says it with a bit of a sneer. Second, you reap where you didn't sow. In other words, you reap where you didn't sow. In other words, you get the profit while we do the work. People have an attitude about their boss that way, about their employer that way.

Some of us, this is almost a direct translation of the way that we feel about our employer. I do all the work. I'm the one with the calluses. I'm the one with the sweaty brow. I'm the one working hard, and you're getting the increase?

You see the attitude and the heart there? Can you imagine how that could creep into the human soul? Jesus understands us through and through, and he gives an illustration that just hits really close to home.

And that last point, by the way, is doubled for impact and for effect. He says, you reap where you didn't sow and gather where you scattered no seeds. It's doubled, and that shows that this is a central part of the issue between the steward and his master.

He does the work. His master benefits, and that is stuck in the craw of the steward. But with his words in verse 25, I believe he actually puts up a smoke screen. He says, so I was afraid, and I went and I hid your talent in the ground.