Pastor Slaughter

11-10-2024

Stewardship

Theme: What matters is knowing the Master

Text: Matthew 25:14-30

Have you borrowed something or lent something out before. I am guessing so.  How do you feel if they return it and it is broken? You entrusted this item to them…and they broke your trust. You are less likely to give something to them. Or if you are the one borrowing something and someone gives you something nice, like their car, you want to make sure you take care of it. Maybe fill it up with gas. If you are really nice, maybe wash it. But why do you that? Because you want to show the person who entrusted you with it how much you appreciate it.

So which one are you? When you look at all that you have, Are you the one who returns something broken? Or are you the one who  the one who goes above and beyond showing how thankful you are?

In this story Jesus told in Matthew, you see this play out. You have two faithful servants and the one unfaithful servant. What was it that made such a difference in how they acted?  It’s not really the fact that the unfaithful servant was was given less then the other two. All of them were given a lot of money. Each talent was worth six thousand denarii. And a Denarius was worth one days wage.

But look at what it says about how they used those talents. The master entrusted them to his servants. If we’re going to let the Word of God have with us, we are going to have to do some accounting about what God has entrusted  to us. What gifts has given to us? Your house is God’s. Your phone is God’s. Your car is God’s. Your kids are God’s. Your abilities are God’s. Your financial assets are God’s. If you are the least bit kind and helpful to others, that gift came to you from God. If you can be compassionate when people are hurting, that gift came to you from God. The God who’s given you all you have wants to know—are you using all of it, I mean every bit of it, to give him honor and glory?

If you’re not, there’s hell to pay. The Lord is always serious about how we manage what he entrusts to us. Seven times in the New Testament Jesus repeated that hell is a place of eternal darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth. And one of those times is here; The wicked servant’s rebellion was not dealing drugs that people overdosed on, not murder, not addiction to porn or booze. Do you know what his rebellion was? Doing nothing, that is to say not using God’s gifts for God’s glory. Essentially his rebellion was, “Leave me alone so I can do what I want!”

If you have a nice place to live, a nice car to drive, and maybe even a nice TV to watch, that’s not wrong or sinful at all. Those are gifts form God, thank God for them, and take good care of what God has given you. But also take inventory of every good thing he’s given you and figure out the answer to this question: How much of what God has given you have you buried in the ground of self-advancement or self-enjoyment rather than directing every gift you’ve been given toward the glory of God and the good of others? The first commandment that requires perfect love for God buries us in guilt when we have loved the things he has entrusted us with more then the one who gave us those blessings.

Here’s the thing about those two faithful servants. They weren’t perfect. They were sinners, too. But their story started long before their master went on a journey and entrusted them with money. There was Something that was already firmly in place, something that had been created inside them, so that when they were given that money and the master traveled abroad, the first and only thing they could think to do was to devote themselves to activities and projects that would be pleasing to him when he returned.  What do you think that something was?

It just blows my mind when I think about what God gave up for us. God, the Father sending his Son. Jesus leaving behind heaven to come to this earth. To be born in the most humble of means, in the stable. That the king of the universe chose to not take up all the riches of the universe but lived a humble life, a life of service. 2 Co. 8:9 says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” How did he make us rich through his poverty? It was paying for our sins.

When it came to the matter of having someone pay of your sins, there were only two ways that it go: either it would be you going to the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, or it would be a pure and perfect substitute who would go to the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth for you. Before you were born and before he created all things, God the Father had already made that choice. On Good Friday he acted on that choice. There on that cross Jesus suffered the hell for the guilt of every counted against him. In silent suffering he was damned, and he died for you. Your Father in heaven kept you.. and cursed his Son.

That was the something those two faithful servants had seen in their master, how deep his love for them was. That’s what they knew about him before he so generously entrusted his property to them—they knew how much he loved them. That is what drove them to devote themselves so completely to working of him while he was gone. Of all the things they could every have had for themselves, hearing “well done” form him was better than anything. The master’s great love was also what the wicked servant dismissed as irrelevant and meaningless. Tragically he found other things more important to him then why God put him on earth and why God gave him what he gave him.

In the a vast array of gifts that God gives, he has distributed them in various kinds and in various amounts to all of you, because he knows just what you need to be able to serve him well. But the  only thing that can take us from focusing on serving ourselves to living a life devoted to serving him with those gifts in how much Jesus loves you. In making faithful use of God’s gifts that he has given to us, what really matters is knowing the Master. Love is what’s in his heart for you. Let it be love that is in your heart for him, that leads you to go above and beyond using what has been entrusted to you!  Amen.