“I HOPE YOU DANCE”
What God Hopes For You
January 3, 2016
Cornerstone Community Church
Most of you will remember hearing the song at some time in your life – “I Hope You Dance,” written by Mark Sanders and Tia Sillers, and performed by LeAnn Womack. It was voted the Country Western song of the year in 2001. It was a huge crossover hit, finding play on rock stations and easy listening stations alike. It sold over 2 million digital copies.
Its writers describe it as a song about our wishes for the ones we love most. LeAnn Womack says that when she first heard the song, she immediately thought about her two daughters and what she wished for them. That was my wife’s first thought when she heard the song on the radio all those years ago – her wishes for our three children. Listen to the words of the first verse:
I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance … I hope you dance
When I first heard the song I too thought about our children. But I also thought about something else. I thought about what our Heavenly Father hopes for us. And that’s what we will be exploring in the five short weeks of this series – what God hopes for you and me. Imagine for a moment that you had the opportunity to conduct an interview with God. Imagine that God took the time to sit down just with you, that he closed the doors and took the phone off the hook and gave you an hour of his undivided attention. Imagine that God were to somehow pull up his chair directly opposite your chair and to look deeply into your eyes. And then you asked your question: “Father, what do you hope for me? Who do you hope I become? What do you hope I experience? What do you hope I do?” What do you imagine God would say to you?
In this series we are going to explore what the Bible tells us about God’s hopes for you and me. We’re going to look at what the Bible says are five of God’s hopes for us. And the first thing God hopes for us is just what the song says – God hopes we dance.
It’s probably not one of the books of the Bible you read very often, but the Old Testament book of Zephaniah contains a verse that has become one of my favorites since I first discovered it a few years ago. Here’s how it reads: “The Lord your God is with you; he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17) Did you ever realize how much joy you bring God? Did you know that God is so excited to be your Father that he breaks out into song? And since God is the author of music and the creator of every beautiful voice, I have to imagine that God has just a spectacular singing voice. I’m sure Taylor Swift and Blake Shelton and Adele would be in awe of God’s voice and his musical ability. And what does God do with all that ability? He rejoices over you with singing! He celebrates your life!
Now while God is celebrating you and singing over you, what do you think God hopes you do? Do you think God would say, “I hope you fold your hands and sit”? Do you think God would say, “I hope you pout”? I don’t think so. Somehow I sense that God would say, “When I rejoice over you with singing, I hope you dance!”
I went to one school dance in my life. Growing up in a conservative Baptist home I wasn’t sure whether it was OK for me to go to a dance, but my parents gave me permission so I went. But I could not bring myself to actually dance. I liked the music, and in fact there was a part of me that was dying to go out on the floor and dance. But something in me was afraid that if I did God would strike me down with lightning, and I wasn’t willing to take that chance. So instead of dancing, I watched. While my friends danced, I sat and drank Coke. While my friends enjoyed moving to our favorite music, I leaned against the wall.
And too often that has been the way I have lived my life. When I got the chance to sit it out or dance, I sat it out. And God says, “Craig, here’s what I hope for you. When you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.”
This morning we are going to explore a parable Jesus told his disciples, the parable of the talents. In this parable Jesus makes it very clear that for a follower of Jesus, sitting out is not an option. The fully devoted follower of Jesus doesn’t sit on the sidelines. The fully devoted follower of Jesus is not a spectator. When the music starts to play, the disciple dances.
God Has Given You Extraordinary Gifts – Use Them
Let’s jump into this parable, a parable Jesus told his disciples shortly before his arrest and crucifixion. Jesus is trying to explain to his followers what the kingdom of heaven will be like. Here’s what he says:
Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the man with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
Matthew 25:14-18
Now to fully appreciate Jesus’ parable, we need to understand what a talent meant. A talent was an expression for a sum of money in the neighborhood of fifteen years’ of wages. In those days most people lived day to day. In those days it was a rare and remarkable achievement to accumulate even one years’ worth of salary. So when Jesus says that this master gave the first servant five talents, you can bet his listeners’ imaginations went a little wild. Do you ever wonder what it would be like to win the lottery? That’s what happened to this first servant, in a way. His master entrusted him with an amount of money we could only hope to see if we won the lottery. His master gave him 75 years’ worth of wages.
The second servant also did quite well. The master entrusted to him 30 years’ worth of salary. And the third servant had nothing to complain about; he received 15 years’ worth of salary. Understand that for people in the first century, these were staggering amounts of money given by the master to his servants.
Now just to be clear, we need to understand this. That money did not now belong to the servants. It was still the master’s money. They held that money in trust. You might well be familiar with that term. If you have young children, for example, you might include a provision in your will for a trust of some kind. You might stipulate that if you die, $50,000 from your estate must be set aside in a trust to be held for your child until your child turns 18. The trustee is the person whose job it is to manage that money. The trustee is not allowed to use that money for himself. He has what the law calls a fiduciary duty to put that money to its best use so that as much money as possible is available to the child when he turns 18. Interestingly, in our law it is not only unlawful for the trustee to waste the money, but it is also unlawful for the trustee to just let the money sit. He has a fiduciary duty to take action that will cause the trust to grow.
Back to the parable. The master entrusts huge sums of money to three servants. It is not their money to keep, but neither is it permissible for them to simply let the money stagnate. It is their duty as servants and fiduciaries to take action that will cause the money they have been entrusted to grow. The first two servants do their job well. They both double the money they have been entrusted. The first servant now has 10 talents, the equivalent of 150 years’ worth of salary. The second servant now has four talents, the equivalent of 60 years’ worth of salary. But the third servant still has only one talent. Mind you, that’s still a lot of money. That’s still more money, by far, than any person listening to Jesus would ever hold in their hands. But the point is that the third servant did nothing with the talent he was given. He buried it. He sat on it. He put the money on the shelf.
The Bible says that God has given to every single one of us extraordinary gifts. True, some people are more gifted than others. Some are five talent people and some are two talent people. But Jesus wants us to understand that even if we are just one talent people, we are still enormously gifted. There is not a person here this morning who has not been extraordinarily gifted by God in a variety of ways. And what does God want us to do with those gifts? He wants us to use them. When you get a chance to sit it out or dance, God wants you to dance.
I do not like to buy things that say “some assembly required.” Have you ever assembled something and discovered when you were done that you had two or three parts left over? That always makes me nervous. I try to be careful to follow the directions and to use the parts just the way the pictures show me to, but when I’m done I often find myself with left over parts. What do we call those parts? We call them “spare parts.” They aren’t really necessary for this piece of equipment; the manufacturer just threw them into the box as spares. And some of us think of ourselves that way. We think of ourselves as spare parts. We aren’t really necessary. We don’t have anything to offer that anyone really needs. We’re the parts lying around that no one knows what to do with. Have you ever felt anything like that?
The Bible says that none of us are spare parts. God doesn’t make spare parts. God made you as a uniquely and enormously gifted person, a person who has been equipped by God to make a significant impact in your family and your world. But if you don’t get out on the floor and dance, if you don’t unwrap those gifts and put them to use, you might just as well be a spare part.
John Ortberg tells a wonderful story about Florence, his paternal grandmother. Sometime after Florence passed away, Ortberg’s grandfather called Ortberg’s mother with an unusual offer. “Kathy,” he said in his thick Swedish accent, “I was going through some of Florence’s things in the attic when I came across a box of old dishes. I noticed they’re blue, your favorite color. You can have them if you want, but if you don’t want them I’ll just get rid of them.”
John Ortberg’s mother went through the attic, expecting to find some cheap, old, worn dishes. Instead, when she opened the box, she found some of the most exquisite china she had ever seen. Each plate had been individually painted with a pattern of forget-me-nots. The cups were inlaid mother-of-pearl. The dishes and cups were rimmed with gold. The plates had been handcrafted in a Bavarian factory that was destroyed during World War II. Ortberg’s mother had never seen these dishes before. Ortberg’s father had never seen them in his entire life.
Eventually the story of the china came out. When Florence was very young, she was given her first piece of china. She loved it so much that family members gave her more of the china on birthdays and similar events. Each time Florence received a gift of precious china, she would wrap it very carefully in tissue, put it in a box and store it in the attic to be used for a special occasion. Guess what? In her 80-plus years of life, no occasion that special ever came along. Florence went to her grave with the greatest gift of her life unopened and unused.
Whether you are a five talent, two talent or one talent person, please understand that you have been enormously gifted by God. But God has not placed those gifts in your life primarily to make you successful. He has placed those gifts in your life so you will use them for the benefit of needy people – people in your neighborhood, people at your office, people in your school, and people in your church. If you are a follower of Jesus, it is not an option to hide away those gifts waiting for an occasion so special that it never happens. You are called to take a chance, to get out on the dance floor and do something special in the name of the One who has gifted you.
God Has Provided You Ample Opportunities – Take Them
There’s a second truth that comes through loud and clear in the parable of the talents. The first truth is that God has given you extraordinary gifts, so use them. The second truth is that God has provided you with ample opportunities, so take them.
In the parable of the talents, the first servant takes his five talents and turns them into five more. When he reports this to the master, the master says, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:21) The second servant gives the same report; he has turned his two talents into two more. He gets the same commendation from the master: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:23)
But listen to this very disturbing exchange between the master and the third servant, as Jesus relates the story to his disciples:
Then the man who had received one talent came. “Master,” he said, “I knew that you are a hard man … So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.”
His master replied, “You wicked, lazy servant! … You should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.”
“Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Matthew 25:24-28
This third servant really gets a tongue-lashing, doesn’t he? The master shows him no pity at all. But here’s what we need to notice. This is the most important point of this parable. What did the third servant do to warrant the anger of the master? What did he do to warrant this very severe punishment? Do you know what he did? He did nothing. The third servant was judged by the master not for doing bad things, but for doing nothing.
There’s a little verse tucked away in the New Testament book of James that is not my favorite verse, although it is one of my most important memory verses. James 4:17 says, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” Part of us says that doesn’t sound fair. Part of us says that we should only be judged for what we do and not for what we don’t do. But think of it this way. Imagine you are a wife and the mother of three teenagers. You have to go back East to visit your sick mother for a few days. You come home on Sunday night. Your home looks like nothing you have ever seen. There are dishes piled up in the sink and on the counter. The beds are unmade. Dirty laundry is everywhere. The lawn is a foot high. There are no groceries left in the refrigerator or the pantry. You walk into the family room to find your husband and three sons sitting in front of the TV, where they have clearly been ensconced for the last few days. With exasperation in your voice you say to the love of your life and the father of your children, “Honey, what have you been doing while I was gone?” What is his reply? “Nothing.”