Date: 26.3.17
Text: Luke 19:11-27
Title: Use it or lose it!
Place: Swansea/Charlestown AM
File: Luke 19b
Preacher: Stephen Taylor
Slide 1
A while back I heard a true story about the power of generosity. Someone went through a drive-thru at Starbucks a few years back and decided he wanted to pay for the coffee of the car behind him. So when the next car came to the window to pay, they discovered that their coffee had already been paid for. So they did the same, and paid for the car behind them. When the next car came to the window to discover their coffee had already been paid for, they decided to continue on the surprise and pay for the car behind them. Apparently this went on unbroken for six hours!!
Slide 2
Can you imagine that? For 6 hours people received a gift of grace & rather than just take it & say this is my lucky day, they passed it on. They shared what they had received with those around them. Now I thought about this story when I read the parable of the 10 minas in Luke 19 for there we have 10 servants who are given something but for each of them that is given something there will be a day of accountability. They will be judged on what they did with what they had been given. Let’s have a look at thepassage for ourselves.
Slide 3
- God adds (verses 11-14)
Verse 12. He said:“A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return.13So he called ten of his servantsand gave them ten minas,‘Put this money to work,’ he said, ‘until I come back.’
So we are introduced to a man who is a powerful man, the man who be king. But he needs to go away for a time to receive this kingdom but there is still work to be done while he is gone and so he calls ten of his servants together and gives them collectively 10 minas, a mina each. Now the mina was not a huge sum of money but it wasn’t insignificant either. It was worth about 3 month’s work. So in today it might be worth $15-20,000.
Slide 4
Now there is a level of trust here isn’t there? You wouldn’t give $20,000 to just anyone. But this nobleman trusts these servants to put this money to work. And gives them pretty broad parameters really. They could invest the money. They could start a business. They could buy and sell goods for a profit. They just had to put the money to work.
Slide 5
But there is a context in which they are doing that. Not everyone likes the nobleman. Look at verse 14,“But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’ So it was a pretty toxic environment. There were some people who didn’t want him to come back as their king. So to be his servant and to have his money might make you a target. Each servant had to then decide whether it was going to be worth it or not to do what the nobleman had said. For to be faithful to the nobleman might mean getting in trouble with his other subjects. And isn’t that what was is happening right now as Jesus was speaking?
Slide 6
Let’s move back to v 11. 11While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of Godwas going to appear at once.
Jesus was just about to enter Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people and the crowds were just about to lay down their cloaks and pick up their palms and shout “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” But at the same time the Jewish leaders were opposing Jesus as their king. They were actually going to encourage the crowd in just a week’s time to shout out “We have no king but Caesar.”
It was in this environment that Jesus was teaching. Surely Jesus was going to bring in the Kingdom of God, wasn’t he, his followers were saying to themselves. Surely now is the time that our King will be crowned? Surely our Messiah is here after all these years of waiting! No Jesus is saying. The King has to go away to be crowned. God’s anointed King needs to go back to God before you see him as ruler of all God’s people. There will be a time of waiting, a time of delay, where the Kings subjects will live in a hostile environment. And as you wait I will give each of you something that they will need to put to work in the meantime.
Slide 7
Now when I read this parable I immediately think of its better known cousin, the parable of the talents. In that parable, which is found in Matthew’s gospel, three servants are given talents not minas. And they are not give one mina but different talents, one gets 5, another gets 2 talents and a third servant just 1 talent. Each servant is given different talents but here in Luke in this parable they are given the same thing one mina.
Most commentators believe that the talents represent gifts, so Christians are given different gifts but they are called to be faithful with the gifts that God has given them. But this parable is saying we all get the same thing and we need to put what we have been given to work while we wait for Jesus to come.
Slide 8
So what have all Christians been given? The gospel of Jesus Christ. The mina in this parable represents the gospel. Each servant is to be faithful in multiplying the gospel. Each Christian whether it is Joe Christian or Paul the apostle, Billy Graham or an elderly lady in a nursing home has been given the grace of God in the form of Jesus Christ. And we need to put this gospel to work in the lives that we have been given until Jesus returns.
Now how do you do that? Well we do it by growing in that grace through repentance, prayer and daily dependence upon the Holy Spirit. We do that through sharing that grace with the people that God has put around us as we serve those in need, as we love our neighbour and as we walk with them through the highs and lows of this life. We do that through proclaiming that grace with our words, with our time, with our money, with our effort and energy.
Every day we are to put the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to work. We put it to work in our homes, in our schools, in our jobs, in our Church, in our neighbourhood, in our sporting teams, in our country. As we do all things for the glory of God then we grow the investment that God has made in our lives.
Friends do you realise what God has given you? Can you understand the trust he has placed in you? In the midst of a world that is opposing him and doesn’t want him as king, he has given us all a task to make the most of the gospel of Jesus Christ. To put the gospel of Jesus to work. So what are you doing for him right now? Have you been diligent in the task that he has left you? What will he say when he returns and you have to give him an account of what you have done for him while he has been away? For that is what happens next.
Slide 9
- God adds and God Multiplies (verses 15-19)
“He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.The first one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned ten more.’17“‘Well done, my good servant!’his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of 10 cities.’
Slide 10
The king returns and each servant is called in to give an account for what he or she has done. The first servant is found to be trustworthy. He has put the mina to work and now one mina has become 11 minas, he has earned 10 more. And the King rewards the faithful servant. You can take next week off and spend the time on holidays with your wife and kids! No he doesn’t say that. He gives him more work. Take charge of ten cities. This servant is given the opportunity to serve their King in a wider field of expertise. The reward is more service, more opportunities to grow the gospel that God has given us.
And something similar happens to the second servant. They haven’t done as well as the first servant, their one mina has become 6 minas. But they too are rewarded by being given more work to do. They are now responsible for 5 cities on behalf of the king. So the more they earned, the more they were given.
Now I want you to notice they weren’t promised any reward for their work. In fact in the current environment there was no cast iron guarantee that their Master was even going to return and be king. And besides in Luke 17, Jesus has already said that we are unworthy servants, when we have done our duty we shouldn’t always expect to be rewarded in the here and now. But here we see how gracious the king is. He doesn’t owe the servant anything but he graciously gives them rewards and responsibilities
Which means that Jesus is encouraging us and reminding us that what we do with the gospel counts. You might think that you are too young, too old, too sinful, too shy, too busy or too stressed but our lives count. But whatever we do with the gospel that God has given us will not be in vain. Paul picks up the same idea in 1 Corinthians 15:58 when he says “Therefore my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.”
Slide 11
Don’t be confused though. We are not saved by what we do. But we do need to do something once we are saved. As JC Ryle once said “Our title to heaven is all of grace, Our degree of glory in heaven will be proportioned by our works.”
Which means we need to ask ourselves are we being faithful with what Jesus has entrusted us with? Will he multiply our rewards because we are multiplying the work of grace around us? Am I doing something that will have eternal significance? Or am I wasting my time thinking just about what is going on in my world and forgetting what God wants me to do in this world? God adds, God multiples and thirdly
Slide 12
- God Subtracts (verses 20-23)
“Then another servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth.21I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.’ 22“His master replied, ‘I will judge you by your own words,you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow?23Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?’
But friends God doesn’t just multiply blessings, he can also subtract them as well. Because the third guyplays it safe, he doesn’t go out and risk the mina, instead he hid it away in a piece of cloth. But he didn’t steal it or embezzle it. He just didn’t invest it. Then when the master came back, he presented it to Him just the way that he had received it himself.
Now why did he do that? He had the wrong perception of the master and had made up his mind even before he received his talent. He says in verse 21, “I knew that you were a hard man.” Here is a master who has graciously given him $20,000 but his servant sees him as someone hard and harsh, rather than someone loving and gracious.
A.W. Tozer was right when he said that what we think about God is the most important thing about us. If we view God as a tyrant then we’ll filter everything through this lens. If we are afraid to share the gospel, if we think God just wants us to fail, if you don’t see him as loving and gracious, then you will hide the gospel and end up blaming God not yourself.
Slide 13
But if you don’t use it you lose it! The third servant’s laziness showed that he didn’t really trust God. It showed that he didn’t appreciate what God had given him. And he ends up losing it.
Slide 14
Playing it safe is disobedience to Christ. The master called the slave that hid the mina a “wicked servant.” Put it to work, the nobleman said. This wicked slave failed to follow his master’s command. Consequently, he was disobedient and therefore he was called wicked. Playing it safe is wicked! The slave considered himself honest because he returned the mina with no loss. The master labelled the slave wicked because he returned the mina with no gain. In order to avoid risk, he took the biggest gamble of his life and it didn’t pay off.
Slide 15
It was Spurgeon who said, “It is always so, the gracious and faithful man obtains more grace and more means of usefulness, while the unfaithful man sinks lower & lower & grows worse and worse. We must either make progress or else lose what we have attained. There is no such thing as standing still in religion. There is no such thing as standing still in your faith”.
Slide 16
As the President of Wheaton College, Philip Rykenonce said, “Many people do the same thing with the gifts that come from God. Rather than putting the gospel to good use, they are afraid to talk about their faith, afraid to give God more of their money than they think they can spare, afraid to do anything for Jesus that goes beyond their own abilities and therefore forces them to trust in the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. Holding back from
the clear call of God like this is not humility; it is pride and rebellion and fear.”
Which is why it is not unfair that the man loses his one mina. If you had planted a garden on different parts of your property and found that one soil was more productive than the other, doesn't it make sense to start planting there, where the soil is fertile?So God wants his gospel of grace to grow, for it go to all the earth. So the one who plays it safe loses it all and the one who puts the gospel to good use, gets busier still. God adds, God multiplies, God subtracts and lastly God tests
Slide 17
- God tests
26“He replied, ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away.27But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.’”
Because in the end the King will return and he will test what everyone has done with what he has been given. To the one who saw a growth in the gospel, they will be rewarded. To those who have hidden the gospel away, it will be taken away from them. And those who have opposed the gospel? God will return and punish them. They will be killed. Their rebellion will end. They will get what they deserve. They had their chance, they failed their test and all of God’s blessings will be taken away from them and all that will be left is the judgement of God.
And so that is a challenge for each one of us here. For if we are going to place ourselves in this parable we are somewhere between v 13 and v15. God has given us the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been asked to put it to work. We are awaiting his return and we live in a hostile environment where people don’t want Jesus to return. And so we have a choice will we be faithful, will we be unfaithful or will we be just plain rebellious. It’s a test.
Slide 18
It is a test for us as individuals. God has left in our grasp the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation. It is the only way to the Father. It is God’s way of bringing people to Himself. What are we going to do with the gospel? Keep it to ourselves. Protect it in the vault of our hearts? Rally against it? Or put it to work.
Now personally I know all of that. But the thing that often stops me is that I don’t want to pay the cost. The cost of rejection. The cost of ridicule. The cost of losing friends. The cost of being thought of as a fool by my family. The cost of well you know the costs yourselves. So I am tempted to play it safe. I am tempted to wrap up God’s grace and keep it just for myself. But this parable warns me that what I do with the gospel is a test.
Do I want to lose the gospel? No way. But if I don’t put it to work God may take it away from me. Does that mean that I may lose my salvation? I don’t think so. Once God has called you by his grace, you are a child of God and God doesn’t change his mind. But a response is required. For Jesus will one day return and ask me, ask you, what have you done with the good news about Jesus? And you know what. I want to be found on that day faithful.