[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 05:00 p.m. or Wednesdays at 07:00 p.m. if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison church, you can find us
[email protected] dot. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our sermons podcast, Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again. Thank you again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Thank you all for coming. Thank you all for being here. I thank my parents for coming out. They're here on the front row. So there's the complaint department. If y'all have any complaints at the end. I am their fault.
When I was growing up and still to this day, one of the things that I always wanted to do was to be able to whistle really loud, you know, to be able to stick your fingers in your mouth and blow and just be able to be heard for miles. Never was able to do that. Can anybody here do that tonight?
You can. All right, so if you feel like in the middle of the lesson, you can do that. Cause I can't. There we go. That's as good as an amen. I'll take it.
But what I was able to do at a very young age, I grew up in a town called Killen, about an hour west of here.
And I went to day school, preschool, a little place called sunny hours, right off of highway 72 there. And I developed a talent that would become just world renowned, almost. At least I felt like that as a kid. You know, we're there. We're learning our colors, we're learning how to. How to draw and, you know, stay in the lines and everything. And. And I learned how to do something that, for years, adults and teens and would come up to me and ask me to do the thing. What was the thing? Mom say my abcs backwards.
And I was able to do this, and it was just astounding to everybody, but it just felt, like, natural to me. So Z, Y, X, W, V, U, T, S, R, Q, P, O, N, M, L, K, J, I, H, G, F, Ed, CBa. And I was able to do this. And I thought, well, this is gonna take me so far. Right. And here I am, like 40 years later, learning I peaked in preschool.
So talents, right? We're gonna talk about not necessarily those kinds of talents, but they are kind of related in gifts that we are given by goddess. And so we're going to get into that.
But does anybody know what this is?
A corn sheller. Absolutely. Anybody under 40 know what that is?
Okay. I know what, I knew what this was because growing up, going to my grandfather's house, he had one of these. It was on this big, huge bin. And what you can't see on the other side is a crank. And you put the corn that side and you crank it and it turns it and it shells it. And I thought, well, this was just the greatest thing. So I would go over to his house and we would play in the bin. And so the reason I thought about this is because this was designed for this purpose.
That is the only thing that I know of that this thing is good for. But somebody went to the trouble to design it and to produce it and for me to make memories, right? But it was very useful for everybody, but it only had one purpose. So my question for us tonight is, what is our purpose? What were we created for? What is the thing that God put us on earth to do? Because I think it's a very important thing for us to understand and for us to know.
When's the last time you thought about what your purpose was?
What God put you here for?
I think it's a pretty important question for us to answer. But in life, I think oftentimes what we. What we do and where we fall short is we tie our purpose to an outcome.
And I'll give you an example if. How many teachers do we have in here? Educators?
No educators. Two, three? A lot. I know you guys are a lot of good educators. How many of your students failed?
A lot, right? More than you would like.
Nobody failed in yours? Well, you're going to be a terrible example for me, a librarian.
I was never good at reading, so I would have failed.
But if you were a teacher and you tied your purpose to every student that you taught passed, every student that you taught graduated, I think you might feel defeated and you might feel that you did not live up to your purpose. And what I would like for us to think about tonight is we shouldn't tie our purpose to an outcome. Rather, we should tie our purpose to an effort, to some kind of work, to some kind of calling. And Peter, not Peter Paul, gives us a really good example in one corinthians, in one corinthians, he's, he's about to lay into them. And really this is where he starts laying into the church at Corinth.
And it's starting in verse 14 of chapter one. He says, I thank God that I baptize none of you except Crispus and Gaius. Now stop there and think about Paul says, I am glad that I didn't baptize you folks. Now when we think about Paul, we think about this guy and his purpose in life was to save people, right?
But Paul really understood what his purpose was.
And we go down to verse 17. He says, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. Paul understood what his calling was. He understood that his purpose in life was not to provide the increase. Right. Whose job was it to provide the increase? It was God's.
Paul was to water, to plant Apollos was to water. God was to provide the increase. So he knew where to put his purpose in life.
So what is your purpose? Well, I think what our purpose is, our purpose is to use what God has given us to his glory.
And I think that the parable of the talents that we're going to get into tonight is a good example. So if you don't mind, go ahead and turn on over Matthew 25 and we'll get into the lesson.
I'm like a nervous speaker, so I'm drinking a lot of water while I'm here to gather my thoughts. It's a nervous pause.
So to kind of set the stage, Jesus has entered Jerusalem.
He sees the time is drawing near, and he's giving the Olivet discourse on the Mount of Olives, and he's giving his final words and his final kind of guidance to his disciples. And he's talking about what is supposed to happen between the time when he leaves and the time that he returns. And right before. The parable of the talents is the parable of the ten virgins.
And what he does there and lays out for them is the idea of waiting and being ready.
And you might have to wait for the long haul. Right? That's what that's about.
And it's about waiting. And I think maybe he thought in his head, well, I don't want them just waiting, right? I want them doing something. And so the parable of the talents kind of takes that idea of, you got to wait for me to come back, but I want you to be busy. I want you to be doing things. And so we'll get right into it. We'll read a little bit, and then, and then we'll talk. So starting in verse 14, it says, it will be as when a man who was going on a journey called his servants and entrusted his possessions to them, to when he gave five talents to another two, to a third one each according to his ability. Now, stop there. That kind of threw me off, I think, a little bit whenever I was first reading that, but it kind of gives you a, you know, communist vibes if you think about how our politics evolved. But what this was really about, think about if you were coaching a baseball team, right?
Baseball has nine positions, and they're very specific in those positions. You wouldn't put someone, just a random person pitching, right? That person has the ability to pitch so that that coach puts that person pitching, because that is what his ability is.
And when we think about the gifts that that was, that were given to each of these, to their ability, I think kind of it's a blessing at the same time, because someone who can only handle one doesn't need five, right? That becomes a burden at that point. So really, it's a blessing that he gave each to his ability. And thank goodness he does the same for us. He doesn't give us five when we are a one talent person.
Sometimes that person is asked to speak at VBS, and that's not always a great thing.
But it says, then he went away, and immediately the one who received five talents traded with him. And he got what? He got another five. Likewise, the one who received two made another two. And the man who received one, what did he do? Went and dug a hole and hid it. Buried his master's money.
So what happens? We all know what happens. After a while, the master comes back. The guy who was given five, he got five more. And the guy who was given two, he went and made two more. And what did the master say to each of them? He said, let's see. Where did he say? Since you are faithful in all matters, I will give you great responsibility. Come and share in your master's joy. So these two guys got it. They got the mission. They understood the assignment.
What about the third guy?
What about him?
The one who had received one talent came forward and said, master, I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant, gathering where you did not scatter. So out of fear, I went off and buried your talent in the ground. Here it is back. Look what a good job I did.
So he sets the stage here, and you can see him shift the blame from himself back to the master.
He tries to take his responsibility and put it back on the one who had given him tremendous gift. And when we think about the talent that's mentioned here, you've probably heard this every time you've heard the parable of the talents, but the talent was a system of measurement of weight, right? And so for the Romans, that weight might have been something around 65 pounds. For the Babylonians, 85 pounds. And so most biblical references will kind of land in the middle of that at 75 pounds. And it was kind of the idea of what one man could carry.
But if we think about that weight that was given, it was a weight of what it was probably a weight of a precious metal. So if it was silver, a talent would be about $40,000. So the one that was given the least was given $40,000. The one that was given the most, about $200,000.
If it was gold, anybody will take a guess. One talent, today's price, about $3 million. Right? That's a lot to the one that was given the most, 15. So they were not. It was not a light gift at all, was it? Even to the one who got the least, he was given a lot. So what did he do with it? He went and hid it. And so the master says back to him, he says, you wicked and lazy servant. So you knew. So here. I love the response back from the master. He kind of gives him a sarcastic response, and he understands what the guy is trying to do to him is to put the blame back on him. But he understands what's going on. He says, so you knew that I harvested where I did not plan and gathered where I did not scatter. Should you not, at the end, put money back in the bank so that it could at least draw an interest on my return.
So now then, take the talent and give it to him with the one with who had ten. For to everyone who has more will be given, and he will grow rich. But from the one who has not even that, even what he has will be taken away and throw this useless servant into the darkness outside where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
So he expects something in return, even from the one guy, right? And if you think about it, if you have a 401k, if you have anything like that, you don't expect back what you put in, right? You want at least something back. And that's what he says here. And in fact, he kind of says, at least if you're not going to use what I gave you, you should give it to somebody else and let them use it. And something would have been returned back to me.
So what do we take from this interaction? I think we can take a couple of things. Number one, everybody was given something, and we talked about the value of that. So what does that mean for us? Every one of us has been given something.
Whatever it is. Is it a one? Is it a two? Is it a five? I can't answer that for you, but I can answer one thing, is you were given something, and God has blessed you with something in your life to use for his glory.
Number two, the master was deeply, deeply invested. If you read some translations, it will say it gave of himself. And sometimes it even alludes to. He gave out everything he had before he left, but he gave out something that was of value. But not only that. Not only that. He gave out something that was personal.
And when we think about the gifts that God gives us, those things are personal. Those are of him.
And what we do with our lives should be a reflection of him and how we use those gifts.
Number two or number three. See, I'm a one talent guy. Everyone had a responsibility to use what was given.
In the end, the master, when he came back, expected them to utilize what they were given. So the question we have for us is, are we using the talents, the gifts that God gave us, are we using them for his glory?
The fourth thing, stewardship. This is a good lesson about stewardship, right?
But stewardship doesn't mean maintaining. Stewardship doesn't mean status quo.
Stewardship implies growth. If you're not growing, you're dying, right?
So keep that in mind with your, with your gifts. And the last one, did you notice there were no instructions given? He just gave them the talents and he left.
So what does that imply to us?
To me, it implies that they knew what to do with it. And two of them definitely knew what to do with it. But what about the third?
When I think about these two groups, I think about these two lines.
The unfaithful servant who only had one, he knew what his master could do to him. He talked about the fear that he had. He knew that if he were to fail, that he would be punished.
But the two faithful servants, they had a deep understanding of the true nature.
Their master. They had a true intimate relationship and knew exactly what he wanted. And they knew what they could, what their master could do through them.
That deep relationship is what reveals to us, I think, what our purpose is in life. To know what is expected, even if it's not said.
I'll give you a. An example. If. If my wife and I drive to Krispy Kreme. And I sit there and she gets out of the car.
I don't have to say it. She better come back with a chocolate covered, cream filled donut. I don't have to say it, right? Amen. There we go. Whistle. Where's my whistle? So 20 years of marriage will do that to you, right? It's a deep, intimate relationship. It is. It is known, it is understood.
And I think the lesson for us here is that when we get into this deep relationship with God, we will know through his providence and through what his word has said to us, what is expected out of us. That deep, intimate relationship is what gets us through.
When we understand who it is that we serve and what his plan is and what our role is in that plan, we could not fail. Right? These two guys, who knew what the master's plan was, who knew what was expected of them, I don't think they had any fear that they were going to fail. And I think sometimes we kind of take the mentality of the first guy who acts in fear of what am I going to do with what I've been given? Rather than what can God do through me with what I've been given?
So what has God invested in you?
He gave a deep investment in these three guys. And I think that I had to make, had to do alliteration, right. Because you have to do that when you're given a lesson.
So I think that the gifts that have been given to us fall in these three categories. Number one, treasure.
That's the monetary things that we've got. The things that. That we have that are of earthly value, that can be used to further the kingdom. The second is time.
This is probably our most limited resource, but we all have some time that God has given us that we can use for his glory.
The last one is talent.
So this, I think about romans twelve when he talks about some of the. The gifts of mercy, teaching, service, exhortation, prophecy, if you got that, good luck. Generosity. Another one. All these things that we have, you know, things that we have that we can give to God all fall in one of these categories.
Going over to another one of Paul's letters in Ephesians, I think this really gives us a good idea and a good encouragement to go and do the things that he's called us to do.
For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not from you. It is the gift of God. It is not from works that no. 1 may boast.
For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus, for the good works that he has prepared for us in advance, that we should live in him. We are his handiwork.
If you're a craftsman, if you build anything, if you build a sign for vbs, all this effort that we go into for vbs, it's created for a purpose. Craftsman's craftsmen build things with a purpose in mind. God, with his greatest creation, certainly had a purpose for us. And that purpose is to. Is to do the good works that he has already prepared in advance. Right? These things that he wants us to go do and to use our lives to further his kingdom, they're out there, and they're waiting for us. They're not something that we have to go create.
These are works that he has prepared us for, and they are there. So use our treasure and our talent and our time for the kingdom.
I'm getting close. We're almost snack time.
All right, so what has he done for us? What has he done for us? Well, number one, he has deeply, deeply invested in us.
Just like those that were given the talents, he has given each one of us great value. He has given each one of us something that is useful for him in the kingdom. Otherwise, he would not have created us.
Number two, God has equipped us for the work from which he has planned. The verse that we had just read.
The work is not out there that can. That we cannot do. Right? We can accomplish all the goals that he wants us to accomplish.
One of the things that we don't need to get into is the comparison game when it comes to looking at our gifts. Andrew used this a couple weeks ago. I believe he said, we can't play the what if game. We can't play the if only game. What if I had that gift?
Imagine the things that I could do if I had that person's gifts, or if only my gift was just different, what could I do?
The gifts that God has given us to go and further his kingdom are sufficient.
They're sufficient for the work. They're sufficient for us to do the things that we are supposed to do. The next thing, do not be overcome and overwhelmed by what the outcome you think should be.
We cannot look at the outcome. What we have to look at is the work. So we're going to look at an example here in a minute. Keep our nose to the grindstone and do the things that we need to do. And then lastly, focus on the work and just watch what God can do. God is doing amazing things at this church, and I think it's because we have a lot of people. And you look at VBS, just for example, look at all the gifts that have been used to put vbs on. We have the crazy people that run through here, you know, causing a disturbance. The talented folks that care deeply, that put so many hours into just vbs. And this is just one aspect of the things that we have going on.
What can God do with a church that is deeply, that puts back into what he's invested into us?
Okay, this is, I think, my last slide.
So we all know the story of five loaves and two fish, right?
Jesus is feeding or he's preaching to large multitudes, feeding to the 5000 folks. It comes time for everybody starting to get hungry.
They look at their own resources within the disciples. They realize we don't to go out and buy food and feed the 5000 people here.
So what do they do? They go and they find the resources that they have and who they come across. They come across a little boy who has a lunch that has been prepared for him.
And Jesus does amazing things and feeds 5000 people. There's stuff left over with that simple lunch that he's got. But who I want to talk about is the person that's not mentioned in the story.
Somebody prepared a lunch for a little boy, didn't know anything about what they were doing except providing lunch for their son, for their grandson, whatever it is.
But that child didn't leave home empty handed.
And what that person didn't see is the thousands of people who were blessed by that act, by that thing that they had done, probably didn't put any mind to it at all, but did what was right, did what they knew what they needed to do. Now imagine the story that comes back to the mother, to the grandmother, because it's probably a mother. Because I know that I am not great at fixing my son's lunch.
My wife is the one who makes sure he goes out the door with lunch. So that's why I'm pretty sure it's a mom.
But imagine the story that comes back when she hears that the simple lunch that she prepared served 5000 folks and that we're reading about that 2000 years later, right? Simple act, but done out of love and done because that was what needed to be done.
Now, what I want us to think about is what is it that we can do? What are the simple things that we can do? And what I don't want us to do is to think about, well, it's just a simple thing because this was a simple lunch.
This was a very simple thing that blessed so many people.
So what I want to encourage us here tonight is to ask yourself, what is it that God has prepared for you to do? What is it that he has equipped your life with? Because he's equipped you with something for some. He is equipped with a bunch of things.
What are you going to do to it? Are you going to use your gifts for his glory? Because that's why you were created.
That's why he put us here.
I saw this quote and this is how I'll end it. And I'll leave this for encouragement for us here tonight.
I says, when we treat what we have like it's what we want, then God will provide the increase.
When we treat the gifts that we've been given like it's something that we want, then we're going to be useful and we're going to use it towards God's kingdom. So I encourage you to hear tonight, think about what your purpose is. Think about what it is that you can do for God's kingdom. I thank you for listening to me here tonight.
