Sermon by Pastor Brent Kompelien
October 15, 2023
INTRO
Story: June of 1999 was a pivotal moment in my life. School had just got out, it was the first week of summer vacation, and I was in the thick of baseball season and everything seemed great. On Friday, my parents received a call from the doctors who had been examining a bump on my twin brother’s leg. It was bone cancer. He had to go to Stanford Children’s Hospital as soon as possible.
I’ll never forget my parents calling my brother in to talk with him about what they just heard on the phone. They spoke with him privately, and then my mom, dad, and brother came out with tears in their eyes into the living room and sat me and my other two siblings down and told us the news.
I remember being so scared. I remember seeing the fear in my brother’s eyes. And I remember the tears from my parents as they simply said, “Let’s pray together.”
The next 18 months were extraordinarily difficult. My brother underwent chemotherapy treatments and had his leg amputated. Our family spent multiple days each week at the hospital. We got to know other families at the children’s hospital whose kids had the same cancer. By the end of my brother’s treatment, he was the only one who survived.
As a teenager, I was confronted with the frailty of life. Why is God doing this? What am I doing here? What purpose does he have for me? Why am I alive? I began to struggle with deep internal doubts and questions.
I began to see a fork in the road in my life: Am I really going to live for Christ or not? Am I going to choose to walk by faith right now, or am I going to let this pain and doubt overtake me and choose to run, or hide, or protect myself from more pain?
It was at this moment that the Lord brought a mentor into my life. A youth leader at our church named Greg invited me and some of my friends to start a Bible study. I began with hard-heartedness and with a feeling of hypocrisy. But as this dear brother opened his home, welcomed me with grace and understanding, listened to my raw emotions, prayed with me, as we sang songs of worship, as we studied the Bible, and as Greg displayed a vibrant faith and trust in the Lord, the Holy Spirit did something in my heart.
I’ll never forget the moment when everything changed for me. This mentor Greg frequently went on mission trips as a translator because he is fluent in Spanish. He had just come back from Peru, and after one of our Bible studies he pulled me aside and we talked about what it means to live fully for the Lord. And he pulled out a bill of money in the currency of Peru that he had brought back with him. He handed it to me, and looked me straight in the eyes, and he said, “Brent, spend your life on God.”
After everything that had happened in the last few years with my brother’s cancer, my struggling to understand why, and my growing hypocrisy and selfishness, it hit me like a freight train…I decided then and there that I am going to live fully for God, come what may. I am going to spend my life on him, in whatever place and whatever way he calls me. No matter where, no matter how difficult, I wanted to live as though Jesus really is the King of my life.
We need to ask ourselves: Who are we living for? Whose kingdom are we trying to build? How do we view our lives, our resources, our relationships, our skills, our time, and the opportunities in front of us? How can we put these into the proper gospel-centered, kingdom-minded perspective?
Today, we going to hear about a biblical vision for being a Transforming Church where we are stewards of the gospel.
Open with me to Matthew 25:14-30. We are going to read a parable of Jesus that occurs in the middle of a series of teachings about what Jesus desires of his followers while we await his return. This is right before Jesus goes to the cross, and he tells his disciples about their Kingdom responsibility during this era of the church between his first and second coming. Let’s read what Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like. READ Matthew 25:14-30.
ORG SENT — As we seek to understand this passage, we are going to do three things: 1) Briefly examine the context of the gospel of Matthew. 2) Walk through the parable carefully to see what Jesus is teaching us. 3) Apply this to our lives individually and as a church family.
MAIN 1 — Context of Matthew 23-25. (SLIDE 2a)
If you go over a page or two in your Bibles to Matthew 23, the text here captures the teachings of Jesus just days prior to the Last Supper, his arrest, trial, and crucifixion.
KEY: (SLIDE 2b) These chapters are the parting words of Jesus to his followers about what is expected of them while they await his return to judge and renew all things. Skim chapters 23-25 with me:
Chapter 23 (SLIDE 2c) — He warns about hypocrisy. He calls us to live with integrity and with our lives fully devoted to him.
Chapter 24 (SLIDE 2d) — He reminds us about the end times. Time is short! Don’t waste your life.
Chapter 25 (SLIDE 2e) — He calls us to watchfulness and fruitfulness. Live for God’s Kingdom!
APPLY — Friends, I hope and pray that the Lord has used the events of the last few years, and even this last week with all the things going on in our world, to awaken you to put everything in life in proper perspective. The Bible says we are living in the last days! Whose kingdom are you living for?
MAIN 2 — Parable of the Talents. (SLIDE 3a)
Let’s dive into this parable:
There is a man going on a journey (SLIDE 3b) referring to Jesus ascending to heaven.
He entrusts his wealth to his servants (SLIDE 3c) which is like Jesus entrusting us with all kinds of skills, relationships, time, money, and ultimately the message of the gospel!
Look again at verse 15 — This man entrusts his servants with bags of gold, or as many of your Bibles say “talents.”
(SLIDE 3d) A talent was a unit of measurement that equaled about 20 years of wages for the average worker. So this man entrusted 100 years of wages to the first servant, 40 years of wages to the next servant, and 20 years of wages to the last servant.
I did the math to figure this out. Let’s say we use the minimum wage in Minnesota today of $10.59/hour, just to be extremely conservative. If my abacus is calibrated correctly:
Five talents = $2,118,000
Two talents = $847,200
One talent = $423,600
If you use the median household income of Dakota county:
Five talents = $9.7M
Two talents = $4M
One talent = $2M
Here’s the point: The master entrusted HUGE sums of money to his servants. These are amounts of money that not many people in the ancient world could fathom earning in an entire lifetime!
And that’s the reason Jesus uses these figures in this parable. He wants you to reflect on this and think, “That would take my whole life to have those resources; that would be everything I have.” Exactly! (SLIDE 3e) Everything you have belongs to the master! He has entrusted you with HIS treasure.
And don’t miss this: The master gave each according to their ability.
There is a sense of the sovereignty and goodness of the master. He knows what they are capable of, his expectations are right, he is expressing his goodness and kindness to them by not giving them more than they can handle, but also not giving them less than they have the ability to invest.
But this is where the parable begins to purposefully split into two different types of reactions by the servants and two different results. This parable sets up a series of contrasts between the servants. Let me walk you through them:
First contrast — (SLIDE 4a) Stewarding vs. Squandering (vv. 16-18).
Stewarding (SLIDE 4b) — Two of the servants put the money to work.
ILLUST — We often use that kind of language “put the money to work” to talk about passively investing money in a savings account or securities. These didn’t exist in the ancient world. And the word here “put to work” is not a passive action, (SLIDE 4c) it implies activity and creativity and ingenuity. It requires wisdom, it requires initiative, it requires cultivation.
This taps into a theme in scripture of fruitfulness that goes all the way back to the creation account in the first chapter of the Bible. When God created humanity, Genesis 1:28 says that God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply. And Genesis 2:15 tells us that our job is to “work and keep” or “cultivate and protect” creation. (SLIDE 4d)
This is really a matter of stewardship. We are made in the image of God to be stewards, servants, co-rulers, ambassadors, and representatives of God who bear fruit for his glory in all things. As Psalm 24 says, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.” Everything belongs to him, we are entrusted with managing it for a fruitful return that glorifies God.
Squandering (SLIDE 4e) — One of the servants dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
ILLUST — This was actually the typical way people would try to preserve valuables in the ancient world. (SLIDE 4f) There was no FDIC insurance on savings accounts. If you brought your money to the money-lenders, you had no guarantee that you’d get it back. So this servant acts out of fear and does the safest thing: he buries the money.
Second contrast — (SLIDE 5a) Joy vs. Fear (vv. 20, 22, 24-25)
Joy (SLIDE 5b) — Two of the servants can’t wait to see the master.
Verse 19 tells us that after a long delay the master returned to “settle accounts”. Another way to say this is that there will be a day of reckoning. (SLIDE 5c) APPLY: This is the reality we all will face. There will be a reckoning for your life. There will be a reckoning for how you handled the treasure God has entrusted to you, whether that be money, skills, relationships, time, or whatever other opportunities to invest in his Kingdom.
But if you are living for the Lord, this is not to be something to fear! In fact, it is something that should cause great joy! (SLIDE 5d) Look at the conversation that ensues between the master and the servants: READ v. 20.
The sentence structure is incredibly important here. When the servant speaks, his words are organized into two parts: “You entrusted me with five bags of gold…I have gained five more.”
But very intentionally, right in the middle of these two phrases, is the little word “see” or some your Bibles say “behold!” This word in Greek carries a sense of wonder, a sense of awe, and sense of excitement and joy.
Imagine this. The servant’s eyes are sparkling, he is bubbling over with enthusiasm, he is thrilled, he is proud of his work! He exclaims in the middle of the sentence “LOOK!” He says, “I received five talents with open hands, now look master, I hold out to you with open hands five more!” And the same exact sentence is repeated for the servant with two talents.
There is no fear in this. These two servants come with joy and excitement to share this news with their master! They are not cowering and avoiding eye contact, hoping the master will be happy with them! NO, they freely come with hands extended, thrilled to show the master what they have done. They essentially say, “Freely I received, freely I give back to you.”
There is a sense of love and pride and excitement…like a child bringing beaming with joy when they tell their parents about their success at school, or a job promotion, or an award they earned. And the parent says, “I’m so proud of you!”
But then the last servant comes to the master and the story is completely different.
Fear (SLIDE 5e) — The one servant doesn’t want to see the master.
Look at the words of the last servant. READ vv. 24-25.
This servant acts out of fear and self-protection. (SLIDE 5f) This is revealed in the last line of his response in verse 25 where we see a familiar word: “See, here is what belongs to you.” He uses the same exclamation “see/behold”, but with a VERY different tone. He says, “Look, here is what belongs to you,” with a sense of self-righteousness and anger. This is the heart-issue:
He doesn’t love the master or want to serve him, but would rather protect himself. He doesn’t see that the risk is worth it, but would rather bury the money. He doesn’t find any joy in this opportunity to be fruitful for the master, but would rather blame and sulk and be angry.
You see, this servant’s view of the master is dreadfully wrong. (SLIDE 5g)
He is not a hard and merciless master — He knows the servant’s capacity and is only asking them to be fruitful within their capacity.
He is not harvesting where he has now sown — The master only reckons with his own servants for his own money he entrusted to them.
Third contrast — (SLIDE 6a) Good and Faithful vs. Wicked and Lazy (vv. 21, 23, 26-30)
Good and Faithful (SLIDE 6b) — Two of the servants are promised increased responsibility and a share in the personal joy of the master!
READ v. 21. Oh, how we should long to hear these words from the Lord when we arrive at the gates of heaven. WELL DONE! This should stir your heart, it should cause you to crave a fresh vision of the kindness, goodness, and love of your Heavenly Father, longing for him to say, “Come and share in my joy!”
Wicked and Lazy (SLIDE 6c) — The last servant has his responsibility taken away and he is thrown out of the master’s presence into the darkness!
As Jesus is telling this parable, you’d think he would say something like, “Then the master said, ‘Well, I guess you’re not that bad. At least you didn’t waste my money. It could have been worse!’”
Rather, Jesus makes this startling claim: If you live in fear, if you try to protect yourself, if you squander your life as an opportunity to bring glory to my name, you are in fact wicked and lazy.
If you heard this spoken by Jesus, you’d be shocked! These two words actually rhyme in Greek. It would have stuck in the minds of Jesus’ listeners and continued ringing in their ears. It would be like calling this third servant “pernicious and unambitious” or “diabolical and lackadaisical!”
KEY — This wicked and lazy servant thought he had dug a hole to preserve his himself, not realizing that he had dug a hole that turned out to be his own grave!
MAIN 3 — Applying This Parable. (SLIDE 7a)
The contrasts that are developed in this parable reveal that (SLIDE 7b) we can approach our lives in two completely different ways:
(SLIDE 7c) We will either joyfully bear fruit for God’s Kingdom.
(SLIDE 7d) Or we will begrudgingly squander opportunities for God’s Kingdom.
KEY: This applies personally in all kinds of ways. God has entrusted you with relationships, skills, resources, and a variety of opportunities to bring him glory:
This could be in your home — marriage, parenting, neighboring.
This could be in your workplace — good work, integrity, helping others.
This could be at church — serving, giving, caring for others.
But let me take a moment here to talk about us as a whole church. God has entrusted us with the gospel of Jesus Christ. (SLIDE 7e) We have the greatest treasure ever in Jesus! While we wait for his return, he has sovereignly commissioned us for such a time as this to boldly bear witness to the good news of his cross and resurrection in our community.
God has used this church family for over 40 years, through many ups and downs, to bear fruit for his Kingdom. There are some in this room who know the struggles and sacrifices that it took to keep the doors open during lean years and to continue working toward proclaiming and living out the gospel as a church family.
Now here we are. We are stewards of the hope of Christ, entrusted with a treasure that we want to invest for Kingdom impact for another 40 years of generational fruit that glorifies God as people young and old come to trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
This is why we preach the gospel boldly.
This is why we teach our kids the Bible and model to them a vibrant faith in Christ.
This is why we think carefully about the cultural moment we live in and we embrace the ways God’s truth destroys cultural idols and false saviors.
This is why we are working to develop our prayer ministry and why we had an evangelism seminar yesterday and why we talk about missions near and far.
This is why we are launching Growth Groups, training courses, and accountability groups.
This is why we are developing our creative “disciple-by-doing” strategy by essentially making a hobby farm on our acreage and by expanding our facility to teach science, art, music, theater, and all kinds of other activities that show how faith in Christ touches every part of our lives and that God is sovereign over every square inch of his creation!
You see, as we look ahead to our Celebration Sunday on October 29, one of the foundational themes that marks this unique moment in the life of our church is that we want to creatively, boldly, and generously steward this opportunity to invest in God’s kingdom, that when we arrive in heaven and the Lord looks back at what we did in this generation, by the Spirit’s power, to bear fruit with the precious treasure of Jesus Christ in our own lives and in this community, he would say, “Well done, good and faithful servants. Welcome home, come and share in my joy.”